travel doctor gastro kit

Travel Kits

Travel Vaccination Healthcare has special purpose medical kits for you to take with you on your travels. Depending on your destination, time and length of travel some or all of these kits may be recommended.

All kits are onsite and available by request.

This pack is for travellers to areas where hygiene may be in question.

• Hydralyte powder for fluid replacement

• Gastro Stop for diarrhoea

• Kwells for motion sickness

• Buscopan for abdominal cramps

• Coloxyl and Senna for constipation

Your doctor will prescribe other suitable medications that will suit your particular travel circumstances, such as antibiotics for traveller’s diarrhoea and anti-nausea medication. Research travel facts relevant to your chosen destination or speak to our team for additional information.

Other Travel Items

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• Medical Kit Guide

Why Do I Need a Medical Kit?

With up to 50% of travellers on longer trips to many destinations suffering from diarrhoea, and road traffic accidents being the main cause of injury abroad, a medical kit really does become the most important bit of equipment in your bag. Here at Nomad, we’ve been preparing travellers for healthy trips for over 25 years. The experts at Nomad have put together this guide so you know what is needed for your trip. Because we have an in-house Pharmacy , our most comprehensive kits include medicines and antibiotics.

Why Nomad Medical Kits?

On the high street, in pharmacies and well known outdoor stores, you will find lots of other seemingly well priced ‘travel kits’ that may at first glance seem suitable for your trip. However, these kits are usually basic first aid kits that can only deal with minor injuries that you may receive on your adventures.

There is no comparison between the medical kits we supply and the others available. Not only do they include basic first aid, sterile equipment and medicine but, because we have an in-house Pharmacy, our kits include medicines which you would only be able to get from a Pharmacist or GP.

Antibiotics & Medicines Included

Unlike most other medical kit suppliers, we are able to prescribe antibiotics to be included in your kit which can deal with a multitude of problems including travellers diarrhoea, ear and nose problems, chest infections, sinus issues and skin infections. This means you really are properly equipped to treat yourself when travelling and ensure you can make the most of your time away.

What Kit Should I Go For?

At Nomad we have a range of specialist medical kits designed to cover most travel needs. If one of our standard kits doesn’t sound right for your trip/group, then fear not, we have a pharmacy ready to build a bespoke kit for you, tailored around your specific trip and requirements. We have it all covered! Remember to make sure you’re up to date on the recommended vaccinations and find out whether you will need to take  malaria tablets using our guide to Destinations  and head to the Pharmacy if you need extra items for your Medical Kit.

Our Medical Kits are designed to supply a single traveller on a trip of up to a month. If more people are travelling, extra quantities may need to be purchased. If in doubt, contact the Nomad Pharmacy .

Worldwide Diarrhoea Kit

Suitable for: Longterm travel, remote travel, backpacking, business travel, trekking Contains antibiotics

The Ultimate Medical Kit is the Nomad Pharmacy premier ready-made personal medical kit covering an immense range of travel health related treatments. Take this medical/first aid kit if you are planning to be away for a long time or travelling to remote areas where you have no immediate access to medical assistance. It comes with antibiotics for the treatment of travellers diarrhoea and a broad spectrum antibiotic for the treatment of ear, chest and sinus infections and well as a host of other vital bits of kit! This kit really does have it all!

The Ultimate was designed to replace the Independent Medical Kit

Suitable for: Remote travel, backpacking, business travel, holidays, city travel Contains antibiotics

At Nomad we have developed a kit specifically for the treatment of moderate to severe Travellers diarrhoea. This kit is for treatment of diarrhoea contracted in places globally. The kit comes with antibiotics ready to sort out any bout you suffer whilst away. As well as rehydration sachets and rehydration spoon to help you get your energy back up! So you won’t need to skip that party, miss that bus or delay moving on!

Suitable for: Overland tours, group expeditions, remote travel

Perfect for travellers heading off the beaten track this kit can be used for two people if needed with a few minor additions. Brimming with first aid, sterile and medicine, this kit is ideal as a back-up for travellers going away with a tour operator that will be providing additional medical supplies.

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• Section 2 - Water Disinfection
• Section 2 - Last-Minute Travelers

Travel Health Kits

Cdc yellow book 2024.

Author(s): Aisha Rizwan

Traveling With Medications

Supplies for preexisting medical conditions, general travel health kit supplies, travel kits when traveling with children, commercial medical kits.

Regardless of their destination, international travelers should assemble and carry a travel health kit. Travelers should tailor the contents to their specific needs, the type and length of travel, and their destination(s). Kits can be assembled at home or purchased at a local store, pharmacy, or online. Travel health kits can help to ensure travelers have supplies they need to manage preexisting medical conditions and treat any exacerbations of these conditions, prevent illness and injury related to traveling, and take care of minor health problems as they occur.

Instruct international travelers to carry all medications in their original containers with clear labels that easily identify the contents, the patient’s name, and dosing regimen information. Although travelers might prefer packing their medications into small bags, pillboxes, or daily-dose containers, officials at ports of entry might require that medications be in their original prescription containers.

Travelers should carry copies of all prescriptions, including generic names, preferably translated into the local language of the destination. For controlled substances and injectable medications, travelers should carry a note on letterhead stationery from the prescribing clinician or travel clinic. Translating the letter into the local language at the destination and attaching the translation to the original document could prove helpful if the document is needed during the trip. Some countries do not permit certain medications. For questions about medication restrictions, particularly regarding controlled substances, travelers should contact the US embassy or consulate of the destination country.

A travel health kit is useful only when it is easily accessible. Travelers should always carry the kit with them (e.g., in a carry-on bag); sharp objects like scissors and fine splinter tweezers must remain in checked luggage, however. Travelers should make sure that any liquid or gel-based items packed in carry-on bags do not exceed size limits, although exceptions are made for certain medical reasons. For more information, call the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at 866-289-9673 (toll-free, Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., and weekends and holidays 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.) or see the TSA Customer Service webpage. The US embassy or consulate at the destination country can also provide details.

Travelers with preexisting medical conditions should carry enough medication for the duration of their trip and an extra supply in case the trip extends for any reason. If additional supplies (e.g., glucose monitoring items) or medications are needed to manage exacerbations of existing medical conditions, these should be carried as well (see Sec. 3, Ch. 3, Travelers with Chronic Illnesses ). People with preexisting conditions (e.g., allergies, diabetes), should consider wearing an alert bracelet. Needles and syringes can be difficult to purchase in some locations, so travelers should take more than needed for the length of the trip. In addition, travelers needing needles and syringes will also be required to carry a letter from the prescribing clinician on letterhead stationery.

Boxes 2-06 , 2-07 , 2-08 , 2-09 , and 2-10 provide sample checklists of items travelers might consider including in their basic travel health kits. Provide travelers with needed details and instructions about any prescribed medications, including antibiotics for self-treatment of diarrhea, medications to treat altitude illness, and malaria chemoprophylaxis. Relevant chapters of this book offer additional suggestions for travel health kit contents depending on underlying health issues, itinerary, and planned activities or intended reasons for travel.

Box 2-06 Sample travel health kit checklist for travelers: prescription medicines & medical supplies

☐ Antibiotics for self-treatment of moderate to severe travelers’ diarrhea (if prescribed)

☐ Antihistamines, epinephrine auto-injectors (e.g., an EpiPen 2-Pak), short course of oral steroid medications (for travelers, including children, with a history of severe allergic reactions or anaphylaxis)

☐ Antimalarial medication (if prescribed)

☐ Insulin and diabetes testing supplies

☐ Medicine to prevent or treat altitude illness (if prescribed)

☐ Needles or syringes (plus extras) for injectable medicines

☐ Prescription glasses/contact lenses (consider packing an extra pair of each)

☐ Prescription medicines taken regularly at home

☐ Sleep aids (if prescribed)

Pack all prescription medicines (+ a copy of the prescription) and any necessary medical supplies in a carry-on bag. Medicines should be in their original containers with labels that clearly identify contents, patient name, and dosing information. Consider wearing a medical alert bracelet or necklace if you have chronic illnesses or underlying health conditions.

Box 2-07 Sample travel health kit checklist for travelers: over-the-counter medications

☐ Over-the-counter medicines taken regularly at home

☐ Medicines for pain or fever, for example:

• Acetaminophen

☐ Medicines (not antibiotics) for stomach upset or diarrhea, for example:

• Antidiarrheal medication (e.g., loperamide [Imodium] or bismuth subsalicylate [Pepto-Bismol])
• Packets of oral rehydration salts for dehydration
• Mild laxatives

☐ Medicines for mild upper respiratory conditions, for example:

• Antihistamine
• Decongestant, alone or in combination with antihistamine
• Cough suppressant or expectorant
• Cough drops

☐ Medicines for motion sickness

☐ Sleep aids (non-prescription)

☐ Eye drops

☐ Nose drops or spray

Box 2-08 Sample travel health kit checklist for travelers: basic first aid

☐ Adhesive bandages and tape, multiple sizes

☐ Antifungal and antibacterial spray or creams

☐ Anti-itch gel or cream for insect bites and stings

☐ Antiseptic wound cleanser

☐ Commercial suture kit (for travel to remote areas)

☐ Cotton swabs

☐ Digital thermometer

☐ Disposable latex-free gloves

☐ Elastic/compression bandage wrap for sprains and strains

☐ First aid quick reference card

☐ Hydrocortisone cream (1%)

☐ Moleskin or molefoam for blister prevention and treatment

☐ Safety pins

☐ Scissors (pack sharp metal objects in checked baggage; small, rounded tip bandage scissors might be available for purchase in certain stores or online)

☐ Triangular bandage to wrap injuries and to make an arm or shoulder sling

☐ Tweezers (pack sharp metal objects in checked baggage)

Box 2-09 Sample travel health kit checklist for travelers: supplies to prevent illness & injury

☐ Antibacterial hand wipes or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer containing ≥60% alcohol

☐ Ear plugs

☐ Face masks

☐ Insect repellents for skin and clothing

☐ Latex condoms

☐ Mosquito net (for protection against insect bites while sleeping; can be pretreated with insect repellent)

☐ Personal safety equipment (for example, child safety seats, bicycle or motorcycle helmets)

☐ Sun protection (for example, protective clothing, sunglasses, sunscreen)

☐ Water purification method(s) if visiting remote areas, camping, or staying in areas where access to clean water is limited

Box 2-10 Sample travel health kit checklist for travelers: documents

☐ Contact information card (carry at all times) that includes the street addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses of:

• Family member or close contact remaining in the United States
• Health care provider(s) at home
• Hospitals or clinics (including emergency services) at your destination(s)
• Insurance policy information
• Lodging at the destination(s)
• US embassy or consulate address and telephone number in your destination country or countries

☐ Copies of all prescriptions for medications, eyeglasses/contacts, and other medical supplies, including generic names; preferably translated into the local language of the destination

☐ Documentation of preexisting conditions (for example, diabetes or allergies) in English and preferably translated into the local language of the destination

☐ Electrocardiogram (EKG) if you have existing heart disease, including any known abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias)

☐ Health insurance, supplemental travel health insurance, medical evacuation insurance, and travel insurance policy numbers, carrier contact information, and copies of claim forms

☐ International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) card showing proof of vaccination, or an appropriate medical waiver, for travel to destinations where vaccinations are required by the country for entry

In addition to bringing the medical documents on this list, be sure to leave copies with a family member or close contact who will remain in the United States (in case of an emergency). Consider having electronic copies of documents, as well.

Box 2-11 provides a checklist of items travelers might consider bringing if they are traveling with children.

Travelers can obtain commercial medical kits for a wide range of circumstances, from basic first aid to advanced emergency life support. Companies also manufacture advanced medical kits for adventure travelers, customizing them based on specific travel needs. In addition, specialty kits are available for travelers managing diabetes, dealing with dental emergencies, and participating in aquatic activities. Many pharmacy, grocery, retail, and outdoor sporting goods stores, as well as online retailers, sell their own basic first aid kits. Travelers who choose to purchase a preassembled kit should review the contents of the kit carefully to ensure that it has everything needed; any necessary additional items should be added.

Box 2-11 Sample travel health kit checklist for travelers: supplies for children

☐ Baby wipes

☐ Change mat

☐ Children’s medicine for pain or fever

☐ Insect repellent (avoid using products containing oil of lemon eucalyptus [OLE] or para-menthane-3,8-diol [PMD] on children <3 years old)

☐ Medicines taken regularly at home

☐ Motor vehicle restraints (for example, stroller, seatbelts, or car seat)

☐ Rash cream

☐ Sterilizing equipment for baby bottles

☐ Sun protection

☐ Thermometer

The following authors contributed to the previous version of this chapter: Calvin Patimeteeporn

Bibliography

Goodyer L and Gibbs J. Travel medical kits. In: Keystone JS, Kozarsky PE, Connor BA, Nothdurft HD, Mendelson M, Leder K, editors. Travel medicine, 4th edition. Philadelphia: Saunders Elsevier; 2019. pp. 61–4.

Harper LA, Bettinger J, Dismukes R, Kozarsky PE. Evaluation of the Coca-Cola company travel health kit. J Travel Med. 2002;9(5):244–6.

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Food & Water Safety Travel Kit

Mosquito prevention & outdoor care travel kit, ranger ready insect repellent with 20% picaridin mist spray bottle, travel medicine & first aid travel kit, ranger ready permethrin trigger spray - 710ml, 24.0oz. - scent zero.

Travel medical kit checklist

by myDr | Ear Nose and Throat Health , Health Insurance , Travel Health

Use this checklist as a guide to things you may need in your medical kit when travelling – you may need less or more, depending on the activities you may undertake, and the remoteness of the area you visit.

Think about the area you are visiting and what may or may not be available there. Some careful planning and packing before your trip can avoid any wasted time, inconvenience or worse while you’re away.  Check with your doctor or travel clinic for advice if you aren’t sure what you may need to keep your travels safe and healthy.

• Analgesic (pain relief) medicine such as paracetamol or aspirin.
• Antihistamine tablets for bites, stings or allergies.
• Cold and flu tablets.
• Cough medicine.
• Motion sickness tablets.
• Throat lozenges or drops.
• Antiseptic solution for cleaning wounds or bites.
• Antiseptic ointment to apply to a wound.
• Blister and wound patches, such as sticking plasters.
• Medical adhesive tape, e.g. Micropore.
• Wound dressings , e.g. a crepe bandage, gauze swabs and OpSite, and Steristrips, which can often take the place of stitches.
• Safety pins, scissors and tweezers (you may not be allowed to carry these in your cabin luggage).
• Insect repellent containing DEET (diethyl toluamide).
• Sting relief solution, e.g. Stingose (aluminium sulfate).
• Diarrhoea medicine, e.g. Imodium (loperamide).
• Mild laxative, for constipation.
• Antacid for indigestion.
• Antifungal or antibacterial cream.
• Low potency hydrocortisone cream.
• Fluid and electrolyte replacement powder or tablets, e.g. Gastrolyte or HYDRAlyte.
• Eye lubricant drops.
• Sunscreen (at least SPF 30+).
• Thermometer (a forehead thermometer is best for travel as it doesn’t break or run out of batteries).
• Health insurance card.

Other items you should think about taking, depending on your individual needs and your destination, include:

• Regular prescription medicines, which should be kept in their original containers with clear labels and carried in your hand luggage when travelling. You should also take a letter from your doctor stating the names of the medicines, the dose and that they are for your personal use, plus a copy of your prescriptions, written using the generic name of the drug to avoid confusion with trade names in foreign countries. Some countries may not let visitors bring in certain medicines, so you may wish to check first with the embassy or consulate in Australia, before you go. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia has information on travelling with medicines.
• Medical equipment you use regularly, such as sterile syringes and needles.
• Spare pair of glasses or your eye prescription.
• Condoms, birth control pills, or other contraceptives.
• Water purifying tablets.
• A mosquito-proof bed net.
• Hand sanitiser or wipes.
• Digital thermometer.
• Sterile syringes.
• First aid reference.

Prescription medicines for travel-related conditions

Travel to developing countries, remote areas, tropical climates and high altitudes increases your risk of certain conditions that you would not encounter at home or during travel to developed temperate-climate countries. Many of these conditions are treated or avoided by taking prescription medicines. So, apart from taking your regular prescription medicines with you, as described above, your doctor or travel clinic may suggest some of the following:

• Altitude sickness medicines.
• Antibiotics for certain intestinal infections or for serious respiratory infection.
• Malaria prevention tablets.

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Travel Clinic

Medical kit for travelers checklist

It is always advisable to take a medical kit with you when traveling, so that you will be prepared for any eventuality. First aid supplies and basic medicines are not easy to obtain everywhere in the world.

What to include in your medical kit:

• standard first aid kit
• painkillers (e.g. paracetamol or aspirin)
• O.R.S. (oral rehydration salts) to replace the loss of salts and fluids in the event of diarrhea
• anti-diarrhea medicine for short-term use
• anti-malaria tablets (if necessary)
• disinfectant (e.g. iodine)
• sterile injection material
• motion sickness tablets
• antibiotics

Depending on the nature of your trip and your personal circumstances, you could add some extras to your medical travel kit:

• Ensure you have enough medication with you, and retain all package leaflets and instructions for use. Do not pack all your medication in one bag in case that bag gets lost.
• Other travel items such as a mosquito net, mosquito repellent, or insect tweezers can be found on our webshop (in Dutch). Some of the products are also sold at our clinic.

Travel Health Products

It is a good idea to take along a medical kit with you when you travel. Many medical supplies obtainable overseas do not have as high quality control as in Australia. The items listed below are not usually included in commercial first aid kits. Prescription items are only available by doctor’s prescription. All items plus a range of other travel health equipment (such as water purifiers, immersion heaters and thermometers) are available from The Travel Clinic.

E2 Medical First Aid Kit

This kit is specific to any traveller rather than just a collection of bulky dressings. Affordable, lightweight, water resistant and ideal as a present yet useful for just about any traveller. Includes emergency supplies of Panadol, Betadine liquid, bandaids, sterile dressings, steristrips, conforming bandage, micropore, forehead thermometer, alcohol wipes, forceps and stainless steel blade scissors.

The Corporate Kit

This kit is exclusively designed for Travel Clinics Australia and contains absorbent dressings, antiseptic wipes, a crepe bandage, dental needle, disposable gloves, bandaids, fixomull dressing, forceps, forehead thermometer, gauze swabs, iodine solution and swabs, irrigation syringe, IV Cannula, micropore, a nylon suture, Panadol, scissors, sterile syringes and needles and steristrips. This kit comes in a stylish and durable bag that can attach to belt or be placed in the bottom of a backpack.

Gastro Medications

These medications can only be supplied directly by a doctor.

Gastro medications (basic)  – oral rehydration and anti diarrhoea medications.

For developing countries,  we provide five Gastro medications (advanced) for self-treatment of diarrhoea and vomiting where medical help is not accessible.

Gastrolyte Tablets (20)

Oral rehydration solution may make the difference between dehydration and a speedy recovery, especially for the young traveller. A must for any traveller.

Traveller’s Pocket Medical Guide and International Certificate of Vaccination

The popular and unique combination 2-in-1 pocket guide with certification in accordance with WHO regulations. Everything the traveller needs to know saves you time and the traveller gets a hand held record of their vaccinations and prescribed medicines. An ideal value added item for travel consultations.

Permethrin Impregnation Kit

The Permethrin Impregnation kit contains  permethrin , which is an insecticide suitable for use on clothing and mosquito nets. It kills mosquitoes and other insects and arthropods including ticks and fleas when they alight on impregnated material.

Active constituent 500g/L permethrin.

Click here for more information

Mosquito Nets

Mosquito nets impregnated with permethrin (see above) for maximum protection from mosquitoes and other insects.

Water Purification Tablets

For the disinfection of water where the quality is uncertain.

Earplanes – Adult/Children

Relieves in-flight ear discomfort with the exclusive CeramX filter that regulates air-pressure and reduces noise and pain naturally.

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Komsomolskaya metro station looks like a museum. It has vaulted ceilings and baroque decor.

Hidden underground, in the heart of Moscow, are historical and architectural treasures of Russia. These are Soviet-era creations – the metro stations of Moscow.

Our guide Maria introduced these elaborate metro stations as “the palaces for the people.” Built between 1937 and 1955, each station holds its own history and stories. Stalin had the idea of building beautiful underground spaces that the masses could enjoy. They would look like museums, art centers, concert halls, palaces and churches. Each would have a different theme. None would be alike.

The two-hour private tour was with a former Intourist tour guide named Maria. Maria lived in Moscow all her life and through the communist era of 60s to 90s. She has been a tour guide for more than 30 years. Being in her 60s, she moved rather quickly for her age. We traveled and crammed with Maria and other Muscovites on the metro to visit 10 different metro stations.

Arrow showing the direction of metro line 1 and 2

Moscow subways are very clean

To Maria, every street, metro and building told a story. I couldn’t keep up with her stories. I don’t remember most of what she said because I was just thrilled being in Moscow.   Added to that, she spilled out so many Russian words and names, which to one who can’t read Cyrillic, sounded so foreign and could be easily forgotten.

The metro tour was the first part of our all day tour of Moscow with Maria. Here are the stations we visited:

1. Komsomolskaya Metro Station  is the most beautiful of them all. Painted yellow and decorated with chandeliers, gold leaves and semi precious stones, the station looks like a stately museum. And possibly decorated like a palace. I saw Komsomolskaya first, before the rest of the stations upon arrival in Moscow by train from St. Petersburg.

2. Revolution Square Metro Station (Ploshchad Revolyutsii) has marble arches and 72 bronze sculptures designed by Alexey Dushkin. The marble arches are flanked by the bronze sculptures. If you look closely you will see passersby touching the bronze dog's nose. Legend has it that good luck comes to those who touch the dog's nose.

Touch the dog's nose for good luck. At the Revolution Square station

Revolution Square Metro Station

3. Arbatskaya Metro Station served as a shelter during the Soviet-era. It is one of the largest and the deepest metro stations in Moscow.

Arbatskaya Metro Station

4. Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station was built in 1935 and named after the Russian State Library. It is located near the library and has a big mosaic portrait of Lenin and yellow ceramic tiles on the track walls.

Lenin's portrait at the Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station

5. Kievskaya Metro Station was one of the first to be completed in Moscow. Named after the capital city of Ukraine by Kiev-born, Nikita Khruschev, Stalin's successor.

Kievskaya Metro Station

6. Novoslobodskaya Metro Station  was built in 1952. It has 32 stained glass murals with brass borders.

Novoslobodskaya metro station

7. Kurskaya Metro Station was one of the first few to be built in Moscow in 1938. It has ceiling panels and artwork showing Soviet leadership, Soviet lifestyle and political power. It has a dome with patriotic slogans decorated with red stars representing the Soviet's World War II Hall of Fame. Kurskaya Metro Station is a must-visit station in Moscow.

Ceiling panel and artworks at Kurskaya Metro Station

8. Mayakovskaya Metro Station built in 1938. It was named after Russian poet Vladmir Mayakovsky. This is one of the most beautiful metro stations in the world with 34 mosaics painted by Alexander Deyneka.

Mayakovskaya station

One of the over 30 ceiling mosaics in Mayakovskaya metro station

9. Belorusskaya Metro Station is named after the people of Belarus. In the picture below, there are statues of 3 members of the Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II. The statues were sculpted by Sergei Orlov, S. Rabinovich and I. Slonim.

10. Teatralnaya Metro Station (Theatre Metro Station) is located near the Bolshoi Theatre.

Teatralnaya Metro Station decorated with porcelain figures .

Taking the metro's escalator at the end of the tour with Maria the tour guide.

Have you visited the Moscow Metro? Leave your comment below.

January 15, 2017 at 8:17 am

An excellent read! Thanks for much for sharing the Russian metro system with us. We're heading to Moscow in April and exploring the metro stations were on our list and after reading your post, I'm even more excited to go visit them. Thanks again 🙂

December 6, 2017 at 10:45 pm

Hi, do you remember which tour company you contacted for this tour?

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‘I felt myself split into before and after’: how giving birth triggered a life-changing illness

Having a baby led to an unexpected disease and then surgery that altered Lauren Bensted’s body for ever. She talks about the pain she felt in being separated from her newborn, and her journey to learn to accept her new life

“W e’re going to have to disconnect you,” says the man at my bedside. Since I was hospitalised a fortnight ago, this man and his team have been trying to save my colon, a 5ft-long tangle of ulcers and inflammation. The speed and scale of my colon’s fury has fascinated doctors. I imagine them in their morning meetings, poring over my colonoscopy with the mystification usually reserved for the Voynich manuscript. But time is up. Unless they “disconnect” me, my bowel will perforate and I will die.

Disconnection, explains the doctor, involves whipping the whole colon out – here he mimes pulling a rabbit from a hat – and diverting my digestion through a hole in my abdomen called a stoma. He sketches my new anatomy on a piece of paper, quick as a high-street caricaturist. He cannot imagine what it is like to receive this news – to hear your body will change for ever and with it your whole life too – just as I cannot imagine what it is to break it. I want to grab his hand, ask him how. How does a body give birth to a healthy baby and then burst into flames?

I hadn’t planned to be living with my parents when I became a mother, but that’s what happens. My boyfriend, Will, and I have bought a fixer-upper whose every wall, floor and ceiling is, according to my dad, “completely pissed”. The latest in a long line of house-building Irishmen, he sets about restoring its broken bones for us with surgical skill. Meanwhile, Will and I Zipvan our lives back to the London suburb I snubbed aged 21. Now, up the duff at 35, I’m won over by it all – the quiet, the Costa Coffees, the middle-aged blokes reverently soaping their Qashqais. I feel unbelievably lucky to have this time with my mum and dad, this last gulp of being someone’s kid before I become someone’s mum.

I am invited for extra scans, having been classified as “high-risk”. “Because I’m 35 and ‘geriatric’?” I ask one consultant. “No,” she says. “Because of your Crohn’s.” I was diagnosed with the inflammatory bowel disease as a teenager. I don’t remember much, besides a few missed school trips and the dark thrill of no longer being the chubby one in my group of friends. I’ve had no symptoms since. “All looks fine!” beams the sonographer. The baby bobs under the ultrasound wand. It’s the only time my disease history is mentioned.

My son is lifted out of me one Sunday in early July, as Joan Armatrading’s Love and Affection blasts from the delivery-room speakers. Navy-eyed and howling, he is totally alien and powerfully familiar to me all at once . We bring him back to my parents’ house where my brother’s old bedroom is ready for us, shelves of school cricket trophies now stuffed with bottles, muslins, nipple cream. We swaddle the baby the way the midwife showed us – tightly, like a tiny nativity play shepherd – and cannot believe our luck.

I begin to feel porous. Leaking boobs, but other things too: sweat-drenched bedsheets, grinding pain, violent splashes of blood in the toilet. Even the smell of my own breast milk sends me running to the bathroom. I am determined to keep pumping, recording diminishing quantities on my phone: 40ml left boob, 30ml right boob . The baby screams , unsatisfied. I promised I’d go easy on myself if breastfeeding didn’t work out, but now the desire to feed him myself is fierce, irrational, like I need to beat whatever is eating me from the inside out.

When I describe how bad things got before I sought help, people assume I was trying to be invincible. They are thinking, perhaps, of those apocryphal women who lift cars off their young, oblivious to pain. But I’m acutely aware of my pain, I’m just unsure what it means. A suspicion takes hold that I am not tough enough for motherhood. For the sleeplessness, nursing, the magnificent horror of being sliced open.

Unable to get a GP appointment, I pay to see a private doctor, a kind-faced man retired from the NHS. I say I think childbirth has reactivated my Crohn’s. Unlikely, he says. Caesareans famously make the bowels grumpy. He prescribes antibiotics which I immediately throw up. Will drives me to A&E, where the triage doctor calls me “honey”, asks how bad the pain is on a scale of one to ten. Six? Ten? I don’t know the metric. Motherhood has made me an unreliable narrator of my own body. It’s almost a relief when, one morning, delirious with pain, I collapse. At least now there is no ambiguity, I think hazily. As paramedics wheel me out, the baby starts to cry and my mum dashes inside to change his nappy. I do not get to kiss him goodbye.

In TV medical dramas, the patients usually only feature in one episode and then they either get discharged or die. There is a rule that predicts their fate. Demanding patients suffer the most, because they need to be humbled and learn not to be a dick. Sweet, quiet patients – the ones who never press the call bell too often – die first. I hedge my bets and go for “friendly but forthright” in the hope I will make it out alive when the credits roll.

Having never been hospitalised before, there is an initial thrill in observing this ecosystem up close, with its otherworldly machines, bleeps, tourniquets. I am a tourist, just stopping by while the doctors work their magic, then I will step out of this hospital drama, back to my four-week old baby.

I spend the first day on a corridor containing so many patients that staff call it the “Corridor ward”, as if Mr Corridor is a trailblazing scientist. Since there is no space on the gastro ward, I am shipped to an A&E overspill area, where I join the miscellaneously broken. On the bay opposite are two elderly drunks who wind everyone up by singing the same three Beatles songs. Next door is a prisoner with an infected leg who threatens anyone who comes near with legal action. The nurses are kind and visibly stressed. The whole place thrums with the panic of a Panorama documentary, a sensation heightened by the steroids flooding my body.

After a colonoscopy reveals my flaming insides in psychedelic detail, I am diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis. They will later conclude that my teenage Crohn’s diagnosis was erroneous. The idea is that the gastro doctors will visit me on the A&E ward, but after five days I’ve seen a consultant once. I cannot work out who to badger; it feels like all the people who can help me are elsewhere. A junior doctor mutters that the gastro ward should be renamed the Glasto ward: “That’s how impossible it is to get a ticket.” If only I could chuck on a bucket hat, scale the perimeter wall.

My confidence that I will make a Lazarine recovery falters, chipped away by the tedium of 30 toilet trips a day. I must chronicle them on a daily worksheet, a humiliation compounded by the Comic Sans font. Nevertheless, it sparks a nerdy satisfaction. I add an elaborate asterisk system to denote cramps, spasms, blood. I take it very seriously until the day I hand it in and watch the ward sister shove it straight in the bin.

We decide it’s not safe to bring the baby inside the hospital, as he hasn’t had his jabs yet. So, on the days I can get up, Will brings him to the car park or the garden. My arms are so weak that I’m scared to hold him. Will shows me new winding techniques his mum’s taught him, videos of his dad bathing the baby in the kitchen sink. Some days we laugh a lot. On others, our conversation is a careful dance, each trying to conceal the fullness of our sadness from the other.

Will and the baby are living out of a suitcase between our parents’ homes. I wait for the nightfeeds – midnight, 3am, 6am – when Will sends sleepy voice memos, the baby guzzling in the background. We should be doing this together, sharing the exhaustion and the dirty nappies, the magic chaos of it all. None of us are in the right place. “Has he smiled yet?” I ask. “If I miss his first smile, don’t not tell me.” The baby is changing fast, learning about the world somewhere I am not. This is the unbearable ache, the stone I cannot swallow.

I feel myself crossing over into what Susan Sontag called “the nightside of life”. I’m unable to recognise my own moonface, eyes hollow with insomnia. The kingdom of the sick is where I belong now and it’s no picnic for a people-pleaser. “I’m keeping my pecker up” becomes my party line, like a politician on a media round. But I can see the black puddle of despair in the corner of my room. I am scared to go near in case the questions come (Why me?) and I fall in.

I begin to absent myself from my body. The phlebotomist’s catchphrase comes twice a day – “Sharp scratch” – but I feel nothing when the needle goes in. In the middle of the night, I read about the plan to put people on planes to Rwanda, a newsreader’s sex scandal – things that would normally stir me. But they feel like missives from a universe I don’t exist in any more, so what’s the point? Sickness confirms my impotence to do anything about anything. The world is on fire and so is my body and nothing can be done.

After a weekend passes with no consultant visit, I find the private doctor’s email on his personal website. I say I’ve been diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis and I’m getting worse. I feel a bit ridiculous, like one of those people who tweet Michael O’Leary for a refund on their Ryanair flight. What can he do, this man? He can’t invent beds on the gastro ward, nor time-travel me through to Monday morning when the consultants will be back. He is literally, according to his out-of-office autoreply, on a walking holiday in Norfolk.

He calls immediately. Apparently I am at risk of developing a very straight-to-DVD-sounding condition called “toxic megacolon” where the whole thing bursts. I need to be on immunosuppressant therapy immediately, he says. And something else: “85% of patients in your position end up needing a colectomy.” What is that? I ask. “The bowel is removed and the patient fitted with a stoma,” he says. “The last resort.”

Like you perhaps, what comes to mind is a bag of waste stuck to a stomach. That’s the visual, that’s the extent of my prior knowledge. I know it must cover something – the “stoma” presumably – but I have no interest in that. Because it will not, cannot be me.

The private gastro pulls the emergency lever all the way from the Norfolk Broads. He used to work here in his NHS days, it turns out. Consultants are paged, the immunosuppressant arrives. But it can only be administered by a specific nurse whose shift ends within the hour. A side-room frees up on the gastro ward, but due to staff shortage it has not been cleaned, so I cannot be transferred. My dad – straight off the scaffold, hair full of plaster dust – runs to find the ward sister. “I will clean that room”, he says, in a low voice that I know means he’s scared. My poor, lovely dad. “Please let me clean it.” Soon I am wheeled to a room on the right ward, hooked up to the new drug. “At last!” we all keep saying, as if that was the worst bit. But over the next fortnight, I will discover there is no limit to how terrifying things can get.

There’s the moment I realise no one has accessed my test results for days because the junior doctors are striking and the consultants don’t know how to log on. The evening an unsympathetic registrar tries to throw me out of my room, claiming a palliative patient has greater need. (I later discover this is a fiction: one of the alcoholic Beatles fans is proving too disruptive.) The moment a trainee stoma nurse tries to draw an X on my stomach where a stoma would go, despite no doctor having made the final call on surgery yet, despite me crying “No, please, I’m not ready.”

There’s the nurse who forgets to warn me she’s about to pull a thick tube from inside my belly (agony!) because she is so stressed, trying to teach junior nurses. The day I’m so desperate to see a psychiatrist about my hallucinations that I try to bribe a millennial female doctor with a Facetime from my bestselling author mate to make it happen. (I’d been asking for a week.) The rage when I discover on a late-night Google trawl that “one in three women with inflammatory bowel disease will flare after giving birth” and “women with IBD should be closely monitored postpartum.” How did I not know? Why did no one tell me?

But there are no villains in this story, I know that now. Just people under huge pressure, in an overstretched, underfunded system that doesn’t work any more, doing their best. And there’s no magic medicine, I know that too. Just good luck and bad luck as to whether the drugs will work, save your colon, save your life, save you from the surgery you think will ruin everything. It’s all luck in the end. And my good luck begins the night three brilliant surgeons walk into my room and promise me a stoma is going to give me my life back and I decide to believe them.

I really have no other choice.

I wake up from the eight-hour operation in what appears to be a large industrial storage unit. No free beds on the recovery ward. Something strange surges in me. I feel stuffed full of love for the earth and all of its creatures. I am the Dalai Lama. I am John and Yoko’s bed!

“Is this the fentanyl?” I ask my surgeon, wondering if he’ll let me hold his hand. “Maybe,” he says. “Or you might just be happy to be alive.” I have questions. Who owns my colon now? “Nobody. It’s biological waste.” Where is my colon, exactly? “A lab in Winnersh Triangle.” This sends me into hysterics. I’ve finally cracked, I think.

I don’t want to ruin the lovely opioid high by looking under the sheets, but the nurse says I can’t be discharged until I prove I can deal with the stoma. So I take a deep breath, pull up my gown.

Most people are too polite to ask what a stoma looks like. Their imagination cuts out at the bag, the way mine used to. But the bag is just the figleaf: the madness is what it conceals. The common assumption is a little tube, discreetly passing waste from body to bag, like a tiny hoover. This is cute, but wrong.

Here’s what I can see. A red spout, 3cm across, protruding between my navel and hip. The end of my small intestine, I realise numbly. Covered with a clear bag for monitoring, it flexes and scrunches like a sea urchin. It feels appalling and amazing to see what I can see, this most private and shameful process brought into daylight. It seems improbable that it should actually work – the bag seems so DIY – but I eat a jacket potato and feel the thing murmur into action.

There’s so much paraphernalia to get my head around: bags, seals, sprays, powders. It’s like I’ve taken up a hobby with a dizzying amount of kit, like vaping or golf. “Some people give their stoma a name,” says the nurse, “to help them accept it.” No chance, I think . It’s not a Tamagotchi, it’s my intestine for god’s sake.

I imagine stepping back into my old life now. Teaching, writing, pubs, gigs, sex, holidays. How could I forget for long enough to enjoy anything? It hits me that no one I know would want to have this body – a very particular kind of loneliness.

The doctors love a metaphor. They refer to my plumbing. Pipework. Shuddering, loveless imagery that recalls our fixer-upper, with its wretched old drains. But their favourite metaphor is “disconnected” . I see it in a letter to my GP: “The patient was disconnected on 18 August.” It’s a good metaphor, maybe too good. It’s not only my bowel that has been disconnected, but me too. From everyone I love. From my old innocence, whoever I used to be.

After Will calls to say he is on his way to visit, I try to rejig my bedsheets. A healthcare assistant called Hassan comes by and I’m suddenly in tears. I don’t want Will to be scared by the drains ferrying awful liquids from my body, I explain. Hassan leaves and returns with a pot of raspberry jelly. “You are feeling shame for what happened to you,” he says gently. “But it’s not your fault.”

No doctor has been able to tell me why having a baby made my body burst into flames. I am all arson with no perpetrator. In the absence of a culprit, I have cast myself. What if I had known more about inflammatory bowel disease? What if I had eaten differently, given birth differently, got myself to hospital quicker? Could things have fallen out some other way?

Hassan’s words reach out to me in the dark. I do some more crying, eat the jelly he has brought me.

It is late summer by the time they discharge me. It feels like a jailbreak. Will and I roll down the car windows, sing along to Rusted Root’s Send Me on My Way. My parents are waiting on the doorstep with the baby – eight weeks old now, plump as a peach. I’ve been away half his lifetime.

The doctors warned my mood would crash when the drugs wore off. I wait for the black puddle to turn tidal. Instead, I find illness has shifted the world by a few centimetres. Jokes are funnier, conversations more sincere. Everyday things feel like unbelievable acts of magic. Cooking dinner with my mum. Making up a song for the baby. Life hums with a kind of Technicolor, like falling in love. My opioid high has mellowed into something as warm and steady as the September sunshine. The surgeon was right: I am just so happy to be alive.

I had planned to tell only those closest to me about my stoma. But at some point I realise that discretion’s closest relative is shame and cannot stop talking. I pick up a sandwich from the Jewish deli and am there half an hour, telling the bewildered owner about my exploding colon. I develop a pathological intolerance for pleasantries. Will starts calling me the Truthbomber on account of my tendency to blow up pointless small talk. Friends visit and I gibber away, pulling stories from my ragbag of hospital traumas, prone on the sofa like Elizabeth Barrett Browning on speed. I write long emails about what happened to family, friends, colleagues, finding release in the way I can control its contours now, find something meaningful in the darkness.

In the quiet of the bathroom, I shower and dodge the mirror’s gaze. The baby trills happily in his bouncer, unaware I bring him along for moral support every morning as I tend to my stoma, change the bag. He’ll never know me any other way than this. I need to face my new punctured body, still stained with orange surgical dye. Unwire all of my shame, old and new. I want to learn to look at myself the way the baby does – with uncomplicated, uncritical love.

I try to think of my body as a collection of stories. The freckles inherited from my mum. The scar from a pair of GHD straighteners on my neck, ultimate badge of early noughties girlhood. The queen of hearts tattoo on my wrist my best mate and I got two summers ago. The curve of a belly that kept the baby safe, the five-inch cut where he was prised from me. The laparoscopic holes, incredible portals through which surgeons cut five feet of disease. I think of my body as an old friend I have lived in for 35 years. And though I no longer trust it, I cannot hate it.

When winter comes, we move into our house and throw a party. We lug beer back from the Wembley Tesco Extra, pick up a firepit in B&Q. At some point, I realise I want to make a speech about Will. About the way he’s held me fast, his love unflinching. “We’ve been together six years,” I tell everyone. “But you know how the old adage goes. You never really know a man till your colon explodes.” Our friend Adam gamely conducts a shamanic ritual over the firepit in the garden, wearing a pagan hood off Amazon. We huddle in the cold, pass round Biros, scribble down the worst things that have happened to us, cast them into the flames. A friend brings a piñata emblazoned with “Fuck 2023” which I take great pleasure in thwumping. Surrounded by everyone I love, I feel the threads between my old and new selves begin to reconnect.

The first year of a baby’s life is peppered with milestone moments, not all of them showstoppers. Many happen without ceremony, as you stoop to unload the dishwasher, fish a stone from your shoe. Sometimes there is no “first” time at all, just a seamless switch from nothing to something. The baby’s first smile comes a few days after I get out of hospital. Just the corners of his mouth, then an unmistakable full beam. I had been so convinced I’d miss it. “He saved it till you got home,” says my nan.

I’ve become aware of all my firsts too, since illness split me into a before and after. First time in a swimming pool. First Christmas. It’s been a long time since I got to do things for the first time. I watch the baby’s face flood with shock and delight as he collides with the world. First ride on a double decker. First taste of pineapple. One day, I’ll tell him how he saved me. How, in the moments that I replay the darkness, his little face pulls me back to the present. I’ll tell him how much he taught me in our first year together. Eyes wide open, looking at the big bright world, both of us brand new.

• The Observer
• Health & wellbeing
• Parents and parenting

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