Festival Fun With an Ostomy

It’s festival season, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t attend a festival with an ostomy. Louise shares her experience attending a festival with a stoma, along with top tips on what to pack.

On occasion, I like to pretend that I still maintain some level of cool factor that I did in my twenties. Booking the cider and sausage fest was more for Ben than myself as a thank you for looking after me both physically and financially when I was laid up in March. 

I have been looking forward to this for months and in typical British weather fashion, it was raining cats and dogs, looking out the window and taking myself on a wet 8k walk with the dog.  I decided that waterproofs, wellies and sensible clothing would be the way forward. 

Preparing for the afternoon 

Spending an entire day in a field may have set my anxiety off slightly, a pop-up event in a field in a rather isolated location means I had to do my research and make sure I was fully prepared for any eventuality. 

The event had pop up portaloos, no running water and by the time the sun had set, there wasn’t any lighting either, holding my phone in my mouth with the torch on to empty my stoma bag was rather amusing and more so as I may have been a little squiffy from all the cider I had consumed.

Here’s what I packed 

• Hydro tabs –  it was still in the high twenties even with the rain and cloud, I made sure I stayed on top of my hydration levels and alternated between alcohol and soft drinks 
• Hand sanitiser – there was no running water and in the current covid climate I use this after every transaction or contact with objects others had touched
• Wet wipes to clean my hands after every portaloo visit
• Emergency stoma kit –  I did end up changing my bag late evening as my output had pancaked due to eating chips and started to push my baseplate off
• A water bottle
• Crisps to help keep my output at the thicker end
• Immodium to slow down my output
• Jelly beans to help slow down my output
• Toilet roll –  I was in a field with a fair amount of people, the loo roll had run out by mid-afternoon

Arriving at the Sausage and cider fest was relatively quiet. We turned up before we knew the masses were going to arrive. I was slightly miffed as the security staff made me empty out my water bottle. I pleaded medical reasons, flashed my stoma but was still made to empty out my electrolyte mix. Thankfully I had packed my tabs, once we got in and got settled I made my way over to the medical stand. The lovely St Johns ambulance lady supplied me with 2 litres of water and I skipped back to our designated area and got cracking with dancing. 

The sun made an appearance later in the day so I ended up rolling down my jeans and rolling up my top with my bag on show. I was thankful for my choice of clothing as the temperature took a massive dip by 9pm and I took Ben’s hoodie to keep me warm.

All in all the experience was something that we will be doing again. We are booking for the Reading festival next year and taking our daughter along for the ride. 

As always 

Many thanks for reading 

Louise Xx