Traveling & CF

Everyone wants to travel the world, I mean you'd be a fool not to, right? Yet this fun loving disease makes even going to another CITY difficult, not just a road trip! Traveling anywhere as a Cystic can be very hectic. You have to double check your meds and count to make sure you have enough for the entire trip. If not you need to make arrangements with your pharmacy, doctors, and insurance. Then comes the heavy lifting depending on your personal treatment methods. I know most younger Cystic's use the VEST! Which it is portable and comes in many different forms now, however, that is not the point. Along with Oxygen tanks if you are like me and are a Cystic that needs to have oxygen either all the time, at night to sleep, or just as needed. Making sure you are FULL and have enough hours on your tank for however long your trip may be. Depending on where and how long you will be gone you will also need to prepare a cooler with ice packs for your meds that need to stay refrigerated!

♥When I was younger we got the "first" VEST and I was trying it out to see if I liked it, which I didn't. I had a cheerleading competition in the northern part of WV. It was about a 3 hour drive to get there and had to stay overnight. So of course we had to lug this thing with us. It was huge, bulky, loud, and very annoying. The best part was when my friends decided they all wanted to try it all. One thing leads to another and we ended up making prank phone calls and even ordering pizza with it on. If you are familiar with the old school VEST or even the new ones they are very funny to wear, and shakes your entire body. Making your voice sound really weird and robotic-ish.

♡Nebulizer's all have to be packed and somehow keep them sanitary. I always carry antibacterial gels of some type or Lysol. Packing them in a zip lock baggy will also help keep them clean and safe away from anything you may have rubbed against the actual mouth piece of your nebs. The best is when you are flying on a trip. Your nebulizer is easily taken apart and makes it a little more mobile. Yet while in a suitcase being scanned looks like it could possibly be a bomb or some type of terrorist machinery. I never get away clean I am always stopped, everything is searched and asked before getting on a plane. Or the luggage that get sent under the plan has the sticker stating that they had to search the bag.

I have a separate set of meds that I consider to be "travel meds" so I won't need to go through the crazy hassle of taking them all and putting them in and out of a bag and so forth.

★What I do is actually really easy and simple depending on how often you are hospitalized. However, I am normally in the hospital for 10-14 days several times a year. While at home, I have all of my medication sitting there not being taken because the hospital supplies my meds. So I take the unused ones and put them in the same bottles that I would normally just throw away after being finished with the med, just so they are marked correctly and legally! I have a specific bag for traveling and I will put them in that bag. No need to waste medication if they are perfectly good and do not expire. Just be careful if you do this to make sure you know the expiration date. You can do this with vials as well, such as albuteral.

Traveling and seeing everything we can is very important to most Cystic's I have ever met. We want to get out and see everything we can. It is a tricky and long drawn out process, but it is also worth it. 

♥I have been able to go to 20 of the 50 states in the US and cannot wait to travel to the other 30! I know I will one day I just do not know when! 

The time spent is worth packing up everything CF related, dealing with doing treatments in the middles of your days, making sure meds are still taken on time, and trying to get in as much chest PT as possible! As I prefer hands on chest PT and not the VEST so that gets complicated!

Travel, live life, and always carry an emergency inhaler!!
  Sandi

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