My Travels with Chron's Disease

One of the worst "side effects" of having an Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), in my case Chron's, has been the effect it has had on my ability to travel and enjoy traveling. This disease can be so debilitating that many of us who have it just want to stay home. But what do you do if there are funerals, weddings, sudden family illnesses, or you just want to go to a nice sunny beach somewhere? What I do is try to plan ahead as much as possible.

It isn't possible for me to predict a flare, but I know that if I eat carefully and don't allow myself to feel stressed, I will probably function better. Before a trip, I try to get extra rest, say no to requests from family and friends that I know will prove stressful or tiring, and eat foods that may be dull but that won't further irritate or inflame my digestive tract. A last minute flare has never yet prevented me from travel.

I decided soon after I was diagnosed that a long bus trip was not going to be in my future plans, unless it was a charter bus with a nice clean bathroom, and would be making frequent stops. That leaves planes and automobiles (there is no passenger train service to my home town). Travel by car has the advantage of being able to make frequent stops. Traveling through my home state of North Dakota, however, means relatively infrequent rest areas, lots of exits that offer "no services," and very few bushes or trees to hide behind anywhere near the road. A plane has the advantage of covering a long distance quickly; it takes almost 8 hours to drive from Bismarck to Minneapolis, for example, but only 45 minutes by plane. The plane also, usually, has one or more restrooms, although you may encounter a line when you try to use it.

If you're planning to travel by plane, make your reservation as early as possible, and make sure to get an aisle seat near the lavatory. The absolute worst trip in my life was made by plane from Reno, NV, where I was living at the time, to London, England, via San Francisco. I was feeling well when I left, and the very large plane out of San Francisco had more bathrooms than I was used to, and one was close to where I was seated. I'd booked early and gotten an aisle seat, because when you really need to get to the restroom, it's hard to either wait for people to stand and let you out, or to try and squeeze past them. I only needed the bathroom once, and slept through much of the flight.

The return trip was a completely different story. I'd been less careful with food than I should have been during my stay in England, and so was already having a minor flare when I got to Heathrow airport. I stood in line to check in for what seemed an eternity; I needed to go to a restroom, but there were so many people in line that I didn't dare lose my spot. At check-in, I found that my careful planning hadn't worked: the airline had changed the seat assignment the travel agency I'd used had made for me; instead of an aisle seat, I was seated in the middle seat of the middle section of seats, in the middle of the plane. I explained to the woman who was doing the check-in what I needed, and why; her response was, "The plane is terribly full; you should have arrived sooner." Honestly, I got there as early as I possibly could; by that point it was still three hours before take-off and I'd already gone through security and stood in line for over half an hour.

I begged. I'd have tried a bribe if I'd thought it would work. What finally worked was asking her if any of the flight attendants would want to clean up after me if I couldn't reach the lavatory quickly enough. With that, she sighed, and found me a window seat with only one seat between me and the aisle, and just two rows from a lavatory. I had time to use a restroom in the airport before boarding began. Boarding took another age; the plane was a brand new Boeing 777 and it was enormous. Once we were all boarded and had heard the safety program, I thought we'd take off. But no. There were problems with this brand new plane's computer systems. We spent three hours sitting on the tarmac. I got up to use the bathroom about 30 minutes into that, and a flight attendant jumped up and told me to sit down. I asked if she expected we would take off in the next 10 minutes. She grudgingly said no, but warned that if I wasn't out when she told me to, and if I delayed take-off, I'd be de-planed. I was more afraid of what could happen if I wasn't in the restroom than I was of being thrown off the jet, so I went ahead and used the restroom.

I think I used that lavatory five times before the plane took off. My seat-mate no longer smiled at me when I said "Excuse me." She didn't offer to change places, either. I didn't sleep at all during that flight, and spent much of the time in that horrible little cubicle they call a bathroom. Before we landed, it was out of all kinds of paper. Eventually, somewhere over Greenland, I think, the woman between me and the aisle gave up, and gave me her seat, bless her soul. It made things easier for both of us, since she wanted to sleep and I simply couldn't. What seemed like a lifetime later, I was in the San Francisco airport, and could use a bathroom big enough to turn around it, with a real seat. The short flight to Reno was incredibly short by comparison.

Last spring I flew from North Dakota to Tampa, Florida, for my niece's wedding. That trip went smoothly, aside from the brief power struggle with my oldest sister about who would get the aisle seat between Minneapolis and Tampa. I was not having a flare, though, and didn't use the lavatory any more than anyone else did.

Much as I'd like to see Paris, and visit Ireland again, I don't think I can handle another trans-oceanic flight. It's too long, too uncomfortable, and there just aren't enough restrooms on a Boeing 777. If my proposed destination is more than an eight hour drive away, I'll just choose to stay home. I'd love to hear from anyone who has managed to have a better trip while coping with an IBD.