FALLING ILL WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT

I was sick so I could only admire the Icelandic fishing town Isofjordur from the deck

The most unfortunate thing is to get sick when you are traveling. In our sixteen years of travels, I remember three occasions when that happened to my husband and me.

 A Two-Week Cruise that Was Disrupted

 The first was during the Enrichment Voyage cruise, the two weeks when adults are allowed to join Semester at Sea, the program that enables college students to earn credits on board a cruise ship to get global experiences required for their degrees. Whenever we were at sea, the college professors held courses on politics, economics, and geography of the next country we were to visit.

 Before embarking in Sweden, we had just finished a tour of Norway, Finland, and Russia. After a port call in Copenhagen, the cruise ship proceeded to Reykjavik, Iceland. En route to the small fishing town of Isofjodur in western Iceland, we developed chills, fever, colds, and cough. By then, the small clinic on the ship had become as busy as the buffet stations. Some virus was going around. My husband braved a walking tour of the town but, feeling worse, I stayed on the ship, taking photos from the deck. It was good I was well enough to join the excursion at Akureyri in northern Iceland.  

 A Disney Vacation that Didn't Happen

 On the first week of December 2011, we parked our RV in Orlando, Florida, seven miles from Disney World. Finally, at 63, I was going to the theme park for the first time! The next morning, right after breakfast, Bill felt severe chest pains. We hurried to the Urgent Care Center right outside the Resort. They quickly told us to go to the Heart of Florida Hospital, about fifteen minutes away. The surgeon immediately performed an angioplasty, inserting three stents into two of Bill’s arteries, one 100% blocked, the other, 75%.

 Would you believe I had to endure a TV show about preparing for a funeral while in the waiting room? Later, I had to go back and forth between the hospital and the campground when I hardly knew how to drive. I did not know anyone at the Park. Without a support system, within a week, hives broke out all over my body. My dream Disney World vacation turned into a horror story.

 The Consequences of Long Drives

 In 2013 we made a long road trip to visit our children in Idaho, Alberta, Washington, and Colorado. To be more comfortable we opted to take the car and left the RV in storage in Mesa, Arizona. The first stop was Boise, then Calgary. From there to Seattle, my husband drove twelve hours straight. Not even two days later, we left for a nineteen-hour drive to Denver.

 That’s where a painful knot behind my husband’s left knee progressed to his whole left leg, from the hip to his foot, feeling numbness, tightness, and pain. At the nearest hospital, they found several blood clots on that leg. He was given injections to break them down and tablets to thin out his blood. It took a week before the doctors allowed him to drive back home. Again, I had a flare-up of hives. They must be caused by stress. After this incident, we set six hours as our maximum driving time in a day, with a good stop after the first three hours.

 Falling ill during travel is inconvenient at best; it can be tragic at worst. We were lucky that both cardiovascular problems happened in American urban centers. Just imagine how terrifying and costly it would have been if we had been elsewhere where Medicare was not available, the healthcare system was not good enough, and we didn’t know anybody who could help us.

With health issues becoming more serious as we age, there are several things we must do if we want to continue traveling. Our travels should be safe, convenient, and comfortable. We must also keep our insurance up-to-date and comprehensive. But the most important thing is to keep ourselves as healthy as possible, ready to face the rigors of life on the road.