Hi Liza, very sad circumstances indeed, make sure to pack and check supplies for the trip. You will be fine. Ya have a good fella their.👍

Liza,

I am so sorry to hear of the reason for your trip. You do have a fantastic hubby there. It is so important to have the support of your spouse. I know mine comes through every time for me as well. 

Concerning supplies, just make sure you have at least double of what you need - at least that's what I do. 

Stella

Thanks John and Stella,

I definitely overpacked supplies. Much easier to do when driving.  We are just leaving now, so hopefully will hit our stopping point by midnight. 

It is very sad indeed. Chris was one of the nicest people I ever met. He had just retired from the Air Force a couple years ago and was working as an ER doctor. I was the maid of honor in their wedding in 1993. He was only 53, which is the same age as my hubby. 

Made it to our stopping point. We have about 7 hours to go tomorrow, so we need to leave by about 7am. Good night all. 😴

Liza, my heart sure goes out to you and your Tom making this big road trip. A sudden  loss like that leaves a whole in many hearts. You will be in my prayers for a safe uneventful journey . I am glad to know that  you made the first part safely.  Remember to  protect your stoma from the seatbelt, even a rolled up sock on either side can help with that.  Your long time friend is truly blessed  to have you and Tom in her life.

Honorable mention to "Tom", thankyou for being the "stand up" man you are and for taking such good care of our Liza thru all that the two of you have been thru on this stoma journey! All the best to you both.

Linda 

So far relatively uneventful. We got a little later start than we planned this morning but only by 15 min. In planning travel time, I didn’t think about stops taking a little longer than they used to pre-ostomy.

We did get pulled over a little bit ago, but an understanding officer let us off with a warning. My hubby has never had a speeding ticket and is a very conscientious driver, so I would have felt terrible if he had gotten a ticket this morning. 

We just crossed into California! 

Liza, Welcome to California ( thats my state).

Good to hear the trip is going O.K.

Keep up your liquid intake ( even though you may have to do more bathroom breaks). Thats one thing thats hardest for me to do when traveling.

I hope the rest of you trip goes smoothly and you can give the kind of support and love to your friend that only you can.

Its wonderful that your husband is with you too. Huge help!

Thanks Dona!  What part to you live it. We are close to the Bay Area. Holy cow, is there ever a lot of traffic! 

I am so glad to be here for my friend!  She is being so strong. The only time I saw her cry today was when I first got there and went to give her a hug. Of course I was crying, then, and through the whole service. It is all just so sad. Tomorrow morning is the burial with full military honors. Then open house reception tomorrow afternoon.  Ironic thing is her house is being hit by the PGE power outages tomorrow. At least Mary was able to laugh about it. 

Liza,

I am sure that your friend is grateful for a friend like you. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just be there and to allow your grief to freely flow. Your friend is in my prayers.

God bless,

Stella

Beautifully put, Stella.

Liza, here's hoping for an uneventful ostomate day.

Thanks guys. I changed my bag this morning just to be on the safe side. Weird for me to change before a leak. 😂 

We are on our way to cemetery for burial. 😢

I will definitely have some stories to tell when this is all over. 

Well crap!!!

I came out to Tom’s car to get my emergency bag to restock it.  Someone had broken into Tom’s car and taken it. It is so annoying!!  There is nothing of any value to someone else, but important to me. My emergency bag was so cute and I had it in a tote bag I got from Wash DC, from the Smithsonian. I also had my favorite casual dress in there because I wanted something cute to wear if I had to change my clothes. 😕 Luckily it was an old ratty pair of underwear. 😂😂

So now, Tom will drop me off at Mary’s house and go find a Honda dealership and see if they can replace his window.

Why does life seem to always kick you when you’re down?  

Liza, how terrible! Did you lose any supplies? I'm saddened indeed to hear this.

Thanks Tony,

Yes, I did lose some supplies, but since I had to do a change at my friend’s house, the bag was a little low. I had one appliance, about half a tube of paste, some scissors, my magnetic mirror and various gauze and wipes and stuff. 

The hotel staff was very helpful. They called police for hubby, and helped file the report, and when the repair place our friends referred and the Honda dealership were both too booked up, they referred another place. And when Tom came back to thank them for all the help, the hotel GM comped us for 2 of our 4 nights to help make up for the cost of the window repair. Very nice!!

We said our goodbyes and just got back to the hotel a little bit ago. Tomorrow morning, we will leave, hopefully by 7am and plan to drive the whole 12 hours tomorrow. 

Hi Liza,

I hope you do have at least one appliance that you can change to if needed. If you do need supplies, you might try calling local hospitals or clinics to see if they maintain a donation closet. This page has a bit more advice on obtaining emergency ostomy supplies.

It's heartening to know that the hotel helped you out and made this ordeal a bit less stressful for you and Tom. Here's hoping/praying your trip home is uneventful in the extreme.

Tony, I totally overpacked supplies, so that isn’t a problem at all. 😀

Sounds like we got home just in time, as there is a major snowstorm in Southern Oregon now, right in the middle of the route we took home. 

All in all, my first longer road trip with an ostomy went okay. I had 4 changes, including the emergency change for a leak in just over 5 days. I had plenty of supplies with me. 

Obviously it wasn’t perfect, especially with the car break in, but things definitely could have been worse.

I had gotten my emergency bag at our art on the park show over the summer. Well my hubby found out the person who had the booth where I bought it, also sells her bags in one of the local pharmacies and found me a replacement made of the same fabric!!  So I got an early Christmas gift today!!  Now I just need to stock it up and order a new magnetic mirror from Amazon. 😀

Glad you at least got the bag back, after a fashion. I sincerely hope whoever took the bag was painfully disappointed that it didn't contain $10,000,000 in gold bars and a fre round-trip ticket to Aruba. Or did it? 🤫

Not a fan of the white stuff. When I was a kid, scarred corneas only made it seem like one giant glare in the world. The first time I went out in it was when I was four years old, having moved to New York from Puerto Rico just two or three months before, and naturally my cousin thought it would be a real gut buster to take a little half blind kid out in deep snow and shove a burningly cold ball of the white stuff down the back of his shirt onto the tender skin of a toddler, said toddler having gone from mildly curious about this sheet of whiteness all over everything to extreme distaste at how cold and pervasive it was. Ah, memories. All that to say how awesome it is to miss out on that storm.

Your husband is so nice to have gotten you a new bag, Liza - and also to go with you on the trip to your friend’s funeral. 

We are in the midst of a snowstorm here- schools are closed, no mail delivery, no travel advised. 

What a story, Tony - I do hope that your cousin grew to be more civilized - some kids, is all I will say. You were born in Puerto Rico - do you remember moving here?