Melvin & Me, Part 18: Melvin Takes to the Skies!

In the year that I have had my ostomy, it is only in the last week that I have flown anywhere.  And then between work and a family vacation I will have gone through airport security four times and been on a total of eight planes, with each connecting flight meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.  Knowing that my surgery was coming up, the last time that I went through airport security, I caught the attention of a TSA agent and asked for any specifics.  It went something like this: 

Q:  Would the collected matter in my bag pouch count as more than the allowed number of ounces aboard? 

A:  No, of course not. 

Q:  Would they demand a doctor’s note or any such thing? 

A:  No (I suspect some of this is because of HIPPA, since they are not medical professionals and I did not consent to sharing my medical information with them). 

Q:  Would I have to show them the appliance? 

A:  Probably not, but in the case that I did, I could be given a courtesy privacy screen and be patted down by someone of the same gender. 

Q:  Was there anything else recommended that I do? 

A:  Let the person know about my situation either before my scan or immediately after the scan; if they need to pat me down, they will ask if there are places they need to be careful around and respond accordingly. 

Of course, even armed with that information, I was still a little anxious getting through security that first time.  I made sure to pad in some extra time in the day, to make sure that if my worst case scenarios played out, I’d have time.  My brain was roiling through ideas where a careless someone managed to hit Melvin in such a way that the bag came unattached or I had to redo the whole apparatus.  Leaks happen.  And while this event was extremely unlikely, I still had that anxiety in my ear going “Well, but what if it did?”  I prepare by overpreparing.  I know pretty well how I would respond—I would be pretty upset and emotionally devastated to start my trip that way, but I would also (respectfully) demand a place other than the public bathroom to put myself back together.  From there, it would be a simple process of tidying up as best I could, changing the bag and clothes as necessary, and getting to my flight. 

I was a little relieved that my first experience with this was through the Bloomington airport, which was small enough that I could easily take my time going through security and have emergency assistance a phone call away, if the need arose.  Well, I started out my trip by taking a work call that turned into the “well, while I have you on the phone…” kind of rabbit hole, where the last call that I took before leaving was actually five different calls, some of which she hadn’t gotten around to putting in.  I’m guilty of the “well, while I have you, can I ask X?” situation myself; she didn’t know that I was on a time crunch.  Then, I did a stupid:  I was a bit frazzled getting the work car together and managed to lock the keys and my luggage in the trunk.  AND the spare keys are kept at corporate for some reason, meaning that they gave us a door key code to plug into the panel that didn’t work, and we ended up calling a locksmith. 

There went all of my carefully laid padding.  Turns out the flight was delayed anyway, but, still, I was a bit shaken to have started out so unfortuitously.  I got my boarding pass and went to security.  The disinterested TSA agent couldn’t scan my boarding pass and sent me to walk back, juggling my work bag, suitcase, and bagged liquids I had already pulled out to make sure I didn’t slow anyone down behind me.  I went back through and deposited all the necessary pieces on the belt.  I told the staff before walking into the machine that I had the ostomy and sure enough they paused me on the other side, a big swatch of yellow on the read-out screen where Melvin is.  She pulled me over to the side slightly, told me what she was going to do and how she was going to do it with her hands to check everything.  Then, she swabbed my hands for GSR (“gun shot residue,” she told me when I asked for clarification).  After she took the sample, naturally, the machine didn’t work, so I stood there watching my bins block the trickle of traffic, more out of my own self-consciousness than anything.  It was about five minutes, all told, and I had an opportunity to ask more clarifying questions, like whether I should tell the initial security person about my ostomy to give them adequate time to prepare or wait until I got to the scanner (turns out the scanner personnel were best to tell directly; they would see anything else set up as necessary). 

As I made my way toward the gate, I was both annoyed and reassured.  On the one hand, that wasn’t so bad.  All of the ridiculous fears were, of course, ridiculous, but it was still nice to see the hypotheticals shot down in action rather than trying to convince myself.  A brief, expected pause at the end of every scan isn’t too bad.  And then the annoyed part set in—for reasons outside of my control, getting through airport security was ALWAYS going to be that one extra step.  I’m not so upset about the process itself, but I’m frustrated that it is just one extra thing to think about for reasons outside of my control.  Who wants one more thing to keep track of when going through the airport? 

Making my way back home, I was a little more relaxed, having again supplied sufficient time to get through security and things to go wrong, in case being at a larger airport (San Antonio, in this case) had some other rules and ways of handling this.  In fact, it was much smoother than Bloomington.  I told the agent waving me into the scanner that I had the ostomy, went through the scanner as usual, and again was pulled to the side.  She asked me to pat down my own bag, had my place one hand over it while she gently felt around it, rolled a roller-ball at the end of a wand over my hand, fed it directly into a machine, and sent me on my way.  All told, barely a half a minute delay getting back to the rest of my belongings. 

The next day, I met up with my brothers and parents, as we headed off on a family vacation to Orlando.  St. Louis was another new airport, but I had done this twice already.  Andy and I were sharing our carryon, which was infinitely nice to ask him to handle that part instead, since I could then go through the line with one less worry.  I would place St. Louis somewhere in the middle, as far as security experience—their technique upon hearing my information and reviewing my scan was to have me identify where my bag began and end and then feel around my sides before sending me shortly on my way. 

I was free, then, to worry about normal airport things again and normal Melvin things again.  This meant checking to make sure that the ostomy bag was empty prior to boarding, my luggage back was with me at all times, finding my gate, joining the boarding blob, and fretting about my connecting flight.  I’ll have one more security checkpoint to go through on Wednesday, seeing how Orlando deals with other ostomates at least in my own microcosm. 

How many other scenarios do people have to worry about through airport security?  I’m fortunate that I’ve never had to check medication that needed to be refrigerated or deal with a prosthetic limb, but now I cannot help what kinds of worries persons who have this as part of their reality think about.  Add a quirky family member, a scatterbrained friend, and/or a young child and, well, your airport experience just got even more complicated.  Will I remember that in the moment when someone stops directly in the middle right in front of me?  No, I will sigh angrily (but quietly) and go around them.  I will think disparaging thoughts at someone who has a carryon that is CLEARLY outside of the expected parameters as I bump past it, searching for numbers and letters.  But, when I am comfortably seated at my gate waiting to board, I can consider all the different people around me trying to get to their next destination and all the figurative and literal baggage they carry. 

And remember, my friends, all roads lead to Rome.