Nashville Travel Experience
In December of 2023, we decided for a quick getaway to go and visit my brother, his wife and their boys. It is always wonderful to be able to spend time with family, while being on dialysis is always seems that option may be out of the questions. Not when running Home Hemo Dialysis. We looked at the calendar, planned a quick trip and packed all of our stuff to head south. I should share we are located in Northern Minnesota so traveling to Nashville seems like a heat wave even in December.
We are lucky that there are direct flights to Nashville. When traveling with a dialysis machine and supplies you want to make sure that you are taking as few transfers as possible. Making sure that your machine and supplies all make it through the switches from one plane to another and arrive with you can add to any traveling stress. Remember to always have a backup plane, what would you do if the airport lost your machine or supplies along the way. Check out local dialysis units and have a plane in place in case you have to visit one of them to get your treatments, it isn't ideal but if you plan for the worst it isn't that bad.
Our trip was a much needed break from our normal lives, enjoying the nephews and family. Bringing a hard case for the dialysis machine works great for a table to have your machine run off of during treatment. Then you don't have to worry about ruining anyone's tables or spiling any water or solutions. It is also a great height for me to reach all of the buttons while running on dialysis. Everything went great for our trip there, where we had issues was our trip home.
This should not of been a big deal, should have been an easy check our medical stuff, board the plane and collect everything at the baggage claim when we arrived back in Fargo. Nope, I quickly learned a lesson and process that I have to complete before ever leaving an airport....
We we got home I opened by hardcase to remove my diaylsis machine. Little to me knowing this when we left the airport, we would have brought my machine right to security. I opened my case to find that my diaylsis machne had beem damaged, pried open which looks like they took a pribar to my machine back in the TSA area. There were notes within my baggage sataing that they had removed my stuff for random security checks, which I'm fine with. But NOT damaging any of it. I had notes on top of my machine within the hardcase that said life saving medical device, and they still didn't care. This left me 2 days without running, I only go 1 day at most, waiting for a diaylsis machine to be shipped to me to be replaced.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. Always pack your Diayliss Machine in a hardcase whe flying.
2. Always check your luggage before you leave the airport, if damaged bring directly to security for observation of damage.
3. Always have NxStage number on hand to contact.
