FALLING ILL WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT...WHEN YOU'RE ON THE GO!

The most unfortunate thing that can happen when you are traveling is to get sick in the middle of all the excitement of your trip. In our nine years of traveling, I remember three times when something like that happened to us. Once every three years may not be that bad, but, let me tell you, it was very bad when each one was taking place. 

The first was during a cruise called the Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer, the two weeks or one month when adults are allowed to join Semester at Sea. This is the unique cruise that allows college students to earn credits on board a cruise ship since country experiences are at the heart of the degrees of their choice. The route took us to Copenhagen, Denmark, three cities in Iceland, the Shetland Islands of Scotland, Belfast, Ireland, and finally, our disembarkation port, Southampton, England. Whenever we were at sea, the professors who were on board held enrichment courses for us, too, on topics like the economy, culture, and geography of the country we were about to see. 

admiring Isofjordur from the deck

Before we embarked in Stockholm, Sweden, we had just finished a tour of Oslo Norway, Helsinki, Finland, and St, Petersburg, Russia. You can imagine how much excitement was building up! But, right after our tour of Reykjavik, we both fell ill, had chills, fever, colds, and cough en route to the small fishing town of Isofjodur in western Iceland.  Bill still braved the excursion to town. I couldn’t and had to be content with a short photo session from the deck, all bundled up. By then, the small clinic on the ship had become as busy as the buffet stations. Dozens of our shipmates had fallen ill, too. We concluded that some virus was probably going around. It was good that by the time we reached Akureyri in northern Iceland, I was well enough to join the tours. We think it's not a good idea to join a ship that has been cruising for a year, even if it is heavily discounted.

Epcot Center, December 2011

getting tested 

The second occasion happened in the first week of December 2011. We arrived in Orlando, Florida in the afternoon. I was so excited to get the chance to visit Disney World finally at age 63! The Thousand Trails RV Park was just seven miles from the world’s most popular theme park with twenty million visitors annually. The next morning, right after breakfast, Bill felt severe chest pains. We hurried to the Urgent Care Center right outside the Resort. The doctor hurriedly dispatched us to the Heart of Florida Hospital, about fifteen minutes away. The cardiologist immediately performed angioplasty, inserting three stents into two of Bill’s arteries, one 100% blocked, the other, 75%.

before and after the angioplasty

You can’t imagine how much stress I felt. Would you believe I had to watch a TV show about preparing for a funeral while in the waiting room, tense and worried about the outcome of Bill's invasive but necessary heart procedure? Later, I had to drive to and from the hospital when I really didn’t know how to drive! Worse is that I did not yet know anyone at the Park. Without a support system, within a week, hives broke out all over my body. My dream Disney World fantasy turned into a veritable horror story. Later, we both analyzed our situation and agreed to do something about our eating habits.

The third instance happened in 2013 when we made a long road trip to visit our children in Idaho, Alberta, Washington, and Colorado. Visiting family is always exciting, the kind of travel I always look forward to being able to cook for them, spoiling the grandkids, as well as visiting sights. We left the RV in storage in Mesa, Arizona and drove to Idaho, then Alberta, Canada. After a twelve-hour drive in one day from Calgary to Seattle, we left just two days later for another two-day nineteen-hour drive to Colorado.

INR reading 

In Denver, Bill felt a painful knot behind his left knee. By the third day, his whole left leg, from the hip on to his foot, was feeling numb, tight, and painful. We went to the urgent care center and were quickly dispatched to the emergency room of the nearest hospital. What we feared became reality. They found several blood clots on his left leg. After more blood tests, he was given injections to break down the clots and tablets to thin out his blood. We were not allowed to drive to Mesa, Arizona until his INR (international numerical ratio) was 2.5 to 3.5. It took a week and in the meantime, I again had a flare-up of hives, although milder this time. After this incident, we set six hours as our maximum driving time in a day, making sure we had a good stop after the first three hours.

It is good the two cardiovascular problems happened in America where we are entitled to Medicare. Just imagine how scary and costly it would have been if they happened where the healthcare systems are foreign to us, where we don’t know anybody who can help us, and where Medicare is not available. It can be truly terrifying and costly then. With health issues becoming more serious as we age, there are only two things my husband and I think we can do if we want to continue traveling. One, keep ourselves as healthy as we can and, two, make sure that our travels err on the side of utmost comfort and convenience despite the cost. Falling ill while you are on the go traveling can be tragic. Instead of having fun, we are constrained by it.   

HEADLINE PHOTO: the MV Explorer docked in Iceland