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Hi. I’m Tammy-Lee from Your Travel Planners.
I’ve decided to share a personal travel tip with you, for those of you who have Crohn’s disease or who have experienced family members with Crohn’s disease.
You will be able to relate to this story.
I actually have Crohn’s disease. I’ve had it for eight years now.
And I have suffered immensely because of that and haven’t been able to travel before.
I feel like I always had to have a toilet around me, 24-7, which was really hard to cope with.
And over those years I’ve realized that I really couldn’t go many places at all.
Two and a half years ago, I actually had an ileostomy, so, for those of you who don’t know, I actually had my large bowel taken out.
And, for the rest of my life, I have to have an ostomy bag.
So, it isn’t the best outcome, but I have actually had quality of life from that.
At the time, it’s the end of the world and nobody ever wants to have that at the age I was, which was 30, nearly.
I didn’t want to go down that path, but unfortunately I had to and I’ve come out of it a better person because of it,
because I’m healthy, because everything is better around me now because I’m not sick all the time.
Recently I just went to Japan for four weeks with my family, and it was the best experience I’ve ever had.
I was able to experience a ostomy-friendly toilet in Japan which, for me, was a thrill.
Because in Australia you actually don’t get to experience anything like that because of the fact that Australia is aware of it, but they’re not as aware of it as they are in Japan.
And seeing the ostomy toilets over there, I just feel that I really need to express to people that it was so exciting, being able to go to an ostomy-friendly toilet.
They’re in every railway station. They’re in this town, city, Takayama, on the city map. I think it showed about 30-odd ostomy-friendly toilets.
So, that was really exciting for me. I was actually looking for them in the end because it was exciting. I took photos and everything.
And I would really like to promote this Australia-wide, and not only that, get in contact with people in Perth who can actually maybe see that.
And, for sure, when I build my next house I’m putting one of those in.
But that was amazing for me, to actually experience it, and I want everybody out there to know that, please,
just because you have Crohn’s disease or you have a family member that has it, please don’t think that you can’t travel.
I mean, it’s the worst feeling in the world going, “Oh, my God, where’s a toilet? Where’s a toilet?” every time you go to a place.
You actually look for the ladies’ or the men’s, because it doesn’t matter if it’s a men’s toilet, because if you need to go, you’ll need to go in that men’s toilet.
But being able to go to Japan and experience that, it was just amazing.
And for those of you who would like to go to Japan and experience the same as me, feel free. Please go, because it was great.
I mean, now I’m down the track, I’d love to actually go back to Japan, not because of that reason wholly and solely,
but the experience with the people and the whole country was just amazing.
So, that was my top tip for travel.
And I’m sure that a lot more places out there actually have this facility,
but for those of you that do have an ostomy bag and don’t feel comfortable going anywhere because you don’t actually know what the toilet facilities are like, go to Japan and experience the ostomy-friendly toilets.
Because you just won’t forget it. It was an amazing experience.
So, thank you for listening and I hope everybody out there with Crohn’s disease is well, and please don’t think it’s the end of the world, because it does get better, believe me.
Thank you.