Air Travel with an AAA

I want to answer this from lived experience, not theory. I dissected while traveling. I was away from home, away from my doctors, and away from any system that knew me. That matters more than most people realize. Air travel can increase stress and blood pressure even when everything goes smoothly. Long walks in airports, rushing to connections, lifting luggage, dehydration, disrupted sleep, anxiety, and prolonged sitting all push your body in the wrong direction when you have an aneurysm. A 5.4 cm AAA is already in the range where we talk seriously about rupture risk, and anything that spikes blood pressure increases that risk. Being far from home when something goes wrong adds an entirely different layer of danger. When my aortic dissection happened, I was not near my medical providers. No one knew my history. No one had my records. I had to rely on strangers to figure out what was happening while the clock was ticking. A dissection is not forgiving of delays. Every minute matters.

I’ll share a bit of my own experience. I dissected while traveling and ended up needing emergency open-heart surgery. The hospital bill in California was about $1.4 million. My Minnesota health insurer fought paying it. I survived the surgery, but the insurance battle dragged on long after I should have been focused on recovery. Not all health insurance policies fully cover out-of-state or out-of-network emergencies, especially at the level of care an aortic catastrophe requires. That financial stress becomes part of the trauma. Getting medical care in a distant location is also harder than people expect. Emergency teams may not immediately recognize an aortic dissection, especially if symptoms are atypical. Communication between hospitals, insurers, and your home physicians is slow and fragmented. Without your own cardiologist, vascular surgeon, or primary team nearby, coordinating imaging, surgical decisions, and follow-up becomes much more complicated.

There is also the reality of air travel itself. A dissection in midair would be a disaster. There is no rapid imaging, no blood pressure control, no surgical team, and no way to shorten the timeline. Even the fastest diversion still leaves you hours behind where you need to be. I am not saying people with aneurysms can never travel. I am saying that once you cross into higher-risk territory, especially with a measurement like 5.4, the margin for error gets very small. Long international flights magnify every risk factor at once.

This isn’t meant to scare you. It’s meant to be honest. Knowing the risks allows you to make informed decisions, plan carefully, and have serious conversations with your vascular team before committing to something as demanding as international travel. I survived a Type A aortic dissection in 2015 and emergency surgery with a Dacron graft. That experience permanently changed how I think about travel, timing, distance, and preparedness. I would not want anyone else to learn these lessons the hard way. Peace.

I want to answer this from lived experience, not theory. I dissected while traveling. I was away from home, away from my doctors, and away from any system that knew me. That matters more than most people realize. Air travel can increase stress and blood pressure even when everything goes smoothly. Long walks in airports, rushing to connections, lifting luggage, dehydration, disrupted sleep, anxiety, and prolonged sitting all push your body in the wrong direction when you have an aneurysm. A 5.4 cm AAA is already in the range where we talk seriously about rupture risk, and anything that spikes blood pressure increases that risk. Being far from home when something goes wrong adds an entirely different layer of danger. When my aortic dissection happened, I was not near my medical providers. No one knew my history. No one had my records. I had to rely on strangers to figure out what was happening while the clock was ticking. A dissection is not forgiving of delays. Every minute matters.

I’ll share a bit of my own experience. I dissected while traveling and ended up needing emergency open-heart surgery. The hospital bill in California was about $1.4 million. My Minnesota health insurer fought paying it. I survived the surgery, but the insurance battle dragged on long after I should have been focused on recovery. Not all health insurance policies fully cover out-of-state or out-of-network emergencies, especially at the level of care an aortic catastrophe requires. That financial stress becomes part of the trauma. Getting medical care in a distant location is also harder than people expect. Emergency teams may not immediately recognize an aortic dissection, especially if symptoms are atypical. Communication between hospitals, insurers, and your home physicians is slow and fragmented. Without your own cardiologist, vascular surgeon, or primary team nearby, coordinating imaging, surgical decisions, and follow-up becomes much more complicated.

There is also the reality of air travel itself. A dissection in midair would be a disaster. There is no rapid imaging, no blood pressure control, no surgical team, and no way to shorten the timeline. Even the fastest diversion still leaves you hours behind where you need to be. I am not saying people with aneurysms can never travel. I am saying that once you cross into higher-risk territory, especially with a measurement like 5.4, the margin for error gets very small. Long international flights magnify every risk factor at once.

This isn’t meant to scare you. It’s meant to be honest. Knowing the risks allows you to make informed decisions, plan carefully, and have serious conversations with your vascular team before committing to something as demanding as international travel. I survived a Type A aortic dissection in 2015 and emergency surgery with a Dacron graft. That experience permanently changed how I think about travel, timing, distance, and preparedness. I would not want anyone else to learn these lessons the hard way. Peace.