Traveling with Transplant (part 2)

Hi Everyone.  Hope you’re enjoying my Paris blog posts.  I was thinking how lucky we were to have good weather when we were there in late July.  With these scorching temperatures here in California right now, I’m wishing we were back there.

Here are a few more vacation photos and more smart travel tips for the post- transplant population.

How I handle my medications:

• Bring extra pills.  I pack enough for at least an extra week in case I get stuck somewhere.  I also bring them in their original bottles with the label in case I need to get a refill abroad, or TSA questions my pills.

• Get a TSA letter.  Kaiser gives me a letter for TSA so they know why I’m carrying so many bottles of pills.

 

• Carry it on.  Those pills go with me into the plane cabin.  If they are in my checked luggage, I risk losing them, or not taking them on time.  Unlike the movies, I can’t sneak into the cargo area from the passenger compartment, disable a villainous stowaway, retrieve my goods, then return to my seat.  Even when not traveling, I always carry an extra set on my key ring.At one point, we got stuck in Copenhagen, our stopover before our last leg to Paris.  We had printed our boarding passes at the airport, ready and waiting for the gate assignment.  Two hours later, the flight was cancelled.  (We will never fly Norwegian again 😡).  It was a reminder that travel mishaps happen all the time.  Being prepared is just smart.
• Set timer.   When I land, my iPhone switches to local time but my body still thinks it’s in California, and this body needs its medicine every 12 hours – morning pills in the morning, evening pills in the evening.  Setting a timer, in addition to an alarm, confirms the time I need my pills.

  

  countdown until my next set of pills

   

• Know your health coverage when you’re away from home.  How do I get emergency or urgent care outside the U.S.?  What if I still need care after my emergency condition has been stabilized?  How do I report emergency care if I’m outside the U.S.?  Is transportation covered?  I make sure I have all this information and that Kaiser was going to cover any health emergencies when I’m abroad.
• Buy travel insurance.  If you can, get travel insurance in case your trip is interrupted because of a health crisis or other events.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get this because my trip to the emergency after Memorial Day disqualified me from this insurance.  All the more reason I was extra careful to stay healthy.

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That’s pretty much it.  These guidelines are really just that.  They take a little bit more time, but they don’t limit me in any way.   I can do anything that most everyone else can do – Bike, eat, hike, rowboat, even climb the stairs (albeit slowly) at the Eiffel Tower, a 674-step exercise.

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If you’ve been to Paris what was your favorite activity?