I mentioned about a month ago how I had my first experience flying since I’ve had my surgery. Well, it was a mildly interesting event, but also can provide an idea of what you might expect if you’re dealing with the same thing.
My trip was pretty straightforward: direct flight and only a couple of days long. Therefore, I was not checking any bags, so I knew that whatever I brought would have to be OK in my carry-on. Just to be sure, I called the TSA at my airport the day before and explained my situation. The agent told me just to let the TSA agent at the airport know when I got there. She also said that my surgical scissors where fine to pack. That was good news for me because I still measure and cut-to-fit all of my bags. And finally, I checked to make sure all of my gels, etc. where the correct size and they all met the requirement.
Now, my home airport has the invasive full-body scanners and everyone has to walk through them, not just a random few. As soon as I was set to go through it, I pulled the agent aside and let her know that I had an ostomy and therefore would have a bag on under my clothes. She sent me through the scanner as usually, but then stopped me on the other side and asked me to wait. I’m not exactly sure what we were waiting for, but a few minutes later she sent me to the explosives lady. Basically she had me put my hands on my bag, then she swabbed my hands for explosive residue and sent it through a machine. Once it came back negative I was good to go and ran into no other issues. On the way home, the airport only had metal scanners and I didn’t even mention it to anyone and sailed right through with not problem.
So that was the extent of it. Took me a couple of extra minutes to make it through the check and was pulled aside, but didn’t have to deal with anything too invasive (outside of the normal scan.) Although, if you plan on flying, it’s probably worth a couple minutes of your time to call your local TSA beforehand, just to make sure there’s nothing else you should be aware of.
Has anyone else flown or travelled with an ostomy? Run into any roadblocks?
8 Comments
Nobody likes the invasive searching from TSA but it can be even more invasive for those with personal medical needs. There are horror stories from individuals with medical conditions including Ostomy who have been badly treated by TSA staff, mostly out of their own ignorance. But I won’t get into those; honestly, we haven’t heard any new ones for awhile. There are many ostomates traveling on a regular basis and by now it is shameful for any TSA to be unfamiliar with an ostomy.
August 16, 2012 at 10:37 amBecause of these fears, aside from general product info, we get asked for travel advice more than anything else from our ostomate customers. Kudos, you did your due diligence to prepare yourself to get through the line smoothly and without hassles.
For anyone concerned about traveling with a medical condition, UOAA has a printable card to fill out and hand to a TSA agent that states you have an ostomy so you can discreetly tell them without announcing it to the room. There is a second card that states a demand for bathroom access. http://www.ostomy.org/ostomy_info/pubs/Travel_Card_2011b.pdf
Thanks, Adam. Great information!
August 16, 2012 at 8:40 pmYou’re welcome. 🙂 I like the blog, keep up the good posts!
August 17, 2012 at 9:38 amWell that’s good food for thought! I’ve been lucky so far as I’ve flown from Atl to Miami back and forth twice, from Miami to the bahamas, and then Atl to L.A. Nothing out of the ordinary and all within the last 6-7 years. I consider myself the lucky ones but now I’ll think twice about the full body scanners as i’ve yet to deal with that. Anyhow love the title, funny. Lots of good information, thnx!
September 1, 2012 at 3:58 pmThanks, Micah.
September 2, 2012 at 8:54 amHi ya! I had the same but from the UK…..and it wasn’t so civilised! I found it a bit amusing, I mean really, I could probably think of a better place to put a bomb than on the very obvious tummy!
September 5, 2015 at 8:39 pmI explained like you did and the poor lady looked very abashed as she tried to be professional, yet sympathetic. As that look of almost pity crossed her face she explained that she would have to escort me to a room and get her colleague as I would have to prove it was actually a stoma bag! I think if she was less embarrassed I would have told her the side room wasn’t an issue, I had my bag lady travel trousers with elastic waist and I would have been quite happy to just show her there, unfortunately at that point my walking stick came through the check and that made her worse! Multiple apologies, querying if I could walk the 10 steps to the room or did I need a chair and then apologising again when I said I was fine. My attitude went into Nursey calming mode as the life long chronic illness warrior went into placate mode!
We got to the room where a second lady, who had obviously been trained in the same embarassment class as she took on board a nice duet with Lady #1 of apologisies! I could see the look on the other travellers faces as they wondered what the hell I’d done that I, a scarlet haired lady using a stick, was escorted into the ‘strip search’ room to a chorus of…”we’re really sorry about this! Are you ok? Sorry!” etc etc
~I’ve never been shy and have never really worried about what strangers think, but I’m aware that not every one would have taken it in their stride with a feeling of amusement like I did! But my advice would be to try and mimic me! They are only doing their job whilst under the pressure of disability regs etc! They are probably more embarrassed than you!~
Anyway we got to the room, I was asked if I minded showing me their bag and I got prepared to yank down my pants etc. Yet they were happy to just see a peek of it ( I go back to my original idea of I could have done this in the queue) and almost instantly smiled, relaxed and thanked me before apologising again! It took longer for me to walk to the room than it did for me to show them.
I had been told that the TSA were hotter on security than us Brits so I got myself into quite a state coming home but they almost didn’t care. In fact the bloke I tried to explain it too was too busy giggling at my socks and trying to point them out to his colleague to care about anything. I could have been wearing a bomb on my back he wouldn’t have known!
P.s. my socks were 2 tone neon (orange and pink!) with letters than when I put my feet together say Smile like you mean it! I’ll try to share a pic if I can!!
x x x
I get pulled aside every time, but only a few times have they wanted to check for explosives. I’ve even offered to open up my bag so they could check inside, but no takers so far. 😁
February 7, 2016 at 5:52 pmI fly at least twice a week. Sometimes more.
December 22, 2016 at 7:03 pmI go though a lot of airport security.
When I get pinged to go into the full body scanner, I always tell the security that I have an ostomy.
They usually just do a quick body pat down and that is that.
I have been asked to go into a private room and show my ostomy, but that has only been on 2 occasions.
Once they see the scars and the bag, they don’t really care. Infact, the 2nd time, they didn’t even look, they seemed embarrassed to have been in that situation.