Things have been going reasonably well recently – the last scans didn’t show too much deterioration, and as my wife is not having any active treatment, we decided to take a trip to Venice at half term.
The biggest hurdle is always travel insurance – anyone who tries to get this while under a cancer diagnosis will understand how tough it is. And how expensive. In the UK, a regular trip would cost say £30 – if you are ill, or have been ill, or have a diagnosis, you can times that by at least 10. And forget going any further than Italy, Spain or the Canary Islands – that is out of the question. It is a big source of stress in itself – you need a change of scenery, but cant afford to pay, especially as one of you is not working. Effectively you get penalised twice – once for having the illness, and then once if you try to do anything. It really isn’t fair.
We have found a reasonable supplier now – Boots have been good for us recently – however we will need to see what it is like when she is back having active treatment.
So we had insurance, we had tickets, and now hoped her to be OK. Thankfully she was – and so we packed our bags and woke the kids up ridiculously early to get our flight!
The next main problem with travelling with my wife is that she now gets very tired easily. We have to be very conscious of this – we have to factor in breaks during the day, we have to ensure she gets a good nights sleep and gets to bed on time. All things that you will be aware of from having kids! But this is serious – she can get confused easily when tired, but wants to be doing the same things she was before all this started – not easy after all her body has been through.
We also need to ensure she can keep warm – she finds it hard to regulate her temperature, and so if we are out late, or in the rain, we have to be extremely careful. And a cold weekend in Venice was one such place to keep an eye on.
However, the benefits of breaks away outweigh the tough sides. We needed to get away from home – there are too many reminders of everything there. And despite struggling with money, we will make this work to at least have a short time away. The pizza and pasta were good, as was the red wine and ice cream!