Advance to Go

Traffic...it's one thing I could do without.  But couldn't we all?  Growing up in a rural area, I don't have the daily experience of the congestion that the mass amount of cars converging onto the same roadway at the same time can offer.  And I don't mind that.  Because when I am in that situation, I don't care for it.

A couple of days ago, I found myself in just that situation though.  My lack of patience doesn't like it either.  My family and I were traveling home from vacation.  We had spurts of this sort of traffic the whole way to our vacation destination.  And heading home provided the same scenario.  Some of the random slow downs were due to automobile accidents (where it didn't appear that anyone was physically hurt).  But some of the other stop and go situations...I have no idea why those happened.  Maybe it was just the matter of too many people trying to get to the same place at the same time.

Traffic isn't the only issue with traveling.  And I wasn't the only one with a limit to my patience.  We were traveling with my two year old son.  The longest he's been in a car was maybe for four hours.  This trip was about 9.5 hours without stops calculated in the equation, so it easily turned into 12 hours with the necessary pit stops.  He did well considering.  He is like me in that he needs activity most of his waking hours.  Just sitting and watching the landscape pass by is a tad bit monotonous for us.  Being strapped in a car seat hinders activity.  And his ability to keep what items he had with him in his grasp and within reach was a constant struggle.  Things were falling in various places in the car, and I was just hoping they'd be retrievable later on and that we wouldn't run out of items to keep him occupied.  His max time on any one item may have been ten minutes.  Ten gloriously peaceful minutes (not necessarily quiet, just peaceful).

Snacks have been a must.  I didn't even care how many crumbs he was spreading.  AS long as he was happy, I was happy.  A vacuum fixes those sorts of things.  We made sure to stay away from gooey, sticky items though.

He slept a total of 30 minutes going to our destination and heading back home.  He couldn't have been sleeping too soundly though.  With all of the stopping and starting, his poor head kept flopping around.  If anyone knows how to remedy this, let me know.  It was pitiful.

But as I mentioned earlier, we had to make needed pit stops.  We needed to feed him meals and change his diaper.  Feeding him is not too big of an issue.  But changing a diaper can certainly be a struggle.  In this day and time, there are still plenty of places that do not have changing tables in their restrooms.  It makes only slight sense why the men's rooms don't have them (although I'd imagine even that there are plenty of dads out there who wouldn't even agree with that statement as they are put in a predicament on where to change their child's diaper if they have them in their care without mom around).  I can't fathom changing my child on the floor of a public bathroom.  I'm not too keen on the changing tables.  And I found myself without the changing table option twice.  Now, there have been times where I've just laid him in the back of my SUV as it's large, flat, and the uplifted hatch door provides cover in the case of rain.  However, the back was loaded down with luggage.  We had moved his car seat from the middle of the back seat over to the side.  This left sizeable space to lay him down in the back seat and change him there.  Thankfully, the weather was sunny and dry so we didn't get drenched.

Of course, I needed the pit stops as well.  Those opportunities are a must when you have an ostomy.  Most every stop, I make sure to check things over with my ostomy (the need to empty the bag and leaks).  I definitely hope to not find leaks.  The what-if with traveling can be a source of anxiety.  Changing my ostomy bag anywhere that's not my bathroom at home is just not natural.  And to need to do so at a service station or restaurant restroom is also not private and doesn't necessarily provide the needed items to make a decent change.  Normally, we ladies are just hoping to have toilet paper.  But with my ostomy, now I'm hoping for unhindered access to water (as the sink is located outside of the stalls normally) and maybe paper towels (some restrooms have the hand driers to be more green).  It's inconvenient and unaccommodating.

I've had to change at a service station and at a restaurant before.  The service station restroom door was located on the outside of the building so I needed to go inside and get a key to enter it.  Thankfully, with that, it made it more private.  I was just hoping it was decent and provided what I would need to do what I needed to do.  It did.  At the restaurant, it was also for only one person at a time.  Which is good, except for the other women who needed to use the restroom, too.  It seemed like it took me twice as long to change as my normal layout and routine had to change to fit the situation I was in.  I felt awful because I had sprung a leak while on a date with my now husband whom I had only known for a short time.  A date with which we were with some of his closest friends.  I felt awful because my shirt got soiled in the process, but thankful that I was wearing a long sleeve shirt under a short sleeve shirt.  And I certainly felt awful that I was hogging the restroom.  This is not one of my most favored memories.  If I could figure out a way to change in the car, a way that would allow for privacy, I probably would do that, like when I change my son's diaper in the car.
Any ostomates have tips to offer for ostomy changes on the road?