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Monday, 13 June 2022

Honeymoon!!

Well, with about six months of complicated planning, my husband and I were finally able to go on a honeymoon! We got married in 2018, so a few years late, but who cares? Hehe. 

Traveling while ill and on disability gets complicated. 
For one, I need permission if I want to leave the country. So 6 months prior to our proposed honeymoon dates, I made sure to get permission from my insurance company. 
I also needed to organize out-of-country medical insurance. There's the usual medical insurance you can purchase that covers all accidental plus for pre-existing conditions, but only if those conditions are stable 90 days before traveling. That means no changes to medications, no doctor's appointments, no trips to urgent care - so that wasn't going to work. So I purchased a plan that covered all of my pre-existing conditions - even if they are not considered stable. It was a good thing too, because my thyroid medication dosage changed, I wound up in urgent care for dehydration, and I needed refills of medications right before leaving. 
Next on the list was to make sure I was fully prepared for swelling episodes. That meant learning how to give myself my own IV infusions and bringing loads of extra plasma with me. 
Then we had to look into wheelchair rentals abroad. Seeing as I am only an ambulatory wheelchair user, I did not want to bring my expensive wheelchair on a flight, but wheelchair rentals would have cost us nearly $800 for the two weeks. So, instead, we bought a basic wheelchair from Walmart for a couple hundred bucks and brought it with us. This was, by far, the best choice for having a wheelchair with us. Also, luckily for me, the programs at the airports to help transport me from one gate to the next were actually quite well organized. They organized me to pre-board, and someone was always ready to help. It was a bit chaotic at times, but because RJ could push me in a wheelchair, and I could walk short distances using my cane, it made things easier. 
Then I had to organize all of the paperwork to travel. Notes from physicians and insurance approving the trip, letters outlining the medications and supplies I need to carry, medical coverage information, phone numbers, emergency contacts, lists upon lists upon lists.... We wound up having 5 carry-ons between us: Rj's one carry-on, my basic carry-on, my small purse, and two large cases filled with medication. We had to bring so much extra in case we had caught Covid and had to quarantine abroad, or if we were delayed. The good part is that I used so much medication that I only had one bag full of meds on the way home. 

The trip itself was fantastic. 
I found a good balance and routine where if I used my wheelchair one day, I would have enough energy to walk with my cane mostly the next day, then the wheelchair the day after that, and so on. We also found using ride-share e-bikes and e-scooters monumentally helpful for transportation within the city and to and from the metro stations. Denmark is very well set up for accessibility. We had quite a few issues with the wheelchair in both Stockholm and Estonia - in the old towns with cobblestone streets. That became quite frustrating and overwhelming, and after the port in Estonia I broke down in tears, entirely overwhelmed by the difficulty. 

I wasn't sure I would ever be able to travel out of country again, essentially because of all of the planning and permissions required to do so. That is one of the many reasons we decided to go all-out for this honeymoon. We are incredibly grateful and thrilled with our first true vacation together. 






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