Traveling with chronic Illness: Stories explore the ups and downs

It’s a pleasure to have four of my stories published over the past few months in three different anthologies. Each story, in its own way, explores the theme of traveling with chronic illness. That’s something I think about often as a stroke survivor and autoimmune patient chained to a steady diet of blood thinners to prevent another stroke.

I was the unlikeliest adventure traveler, having no real experience – and zero physical aptitude – for Indiana Jones style adventuring. All I had was heart, a taste for adventure, and a desire to see the world.  The stories tell what happened then.

Here’s where you can find them:

  • “Bali Shadows” and “Authentication Failed” appear in the travel anthology Wandering in Bali: A Tropical Paradise Discovered
  • “Toboggans and Bouzouki Music” appears in the juried anthology Travel Stories from Around the Globe by Bay Area Travel Writers
  • “Why I Still Travel to the Wild” appears in the anthology Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness, 101 Stories about Finding Your Purpose, Passion, and Joy

Here’s a link to purchase the books: http://bit.ly/Nj0fAF

And here are a few excerpts:

“Having flunked jump rope in seventh grade, having washed out of college PE, no one–least of all me–could have predicted that I’d marry an intrepid adventure traveler and follow him on wild jungle treks across crocodile infested rivers … I was new to exotic travel, tentatively following (my husband) Jack’s lead. In the years since, Jack and I had slogged through jungles and deserts on six continents. We’d tracked leopards in Botswana and grizzlies in Alaska. Bali would be an easy trip down memory lane. Now, my only fear was for my health.”

(Excerpt from “Bali Shadows”)

“I was different now: I’d had a stroke at forty-eight, a cataclysm that left me unemployed, memory-challenged, dependent on scary-high levels of blood-thinner, particularly vulnerable wherever medical care was thin.”

(Excerpt from “Why I Still Travel to the Wild”)

“When I talked about starting to travel again travel–especially to the adventure destinations Jack and I loved–my doctors cautioned me sternly: get plenty of rest, take it easy, avoid overheating, avoid dehydration, infection, accidents and, above all, never, ever hit my head. Adventure travel in my state of health, they seemed to imply, was like a 15-year-old with a learner’s permit competing in the Indy 500.

(Excerpt from “Toboggans and Bouzouki Music”)

Have you ever had qualms about traveling with a chronic illness?