Travel insurance costs an arm and a leg. Because as soon as you're diagnosed with a terminal illness, despite the fact you say you've got no prognosis, some companies just don't want to touch you. I used to have an annual travel insurance and I rang them up and explained the situation and they said, “Oh, that's fine. We'll continue to insure you, but nothing to do with MND.” So I said, “Well, that's no good to me. Because if I fall over and break a leg, I'll say I fell over and broke a leg, and you'll say, 'You did it because you had MND'.” So I have to take out expensive travel insurance. And the MND Association have been very helpful and they provide people who will cover you.
I'd always, there were a couple of must-see places that I wanted to get to. And I got to one of them, I got to the Taj Mahal about five or six months after we were diagnosed, and that was wonderful, just wonderful. But I wouldn't be able to do that kind of holiday now. The other one I'm having to give up on, because I did want to see Machu Picchu and I don't think that that rarefied atmosphere is good for people with breathing difficulties and poor legs. But we've managed to get most of the, you know, we've managed to have regular holidays.
Last year we went to the States for three weeks. I'd lived there as a foreign exchange student for a year and I'd got lots of friends out there still. And my husband had never met the family that I'd lived with. So we had a week in Virginia, a week in Oklahoma, where I'd lived, and a week in Arizona and the Grand Canyon. And that was great. But all the flights put together, including the ones to and from London, didn't cost as much as the travel insurance for the two of us. So you do have to think very carefully about the cost of your holidays. This year for the first time we cruised, because my legs are getting weaker and I can't walk very far. So we went on a cruise up the Norwegian Fjords to the Land of the Midnight Sun. And it was different, but it was lovely, you know, we enjoyed it. And we've just come back from a holiday in Ireland. And we took the car over so that we could put my mobility scooter in the back and have access to that. So, yes, we're making changes, but we're still determined to have time away.
Where's the next holiday?
I don't know, I don't know. I haven't got one yet. I try not to book too far in advance, because I want to be pretty sure how well I'm going to be before I go so. Probably nothing till the New Year now. |
