Your best traveling tips

@jagto
John,
You must be a real fighter to have gotten through heart transplant, not to mention an incredible care team. If others join our group who have gone through the same battle can we ask you to join in the conversation? Wow a heart transplant that's so amazing, what a blessing.
Jolinda

@jasgto
Hi John. I want to welcome you to Connect. I am happy to hear that you are doing well after your heart transplant. I invite you to be a part of our transplant discussions as we share our experiences and support each other.
Thanks for posting your list of travel suggestions. Have you been able to do much traveling since your transplant?

If you are traveling to another time zone, and will be there for an extended period (couple of weeks), remember that your meds are taken 12 hrs apart. Keep your watch to home local time and take them based on that. In addition to the others' suggestions, take along some latex gloves, and basic first aid kit that includes allowed pain relievers and upset tummy relievers. Yes to the medication list, contact numbers for Dr's. And most of all, enjoy yourself! You've earned It!
Ginger

I will nudge my medicine time by intervals before my trip if it is in another time zone so that is works out to be on my regular time of day sequence. (8AM; 8PM). I discussed this with my transplant dept. and it works for me. But one time I nudged it in the wrong direction! Boy was that ever a mess to figure out - won't do that again!
Of course, I have to readjust when I return home.

FYI - I just returned home from our annual trip and when we collected our "Hold" mail, there was a Prograf kit waiting for me!

Happy and Safe Travels to all!

We have been traveling some but all by car. I finally got the courage to make plane reservations to see my daughter across country only to have the fires out west result in air advisories and had to cancel the trip. Hopefully in the spring we will try it again.

We are only driving a few hours from home and staying in our timezone. It's a good "training" trip! Lol

@jasgto Great, comprehensive list. I have a page from my post-transplant with allowable and unallowable medications that I keep a copy of with me.
I have never thought to have a letter from my transplant department, probably not a bad idea though. I have flown a number of times since my transplant and so far not had a problem but you never know when you might.

I have been told to not eat from buffets at all, and I do not. Not only could germs in the air get on the food, but often the foods are not kept at optimal temperatures. I will eat the yogurt in containers, and bananas. Funny story -- we are going to Charleston next month so I called one of the interesting sounding hotels to find out if their included breakfast was a buffet. The young woman on the phone said no, so I then said you order and it is brought to you? She said no, it's all set out and you go up and serve yourself! HUH? Ironically, the yogurt on the breakfast is out in big bowls so I couldn't even have eaten that.

When we get to our hotel, if we are staying at one, I always buy a gallon of water to have in our room, or more depending on how long we will be there. I also bring my own plastic cups. I don't trust the drinking glasses in hotel rooms after things I have read.
I have read that the coffee makers in hotel rooms are hotbeds of germs, they are never really cleaned, so I never use them. When we were in NYC a couple of weeks ago I would go down to the lobby to buy coffee, or step outside to a store that had great coffee. I have only worn a mask on airplanes but I can see that they might be useful in crowded places also.

Disinfectant, disinfectant, disinfectant! Not only the ones for your purse, but also to wipe down the room. I must admit, I have not been as vigilant about that as I should be. I will be on our trip in October. The first half of that will be at my son's new house in Denver so I can relax more there. His gf is a nurse and super-vigilant. When she gets home from the hospital she heads right to the shower to not have any germs on her.

Have a great time. Are you flying or going to a driveable location?

JK

@jodeej When we went to Hawaii last year I just kept taking my medications on EST, and set my alarm for the middle of the night to take them. Now I realize that at home I was taking my immunosuppressants with food but taking them in the middle of the night I was not, which effects the level of the drugs in your system. Next time I may have to figure out a better plan. That seemed easy at the time.
JK

@jodeej It sounds like your husband must be doing very well for you to be traveling. That's great. MGH was pretty strict. I think they didn't want me to travel for six months in the country, and a year out of the country. The in-country was probably flying though.
We were considering Bermuda at one point and I did get my surgeon to say that would probably be OK since it's only about a two-hour flight and they have excellent medical care there. At MGH all travel questions have to go through a Doctor who handles infectious diseases.
JK

@contentandwell my brother-in-law lives in Hawaii and Kat time he was back he didn't adjust times either due to it only being for a week. I'm sure he didn't think about the fact that he was taking a dose at 1:00 a.m.