Off to London Tomorrow!

As soon as I began to accept the fact that dialysis was my destiny, I began to look ever more earnestly at the world map on my shower curtain. Where in the world should I go for my perhaps-last big adventure? A daunting question.

I immediately thought of New Zealand. How often I have heard wonderful things about New Zealand! Actually, I've never heard a bad word about the place or its people. I bought a guidebook and began to make plans for three or four weeks in a camper van, tooling about either the north or the south island. But a travel agent wondered if I had really thought this through. I'd be a very long way from home, without family or friends. I was already having a rough emotional time of it, wouldn't traveling solo exacerbate my sadness? What if I had a sudden decline or medical emergency? Would my insurance cover me in a foreign country? Who would help me?

Then I thought of taking a road trip in the U.S. One last camping trip. (I'm told camping is still a possibility for peritoneal dialysis patients, but what is meant by that is RVing--definitely not my kind of camping.) But then I thought of how cold it is throughout the country at this time of year. And how much colder it would be sleeping inside my truck, what is essentially a metal box!

About this time, I received an email from Virgin Airlines, touting a hotel-and-airfare deal to London. I asked Aaron if he thought he might be able to get a week off from work, given the circumstances. He spoke with his boss, and she said yes. So I booked the trip--with trip-cancellation and health insurance.

Of course it is impossible to say what the future may hold. I could be fast-tracked for a transplant. I could be the first stem-cell-kidney-replacement patient. I could drop dead tomorrow. I could be fully restored to health. Who knows?

But with peritoneal dialysis, travel is far less spontaneous, as the dialysis supplies are quite cumbersome. A month's worth of dialysis solution and tubing takes up the space of three four-drawer filing cabinets. And the places I would travel would have to provide a sterile environment in which I could conduct the dialysis. So though London may not be my very last trip, it may very well be my last trip without all this excess baggage!