Camping with an Ostomy

I always swore that I would never ever go camping, never! Glamping was about as far as I would rough it.

However due to Covid, being too afraid to go abroad and not even wanting to brave the pubs, me and my bestie decided that a drunk camping evening with friends in August was the way forward; we can keep to the social distancing rules, rough it in a field and then go home safe in the knowledge that we have had a good evening and we have not put us or others at risk.

It’s common knowledge that I am rather impulsive and once I have an idea in my head, that’s it, I am going full throttle. What started as a two-man tent for this night turned into us buying a 6 man tent, a porch and a living room (yes they make living room tents), crazy.

So my little green two-man tent I purchased from Mountain Warehouse was just about to be upstaged by Go Outdoors courtesy of Panda.

We purchased a tent of sorts, this ended up being a 6 man tent with an additional porch tent and a living room tent, basically, we have a material house that you can do cartwheels in.

Last Friday as a family in my very cramped Ford focus where we managed to squeeze (just about) the entire camping contents needed for our two-day stay.

You may be asking as to why only two days? We were giving everything a test run because if it failed the whole lot was going to be placed on Ebay the following day…

It took us (me) 6 hours to drive us down to Cornwall. We stayed at a lovely place called Trevonick by Holy Well which was just outside Newquay.

The campsite

Now I have never ever been camping, set up a tent or even thought about how long it would take to set up. Once we checked in and found our pitch we took a well-earned half-hour break prior to emptying out the car, I say empty, we opened the boot and the car kind of expelled the offending articles, no heavy lifting needed.

Due to my previous hernia repairs, Ben does all the heavy lifting so I avoid causing another hernia.

It took us two hours in all to set up the tent, its extra counterparts and to put in the beds and set up the cooking area, also just mention I also had to put in the carpet.

Once we finished, headed out and went to get the important things such as Alcohol and other essentials such as food, we headed back to camp for the night.

Camping with a stoma

The above-mentioned header may feel some with dread, For me, this trip was a breeze, the toilet block was only a 5-minute walk from the pitch, they are open 24 hours per day, given the current Covid guidelines social distancing is a thing but the toilets are deep cleaned twice a day and are limited to 8 per block.

The shower blocks were the same, they are closed off cubicles, trying to change my bag after a shower with a very low bench was amusing but I rocked the change and was all clean and ready for bed that Friday evening. I am doing my best to research facilities prior to going but with everything being socially distanced, fair few places are putting in temporary toilet blocks or have no toilets. Ben has offered to buy a porta-potty but in all honestly, I feel that will make me feel like a 2-year-old being potty trained and I also do not relish the idea of emptying that porta potty or cleaning it after my bag empties.

Our bedtime was around 11 pm and I walked up and emptied prior to zipping up the tent and I didn’t need to empty until the following morning, walking up to the block was amusing as my bag was huge and ready to blow, but I just covered up with a fleece, walked to the toilet as quick as I could, emptied and walked back down to the tent to have breakfast and a cup of tea.

Saturday night was slightly different. I may have consumed a rather large bottle of rum and chased that with a few parma violet ciders, I have learnt Bertha does not like the juice of the apple and I actually hit my step targets going up to the toilet block and back because my stoma was flushing to hell. An impromptu trip at 11:30 pm, rather squiffy and with a head torch to empty had me in hysterics and I am incredibly lucky that she didn’t blow that night on our nice new sleeping bag and air mattress.

Camping with a stoma is exactly the same as going on holiday whether it be in a hotel or in a caravan. You shouldn’t limit yourself to not having fun.

For us as a family and for me camping with the current climate means that we can head off whenever we like. We are not restricted as camping pitches are reasonably priced, Most places for a week are around £150 including running water and electricity. We have chosen to do this as it means we can get some away time and I don’t have to worry about airports, catching Covid or going abroad so it is a win, win.

Our next adventure is drunk camping on the 22nd of August with a few friends. Yet again due to social distancing rules, we have pushed our church blessing and reception to March next year as we don’t want to be the couple that sent their guests home with an extra illness. We are still getting Married in November but it will be very small and quaint, the celebrations can come later.

As always

Many thanks for reading

Stay Safe

Louise Xx

Louise uses our Platinum Vitamin E range to keep her stoma site healthy. To try a sample, click here

Camping with an Ostomy