Traveling with an Injury

I have been traveling with an injury on airplanes for about eight weeks now. A day after New Year's, I woke up and had no feeling in my left arm. Really weird, I thought maybe that I slept wrong, or maybe I just pinched something, etc. I have been diagnosed with something called radial nerve palsy, and basically it renders my left arm useless. In fact, I am actually using dictation software right now to type this blog. Pretty cool stuff. Makes my writing a bit wonky, but that’s ok. Regardless, this blog post is about what to do when you have to travel with an injury.

The first place I would start is to figure out how much pain you can actually endure. You have to realize that when I say "traveling", I specifically speaking about traveling on airplanes. Then you have to think about not just flying, you also will have to think about all of the rigmarole of just getting onto an airplane. There is getting to the airport, checking your bags, print your boarding pass, heading through security line, getting to your gate, boarding your aircraft, and the list goes on and on and on. Now if you are used to traveling, or a road warrior, this all seems pretty easy to you. For somebody that is brand-new at the travel game, this new world can seem very, very intimidating. For the purpose of this blog post, let's say that you have some sort of injury, and are new to the travel game.

The first big piece of advice I'd give you is to make sure you give yourself enough time. Depending on your injury (I'm wearing a large arm splint), you may need assistance to get your bags checked, or get down to the gate etc. If you are on crutches or in a wheelchair, most likely you should give yourself at least 30 min. extra in order to get through security and get onto the plane. Keep in mind that if you are wearing any kind of brace and are on crutches, you will need to run these items through the x-ray scanner. Obviously, as much of an inconvenience as this is, this is all just to make sure we are more secure while we are traveling. You can actually call your airline prior to going to the airport to understand their rules for people that are either injured or have a handicap of some sort. More than likely they can assist you all the way through the process and onto the plane. As you know airports are always full of chaos… and it can seem like a jungle at times. Talking to airline personnel in advance will give you an advantage because a lot of times they will allow you to get through security in a special line as well as get on the plane earlier so that you can get situated and not be so uncomfortable.

The second piece of major advice I'd give you is to understand where you are sitting on the plane. Depending on your injury you will have many different decisions to make. For instance, if you broke your leg and need to keep your legs straight you may want to opt for an aisle seat or a bulkhead seat so that you have room to stretch your legs. If you can afford it, you may even want to opt for first-class :-). Beware that if you are traveling with an injury, and opt for an exit seat, you will more than likely be moved from that seat being that you will not be able to handle the exit seat duties. Being that my injury is on my left arm, I try to stay away from being in an aisle seat on the right side of the aircraft. This is because when I am seated, every single person and their bags, and their kids, and their surfboards, etc. etc. etc., will always hit my arm.

Does anyone else have any good advice for traveling with an injury? Let me know!