Dealing with Travel Injuries 

I’ve been holed up in my apartment for about a month now on medical leave from work and I’ve learned 2 important things this month: I didn’t handle cabin fever well at all when i broke my knee in high school and that hasn’t changed in ten years; and I can get a lot of shit done around the house when I have nothing to do and trouble getting down staircases. You should see all the soup in the freezer right now.

My trip to Israel was amazing but unfortunately was cut short by about 3 days due to me hurting my foot while hiking. It was fine at first but then suddenly I couldn’t walk without limping in pain and then I couldn’t walk at all. I could barely stand in the shower our last day in Jerusalem because of the excruciating pain.

It hurt on the bottom of my foot all the way up to my calf. Sometimes when we walked my entire leg felt like it was vibrating. I tried to walk more on my tip toes to alleviate the pain in the heel but I didn’t have the strength to even hold my foot up. 

Due to the scheduling at work I had to wait about a week before seeing a doctor when I got home which probably didn’t help matters at all. But I saw the doctor and luckily it wasn’t anything overly serious: I tore my achilles tendon ever so slightly due to my feet being flat as a pancake. That’s the technical term right there. And I’ve always known I have flat feet, people point it out to me all the time because my foot is just that flat. When I step on the sand at a beach, my entire foot make an imprint. 

So, this led to the tendon getting pulled over the years and eventually tearing. It also means I have to be extremely careful or I could risk fracturing the small bones in my foot that aren’t meant to be weight-baring.

My advice? Please make sure you have travel insurance. Just because I went home to see a doctor does not mean that was my only option. If I had been in worse pain I would have seen a doctor in Israel. Unexpected problems can happen and you don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to see a doctor and pay out of pocket. And no one wants that. 

World Nomads has always worked for me. I find them the best bang for my buck where they handle basically anything that could go wrong (including some extreme sports) for a reasonable price. 

Travelling while sick or injured isn’t fun and while you may not want to cut it short sometimes it is the best option for your health.