What have I learned from my travels?

It’s a weird thing this travelling lark sometimes! We left Rarotonga for home on Friday afternoon, got back here (Christchurch) and it was Saturday night, but we couldn’t switch off and stayed up past midnight. So, that would mean that we got up for breakfast on Friday, travelled to Christchurch to arrive on Saturday and went to bed on Sunday!!! My poor body clock must wonder what the heck is going on!!

Every time we travel, I seem to find a little something different to think about and manage.

Here’s some of the things I learned about travelling as a Parkies person on this trip.

• Keep taking your medications as you would at home. The two countries were only a day apart, with Rarotonga being a day behind New Zealand. So, I kept taking my medications as if I was in New Zealand, so on Raro Friday, I would be taking NZ Saturday meds, which seemed to work. That way, when we returned home to NZ I was on the right meds for the right day.
• Anxiety is not logical. As an example, we went snorkeling a couple of times during our trip. This has always been a highlight of our trips to Rarotonga. However, this time for some completely illogical reason, tucked deep within my weird Parkies brain, I reacted in a totally illogical way. We were sitting in the shallows, and I had to get my husband to help me put my flippers on. I just couldn’t reach, probably partly because my chubby body was in my way. Anyway, he was helping me put the flippers on and my legs started to sort of float up and I felt like I was going to flip over – or something – I’m not sure what I was then feeling or experiencing, and I freaked out and made my husband hold my legs down. Note, here I was in very shallow water! Absolutely, no logic at all to how I reacted. I got so anxious, it was ridiculous. It was like a panic attack and made no sense at all. Then when it came to my mask, I couldn’t seem to get it on as pulling it over my hair proved tricky. So, I needed his help with that. Then when we started to actually start snorkeling properly, I just couldn’t calm my breathing down. Much as I tried to focus on my breathing and relax, I could to a degree but couldn’t slow it down to a completely calm and natural rhythm. This made me tire more quickly and I had to head into the shallows again to take a break from time to time. Previously, I had been able to snorkel for quite a while before needing a break.
• My husband is my comfort and my safe place. He was very patient with me during the ‘getting ready to snorkel’ fiasco as outlined above, but he couldn’t understand why I was freaking out so much. Neither, for the record, could I! When I was all set up with my gear on, we proceeded to snorkel. I made him promise to keep me in sight at all times, because when I couldn’t see him, I did start to get anxious. This is such a change from previous trips where I would happily snorkel for ages and happy to be doing my own thing while my husband did his. Anxiety is becoming part of the ‘package’ for my Parkinson’s it would seem. I am having a review soon with the Parkinson’s Nurse and will discuss whether it would be a good idea to have some kind of anxiety medication on board to help keep it under control.
• Being at the mercy of connecting flights creates unacceptable stress. When we were travelling to Rarotonga, flights were not running to time and we had to transfer from the Domestic Terminal to the International Terminal, which was a walk of some 15-20 minutes, which left barely enough time to get there. It was very stressful trying to walk there in such a hurry – remembering of course, that not so long ago I had needed walking aids to walk at all. A 15-20 minute fast-paced walk was definitely not helping with stress levels. We just got there in time, so got to our seats feeling far from relaxed to start our holiday. Both my husband and I were both stressed about making our connection. I don’t think we will book any travel overseas going via Auckland again, unless we have an overnight stay somewhere near the Auckland Airport and aren’t going to be at the mercy of having to get from one terminal to another to make our flight. I/We do not cope that well with this type of scenario. Not a good way to start our holiday. Then, when we were due to return to New Zealand, the flight from Auckland to Rarotonga was delayed by an hour, which meant our flight was also delayed. We got to Auckland Airport and had the same scenario, where we only just had time to grab our bags, go to get our bags checked in, etc and hurry to get to the gate to board our flight from Auckland to Christchurch. Again, not a nice way to end our holiday plus we missed out on stopping at Duty Free, which was a shame. This is not the sort of stress that a person with Parkies and their husband should have to deal with.
• I noticed some weird stuff with my walking too. When we were walking on the air bridge straight after getting off the plane, it had a certain amount of ‘bounce’ when walking. It felt a bit like when we used to walk on swing bridges when we were kids and my Dad would make it bounce! This made it a bit difficult for me walking on it, especially trying to walk at a reasonable pace. I had to get my husband to slow down a bit, because it just felt weird and like I couldn’t completely control my movement somehow. Hard to express exactly what I felt and experienced. The other thing, because we were trying to walk briskly, we got to a travellator and I thought that might help, but going from walking briskly to standing still on a travellator and then getting off and walking again, kind of confused my brain a bit, I think. When we stepped off and started to walk again, I felt like my brain and body hadn’t connected properly and were confused. I had to pause and then do a mental reset for a second to get back into a walking rhythm.
• I don’t like being rushed. I have never been one to like rushing, I find it too stressful and am usually the person that is 20-30 minutes early for everything. So having to be rushed beyond my control was definitely a stressor for me, as I would never do that to myself under any circumstances, if I was able to control it. I had to get my husband to slow down as I was concerned that with fatigue and rushing, I might have been at risk of having a fall and that would really have ruined the homecoming!

We had a lovely holiday but could have done without the stress flying to Rarotonga and having to rush to a connecting flight and also the same thing happening on the way home. I said to our driver that picked us up at the airport, that we had stress at the beginning of our holiday because of connecting flight issues, then we had a lovely relaxing holiday, only to come back relaxed – which was short lived – and have the stress of the connecting flights again! I’m pretty sure hubby will refuse to put us in that particular situation again. I think if we do any more overseas travel, it will be ex Christchurch or not at all!

All in all, though, it was a lovely break and relaxing just pootling about and enjoying the lovely island of Rarotonga. I think it will be our last trip there, but hopefully my husband will not put a complete ban on international travel!

It’s lovely to be home again, I must admit!

There’s no place like home!

Here’s a podcast about our holiday that you might enjoy.