Just get on with life and enjoy every minute of it. That's the advice of Pat Miller, an ileostomist and urostomist who, at 74 years of age, regularly travels to far flung destinations and enjoys exciting adventures.
From Inverness, Pat flies frequently to Spain and Portugal and travelled to Sri Lanka last year to attend her daughter Tracey's wedding (Tracey is Branch Manager at Medilink's Inverness branch). She also spent three and a half weeks in 2001 on a fly-drive holiday in the United States with another daughter, Alison.
“I've had my urostomy for 12 years and my ileostomy for four years and I've always just carried on with life as before,” said Pat. “If anything, life is far easier now as I don't have the misery and pain that I endured for years with interstitial cystitis and colitis and I don't have to worry about making sure I'm near a toilet every time I go out of the house.
“I love travelling and seeing the world and often go on my own. My holiday to the States was amazing and I would do it again in a flash. I flew from Chicago to San Diego then Alison and I travelled by car along the highway, stopping off at California, San Francisco, New York and Las Vegas before heading back. It really was the holiday of a lifetime and I particularly enjoyed the drive around California because it was May and the countryside and flowers were stunning - I've never seen anything like it - and I loved San Francisco!”
Pat says she's never experienced any problems with her ostomies during her travels. “Like many people, I've bleeped on a couple of occasions as I've passed through the airport security scanners but I've never been searched - I just showed them my medical certificate and was waved through.”
She's never had to change her appliance en route and has never suffered from leakage. “I know some people prefer to change their bag first thing in the morning but I like to change mine at night before I go to bed,” said Pat. “I warm the pouch first and make sure my skin is perfectly dry and I think this helps it to stick better. It's never been an issue for me.”
And when she arrives at her destination, Pat just throws herself into her holiday as she would have done before. “The first thing I usually do is jump in the swimming pool; as long as I wear a patterned swimming costume you can't even notice that I'm wearing a bag. No-one needs to know I'm an ostomist unless I choose to tell them!”
Pat, who works part-time as a financial controller, is currently planning her next holiday which will take her to Cyprus for the wedding of her middle daughter, Diane, this summer. Bon voyage!
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