Laurie is the current organizer of the Albuquerque Solo Women’s Travel Club Meetup* and during the Covid-19 pandemic, she has been hosting Zoom meetings with members. The topic for the March meeting was “How to Handle a Travel Medical Emergency.” Here are a few of the responses.
Have you ever experienced an illness or injury while traveling that required medical attention? What happened, and what did you do? During March's meeting we focused on how to handle a travel medical emergency and how to prepare for most medical eventualities before hitting the road. Eight Solo Women Travelers participated, and here’s what they had to say.
Tracy: In the early 1980s, I was in Cancun on a dinner boat ride with my husband. We were drinking and eating, the usual activities you do during a cruise. Well, my husband drank too much and, at one point, he left our table to visit the “head.” He was gone for a while, so when I went to investigate and opened the door, I saw him sprawled on the floor and writhing in pain. He had slipped, and in that tight space his leg had nowhere to go. He ended up with compound fractures all up his leg and a twisted foot. By the way, I was six months pregnant.
Coincidentally and conveniently, a doctor’s convention was with us on the boat, so there were plenty of physicians to attend to my husband, including an emergency room doctor and an osteopath. We docked in Cancun, where his leg was wrapped in a makeshift cast, but he wasn’t allowed any pain meds because he was so drunk. And Mexico wouldn’t let us leave because the incident happened in Mexican waters. Two days later, we were allowed out on a private plane and the Country of Mexico paid for everything. They even offered my husband champagne on the flight—not a good idea, I thought. When we arrived at D/FW airport, customs thought we were smuggling drugs inside his cast.
Linda: The first time I traveled anywhere from sea level to a high elevation place was to Bogotá, Columbia. I was with my family and I got altitude sickness. (LM: Bogotá sits at 8,675 feet above sea level. There’s a product called ChlorOxygen that’s a chlorophyll concentrate which is supposed to help increase oxygenation. It’s good to start taking it a few days before your trip to a high elevation place.)
Vicky: In 2018, I was on an Avalon River Cruise down the Danube, and my husband and I flew in a few days early to explore Prague. We dropped our luggage at the hotel and started walking. We stopped in a grocery store, and when we were coming out, there was a little step that I didn’t see. I slipped off the step and twisted my ankle, badly! It became really swollen, and I hobbled back to the hotel. The hotel provided ice bags for the two days we were supposed to be exploring Prague. During that time, I tried to negotiate a wheelchair or walker for the boat, but they weren’t allowed. But my ankle was slowly improving. Then I started thinking that all I would need is crutches. The day they were supposed to leave for Nuremberg on the bus to meet up with the cruise, I was able to walk, sort of.
Mary Lou: Always buy accident insurance! Once I was in the Hill Country of Texas riding bicycles, near Fredericksburg, when I went through some water that had made the road I was riding on very slippery and difficult to navigate through. While peddling through the water, I exerted so much effort that I got a compound fracture in one of my legs. I didn’t even fall off the bike; it was my effort alone, trying to get out of the slippery water, that gave me the fracture.
Eve: Once I went to Australia, a very long flight (LM: Los Angeles to Sydney is fifteen hours). I didn’t wear compression stockings, and when I arrived my feet were frighteningly swollen. It took four or five days to recover. After that experience, I never travel on long flights without wearing compression stockings.
Elsa: I’ve caught a few really bad colds while traveling, most memorably in Bermuda and New Zealand. It’s good to know that you can get medicine over the counter in some places for which here in the U.S. you’d need a prescription. The trips I’ve taken often required travelers to purchase medical insurance, and I think it’s a good idea to always have it.
Kalya: When I was young and bumming around Europe, I was hitching near the Arctic circle when I got a respiratory infection. I left the area for Norway and met a person there whose mother kept me in bed and nursed me back to health. In other countries, pharmacists are really helpful in diagnosing problems and providing the right remedies. I’ve gotten la tourista really bad traveling in Oaxaca, Mexico, and it helps that you can get drugs more easily there. Now I have a better sense of my body than I did when I was younger. Once when I was in San Miguel de Allende, I caught myself before tripping on a curb. I started bringing a fold-up cane when I travel and it makes a huge difference. You have to think about your shoes and make sure they’re good for walking.
Laurie: The following is an excerpt from my book Travel for STOICs: Empowering the Solo Traveler Who is Obsessive, Introverted, and Compulsive about a travel injury.
Managing Minor Injuries
While visiting the ancient Mayan site of Uxmal, about an hour-and-a-half drive south of Mérida, desperate for more shade than my hat provided, I wandered into the jungle to cool off and to enjoy a more solo traveler experience. The Yucatán was in its dry season and the trees were parched. Brittle sticks shed from the trees littered the trail leading into the jungle. The sticks snapped and crumbled under my feet, but one of the sturdier ones launched into the air when I stepped on it, and on its trajectory gave me a nasty scratch on the left ankle. I had Band-Aids, of course, in my cross body bag, but when I pulled out the ziploc, I saw that the only shapes left were dots. I had depleted my supply of the bigger rectangular-shaped ones on blisters rubbed while breaking in a pair of new shoes (a traveling no-no; never wear new shoes on a trip if tons of walking is part of the plan). And I realized I’d made a huge planning error referenced earlier (see Appendix A list). I had neglected to bring an antibacterial ointment. I washed the area with drinking water, let it air-dry, and when the wound started bleeding again, applied two of the dot Band-Aids. I wasn’t going to let this minor injury put a halt to exploring the jungle, but the scratch wouldn’t stop bleeding and the dots weren’t doing their job. So I headed back to Uxmal’s entrance, leaving a trail of blood behind me and invoking Stoic indifference.
Whatever happens was bound to happen, so refrain from railing at nature.
—Seneca
When entering Uxmal, as with most monuments worldwide, first you are herded past several gift shops that, in addition to souvenirs, offer a variety of overpriced provisions and emergency supplies like headache remedies, antacids, Band-Aids, and antibacterial wipes. I was confident I could take care of the problem, thanks to one of these shops, and be back in the jungle in a few minutes. As the gift shops came into view, I saw a bare-legged elderly man sitting on a bench. His skin was as white as mine and his legs were covered in long red scratches, some of them dripping blood: in that instant, trivializing my single little scratch. Regardless, I wanted to take care of it as soon and as quickly as possible. Looking at him created a mirror effect, and if he’d had an amputated leg, I would have believed I did, too. I felt a wash of panic. Stoic indifference wasn’t working. A friend I’d made back at the hacienda in Mérida had relayed a story about a teeny scratch of hers turning into blood poisoning, and I couldn’t shove that possibility out of my mind.
Desolation comes when we are bereft of help.
—Epictetus
A Stoically indifferent response would go something like this: I’m still alive, my life is not immediately threatened, and blood poisoning is not the reality I’m experiencing. My inner Seneca spoke up:
Let us face up to the blows of circumstance and be aware that whatever happens is never as serious as worry makes it out to be.
The more I stole glances at the elderly man with the julienned legs, the more Stoic indifference lost its grip. Soon Alan Rickman overwhelmed Seneca and shouted, “YOU’RE GOING TO GET BLOOD POISONING, DO SOMETHING!” I tried my best to respond rationally, and Seneca made a brief reappearance.
This prompts me to marvel at our madness in cleaving with great affection to such a fleeting thing as the body, and in fearing lest some day we may die, when every instant means the death of our previous condition.
Not surprising, STOICs can be germ- and injury-phobic. I’m mostly not that way, but blood poisoning seems particularly disagreeable. It can be easy to acquire, like from a hair that gets stuck under a fingernail or an ingrown toenail that’s trimmed too severely. Or it can happen from the inside-out, like from a small bone fracture. Sinister! Surprisingly, the two gift shops stocked no emergency essentials, only the usual touristy coffee cups, t-shirts, and mini monuments. Exiting the second gift shop, I scanned the area for other options. The man with the scratched legs was still sitting on the bench. Across from him and nestled in between a tourist information office and a place to buy bottled water was the narrow entrance to a first aid station. I wondered why he didn’t avail himself of their services and wondered if he silently scorned me for doing so. I made “the worst rarely happens in actuality” my mantra for the moment. I tried my hardest not to catastrophize. The panic subsided, but only a little.
The entrance to the first aid station opened into a large room fully equipped to handle any Uxmal emergency: defibrillators, splints to set broken bones of people who have tumbled down the pyramids’ narrow stairways, an ominous-looking gurney for things more serious, a dated x-ray machine—a mix of old medical equipment and new technology. The room was painted a bilious green color reminding me of the doctors’ offices of my childhood. A friendly receptionist greeted me, and a handsome medic named Luis immediately came to my aid. I sat on a padded table, also bilious green, covered with white crepe paper, the kind that sticks to the backs of your legs and rustles loudly every time you shift around. Reminiscent of the sounds of the leaves in the dry Yucatán forest.
To call attention to my trivial injury and to use precious resources when the man outside appeared to be bleeding to death reddened my face. On the other hand, I was excited by the opportunity to apply one of my Five Essential Phrases (which I describe in detail a bit later; see “Using a New Language”) to communicate an apology for the trouble. Lo siento mucho. I added “mucho” for emphasis. Eyes lowered, Luis either ignored the remark or was stifling a laugh because of my bad pronunciation. He treated me as if I were a delicate flower that any swift move or too much pressure would crush. He spent a good thirty seconds examining the scratch from all angles (more embarrassment), gently palpated the ankle for swelling, pondered it for a while longer, then produced three ancient-looking glass jars containing cotton ball-soaked substances. He cleaned the wound with what smelled like alcohol, applied what I think was iodine, then liberally applied a gooey substance I assume was an antibacterial. He covered the scratch with a big, thick Band-Aid and a long, wide piece of sticky white tape to keep out moisture. Total overkill.
When the procedure was finished, I felt that opened-floodgate release of tension that happens when you realize you’ve dodged another bullet and everything’s going to be okay. Serenity restored, momentarily. Then I remembered I was short on cash and asked the receptionist, “¿Cuanto cuesta?” Number three on the Five Essential Phrases list: “How much does this cost?” She gave me a funny look and said, “Nada.” All I needed to do was to sign a paper saying I’d been treated by Luis, and I was on my way. That was it.
Upon every accident, remember to turn towards yourself and inquire what faculty you have to deal with it. If you encounter a handsome person, you will find continence the faculty needed; if pain, then fortitude; if reviling, then patience. And when thus habituated, the phenomena of existence will not overwhelm you.
—Epictetus
* The “Solo Women” in the name means women who live on their own but want to travel with other women.