Traveling Difficulties

Hey everyone!  Today was a fun day for me!  I went to the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, ME with my grandma and saw An American in Paris which was wonderful.  My favorite part was the dancing.  They had classical ballet, Pointe, jazz, and tap which I feel like is a lost art.

The heat is oppressive today.  My muscles are not happy.  Anyway, today I thought I would talk about traveling with a disability.  It’s different for everyone, but for me, it is a whole ordeal.  For starters, I need to ship my formula to wherever I am going because it is too much to travel with.  I have a feeding tube because I cannot eat enough by mouth to get all the nutrition I need.  I’ve had it since I was three months old.

Next is all of the medications that I take daily and trying to get them through security at the airport.  Because TSA has a limit on liquids, they always put up a fight because the bottles are over the limit.  No matter how many times we call in advance, they never seem to get that I don’t have a choice and I need all the medication that’s in those bottles. When I was younger, my family and I went to Disney World and at the time I had to be on my feedings during the day and we asked the security people if I needed to take it off while going through the metal detector and they waved us off saying it was fine.  What happens when I go through?  My machine goes off and so does the detector.  They pull me, a small seven-year-old girl, to a space that was encased in glass and had me wait while they got a female officer.  Needless to say, I had to be pat down because of the TSA neglecting the fact that my food pump may set off the alarm, even though we told them what it was for.   I was confused when the woman checked under my arms.  I asked my mom after what they thought I would be hiding in my armpits.

Traveling has become easier as I have grown up because I need less medical equipment than I used to.  The medications are still a pain though.  I would love to travel the world and experience many things, but my medical issues won’t be what stops me from doing that, money will.  It’s tough being a poor college student.  Also, the fact that I hate flying is another factor that makes it hard for me to travel.  Don’t blame me, blame the extensive amount of movies and news reports that focus on plane crashes.

It’s not just me that has problems traveling.  I have a very close friend who is in a power wheelchair and can’t go on planes so if she wants to travel, it has to be by driving.  There are many different reasons why people with disabilities have a difficult time traveling, but this is what it’s like for me and my friend.

 

Thank you all for reading and I hope you have enjoyed my posts so far!  If you want to know something specific about me or disabilities, or if you have an idea for a post you want me to do, drop them into the comments!  Have a great evening my lovelies!  And as always, stay beautifully you!