Travel?

[Marge]

I know this is way way down on the scale of concerns, probably, but it is something I cannot help wondering about.
I had retired from a pretty active practice as an attorney and was caring for my mom, who died earlier this year. My husband and I had extensive travelling plans (it is what we like to do but of course with my mom's welfare at stake we could not; I am an only child & she had no one else).
She died in June of 2003. Within a couple months after that (early October), out of the blue, comes this diagnosis of congestive heart failure/DCM. (I hadn't a clue--went to see my PCP mainly 'cause I was depressed and not sleeping well since my mom's death.)
We cancelled a 10-day trip we had planned for Mexico in December, on my cardiologist's advice--he wanted me stabilized on medications first--as well as plane tickets we had for Great Britain next March.
And now I'm looking at the possibility of a mitral valve surgery. I do want this surgery, if it will stop further damage to my weakened heart muscle.
I know that there is a LONG recuperation period. But I was just wondering, though: after the recuperation period, is travel still a possibility? Do you guys who have had valve surgery travel?I don't mean a weekend trip to visit the in-laws, I mean places like France, Britain, Italy, Europe generally?
I could forego the third world countries 'cause I probably need to be somewhere where there are cardiologists within reach--but I'd still like to get in SOME of those long-postponed trips!
Hope this is not too frivolous a query.

 

[HFK]

Yes, I have traveled to Italy,Mexico,and P. Rico since my valve surgery. Would not go to places like India or any other 3rd world places because of poor medical care. Mexico is a risk and I wouldn't stay long,but it isn't so far away like India or some other places.It 's always scary traveling with underlying health problems. HFK

 

[Nancy]

Many, many people here travel. The only thing you would probably have to be careful about would be countries with iffy medical care. You wouldn't want to have serious problems where things are primitive and care is based on your ability to pay up front and through the nose. Plus those countries cannot get up to date medications, surgical devices, or even doctors etc, etc. And if you get too ill to fly home, well, not a happy prospect. But you already know that.

Certainly get fixed up before you go anywhere. After that, enjoy your life.

 

[DuchessBear]

I am one of the travelers here, and have gone as far away as Thailand since my surgery. At first, I had some trepidation about getting too far away from Western medicine, but now would not hesitate to go farther afield. As long as your condition is pretty good and you are stable, go for it!

3 things you should have, though -- good general medical insurance, evacuation insurance, and a medic-alert necklace/bracelet of some kind. Evacuation policies can be quite expensive on a per trip basis, but if you have the Medic-Alert brand of ID, you can add a travel assistance package to your membership for $99/year. It's not really insurance, but will provide evacuation and other emergency travel assistance any time you are more than 50 miles from home. The program is administered by Traveler's Emergency Network (TEN) and you can buy the same packate directly from them (tenweb.com), although at a higher price. I bought from TEN for several years before my surgery.

Happy Trails

 

[Georgia]

I took a ten day cruise abotu 7.5 months after surgery. And oh, baby - was it wonderful! I was a little afraid of going way out to sea, etc., so chose a NYC to Montreal cruise. Figured I was always close enough to land to get plucked off the ship by a helicopter.

I would have no problems traveling to England or Ireland or anywhere in Canada or most european countries. A lot of folks travel on business and have found places to have protime checks or take their own machines with them.

You sound like you're pretty close to where I was a year ago. It's amazing how fast you feel better after surgery. And although I don't think I'm really as good as I'll get, I think I'm pretty close. I did pretty well trotting around in port during the cruise, and I wasn't too tired.

The sooner you have surgery the better, methinks. The surgery's tough, but you're tougher - and life really starts over.

 

[Les]

All excellent advice and info here. Have traveled extensively all over the world and while I wouldn't have preferred medical services available in some Asian and Middle Eastern countries, I never worried or really thought about it. Business and life as usual is how I live. Travel on...and enjoy!

 

[Jan]

Travel

Travel

Hi Marge

I live in the UK and had Aortic Valve Replacement on January 2nd 2002 ( mechanical valve so need to take coumadin )

On March 1st 2002 I travelled to the USA for a holiday ( it was planned before the surgery )

Lucky for me my recovery was uneventful,I was a little nervous about mt INR but had it checked while in the USA and all was well

As other members have advised make sure you have a good Travel Insurance Policy,and wear a Medic Alert ID

I do not think I would travel to any third world countries,but that is just a personal view

We have travelled to the USA many times since and thankfully have had no problems

Take Care

Jan

 

[bvdr]

I have traveled around a good portion of the world too. I have no plans to change that at this time.

I don't think I'll ever go hot air ballooning in Mexico again though. Last time it was too windy and we missed our landing area. We had to do what they called a "bush braking" to land. They brushed the bottom of the basket along the tops of trees to slow it down and then we went down really hard into the middle of a school playground. I already had a bad back before then but that is the event that propelled me into some major back surgery.

Any alterations in travel plans at this point would be more due to being on coumadin than having heart problems. Even that however is minimized because I home test.

 

[Marge]

Thank you all!

Thank you all!

This site is GREAT. I am sooooo grateful I found it. You people are terrific. Just reading about your experiences is awesome. The other site (for CHF/DCM) I was at had wonderful people but not much about valves.
I am really grateful for the replies. It is very encouraging.

 

[Tom Harrison]

travel

travel

My situation is similar to yours. I was looking forward to an early retirement filled with travel all over the world. Then became ill, had the surgery in Feb 2002. Since then have stayed close to home but now have a trip to Costa Rica planned for February and England and France in May. Since many of us discovered we had a problem through a heart infection is there a greater risk of re infecting the heart with wide ranging travel??

 

[RunMartin]

Travel Insurance ????

Travel Insurance ????

Travel is one of the things I have been thinking about. Is travel insurance a lot more expensive after AVR and the need for Coumadin???

Martin

 

[catwoman]

Marge:

I travel quite a bit on weekends showing cats, mostly U.S. I had surgery 6/24/03, flew first time post-op 8/8. Had help with luggage. Flew again 8/29-31, 9/12-14, 9/26-28, 10/11-13, 10/14-19, 10/31-11/1, 11/20-23 and 12/5-8.
With the first 4 trips, I had horrible flight delays, including a 4-hour one 8/29. I was only working half-time and still needing naps. My flight was at 7 p.m., so a nap was pretty much out, what with getting home from work & getting to airport before rush hour. My flight finally left about 11:15-11:30 p.m. Luckily it was only about 1.25 hours, but it wasl 3 a.m. before I got to sleep.
My flight 10/11 was to Southern California and jet lag was worst in 13 years of air travel. Wanted a motorized cart by Saturday afternoon. My trip last weekend was back to S. California and I had no problem with jet lag. Even took a red-eye back and was at my desk by 7:45 a.m. Monday.

Biggest factors to consider are flight delays, ground transportation, time differences, accessibility of getting routine medical tests. If you go with a tissue valve, your doctors may put you on warfarin for up to 3-12+ months. I have a PT/INR machine now, so I could take mine over an extended weekend.
Fellow passengers have been wonderful -- getting my luggage out of the overhead, off the baggage carousel.

Of course, overseas travel will be more involved, what with customs, etc. I haven't flown overseas yet, just to Mexico City & Toronto twice, so I have had to deal with those kind of delays.

I would think you could begin to consider vacationing overseas about 3-4 months post-op, if everything goes OK during surgery & recuperation. Just pamper yourself, allow more time for connections and don't push it. You may feel like you're normal one day, then overdo it and be too tired the next day to enjoy the sights.

 

[The Bionic Duo]

I certainly hope not--if we ever have time and money in the same place we plan to travel as much as we can.

We have traveled some since his AVR mostly to Nevada and other places in CA with his golf league but we really want to take a cruise or two to Europe, and he would like to take a return to trip to Veitnam to close some old wounds, but I'm not too sure of that right now.

We are in the process of getting a home tester for his coumadin therapy and I think that gives mechanical valvers a lot of freedom they would not otherwise have--don't you just love high tech.

Joan