Air travel & insurance in Stage IV and Metastatic Breast Cancer

Sharmal, I have only bone mets but I travel all the time for work, etc. I will fly across the Atlantic Ocean three times this year and twice across the Caribbean Sea. I am talking Xeloda now and still figuring out how it will all work with the travel.

If it is my vacation I just get travel insurance. If it is for business they deal with the insurance.

You can travel without insurance. You are just risking that if something goes wrong you may lose a hotel deposit, or need to pay the change fee for the airline. Singapore is a place where if she has trouble you can go to the hospital and get help. My doctor and I only worry slightly if I am going to someplace where there isn't cell phone service or good medical care.

Please, if your Mom is feeling up to it, go on vacation!! Please!!!

You can and should get travel insurance. Just be sure to get it as soon as you book the flight. Read up on line about different insurance, it is pretty easy to understand. Usually companies that refund money for any cancellation reason require that the insuarance is purchased at the time the trip is planned and not later.

And enjoy the trip. How nice to spend time like this with your mom. You are a good daughter.

Hello, I'm 65 yes old with mets to lung. I'm resting in my room in Paris at this very minute....getting ready to board the Fast Train to take a wine river tour. My travel insurance is through Alliance. Hopefully your mom feels well enough to take a nice trip. My flight was 9 hours, but I was able to lie flat...trying to sleep.

Hopefully I will not need to use my travel insurance....and your Mom won't eithe

Sharmal, oops, I had thought you were a daughter! And yes, you are a good, kind and considerate son to be active in your mom's life most especially at this time as she deals withh mbc.

Just a note about travel insurance. Before you shell out for that, check your credit card. Most of them have some kind of travel protection plan, and if you have a higher end card the benefits can be quite generous. In any event it's nice to know there is a backup for the travel insurance.

And you are a wonderful son, I hope you and your mother make epic memories for a lifetime.

You can get Travel insurance if you book it within 14 days of deposit. You should get an oncologist approval first. I recommend Travelguard.

Sharmal,

I imagine that airline security staff see dozens of ports a day. That said, here's what the American Society for Clinical Oncology states on its website about screening:

"If you have a port or catheter. You will need to tell the security officer about your port or catheter before screening begins and let them know where it is located. You may have to go through additional screening. If this involves a pat-down, be sure to tell the officer if touching the port or catheter could cause pain or a medical complication."

I hope this is reassuring and that you take your trip soon!

Tina

The one caveat about traveling internationally with Stage IV is if you are traveling from a country with excellent national universal health care to one like the U.S. with a for-profit system. (Our Medicare will not cover foreign tourists because they didn’t pay into the fund during their working lives). We Yanks usually have no trouble buying travel medical insurance because almost any other country to which we fly will have cheaper and more accessible care—even for tourists—than we do here. Here’s an example. A fellow American passenger on the Rhine leg of our river cruise through Germany took a fall and then fainted the next morning. He was helicoptered off the ship and rejoined us at our next port by dinner time. His medical bill was all of 80 euros, inclusive. Had that happened on a Mississippi River cruise, he’d have been out of pocket at least 20 times as much.

There have been instances of UK Stage IV patients unable to buy a travel medical insurance policy for travel to the States, except at a one-time premium that exceeds by multiple factors the entire cost of their trip—or by crossing their fingers and hoping they won’t get sick or injured over here or if they do, they can be affordably airlifted home in time.