Managing illness on the Road

So what are a few ideas for managing illness on the road?

In short, try not to because it’s a real pain. Cheekiness aside, I was ill a few times and as someone dealing with ongoing gallbladder issues, anticipating a full blown attack while travelling caused me a lot of anxiety. On this occasion, though, it was a urinary tract infection.

For those of you weighing the pros and cons of a van trip, then here are a couple of things to consider and prepare prior to setting off into the romantic sunset with just you, your main squeeze and a bucket.

What are some tips for preparing for medical emergencies before you leave on a van life trip?

1. Bring enough prescription medicine from home for the duration of the trip! 

This might seem obvious, but what happens is people leave it for the last minute and then can’t get a doctor’s appointment before they leave. Try to get some antibiotics too as they’re often harder to get while on the road.

2. Create a really good first aid kit.

I am putting together a comprehensive checklist that I will make available for first-time subscribers and will also send the list off to everyone on my current list when it’s ready. Mine wasn’t too bad but there were a few glaring omissions that I will be sure to add to the list.

3. Get trained in First Aid

Do it before you leave. Learn how the snake bite kit works before you need it and practice. What? You think you can just watch a video tutorial on how to save someone’s life while toxins are racing toward the victim’s heart? You think I’m kidding right? Uh, no. Learning how to save someone’s life before you need to is kind of a good idea.

4. Learn to drive the van

How many of you let your partner drive because it’s just “easier?” How many of you don’t let your partner drive or yell at them so much that they refuse to ever drive again? Be brave and learn how to drive. Stop scolding your travel mate and be patient enough to teach them how to drive the van. Insist on it actually. At the very least, you will be able to get each other to hospital if need be.

5. Do medical checks and surgery prior to leaving

Take care of issues before you leave, if at all possible. Get your eyes checked and update your prescriptions. Visit the dentist and deal with that loose filling because guaranteed it will fall out somewhere in the middle of Morocco. If you need your gallbladder out, then maybe it’s a good idea to do it before you plan on travelling for months. I didn’t and I regret not having done so.

Everything above is something I failed to do prior to leaving and here I thought I had adequately prepared for everything. Alas, no. I will write a more detailed blog in the future and if you have any questions, please send me a message below and I’ll be sure to include it in a future post as well as respond here.

Leaving the Camargue

After leaving the bulls of Camargue we headed off to a bizarrely named town so I could get to a pharmacy and deal with a menacing urinary tract infection. Fun times in the van when every bodily function or emission is on full display for everyone else. It’s especially fun when you do not have a separate WC.

What is Aigues Mortes?

Aigues Mortes means “dead or stagnant waters.” It’s apropos given that’s kind of how my insides felt at the moment we arrived. The town gets its name because it’s a marais. A marais is marshland that gets flooded by the ocean at high tide. They make salt here.

Charlemagne built a tower here in 791 or something, ostensibly to protect the people, but more likely to keep watch for invading armies. That’s because every king on the planet was hell bent to expand their empire while simultaneously nursing raging paranoia that someone else was likely plotting to take it all away from them whilst they were busy shining their codpiece. Ahem.

It only grew from there; the town, I mean. What did you think I was talking about? They built canals, transported grain, spices, textiles, salt and fish and everyone was preoccupied with maintaining control over their stuff. This is where King Louis IX comes in.

Who was Saint Louis?

Louis IX or Saint Louis as he’s affectionately known, was quite the character. In 1240 he built another tower and then another and eventually the towers were connected by big walls. Ever seen those walls with long, narrow slits in them? Those are called meurtriers and were used by archers to shoot at marauders. 

Saint Louis has quite the resume too, having led the 7th and part of the 8th crusade before he died of dysentary in Tunisia. Tough luck given that’s a pretty nasty illness that makes living in metal armour really nasty. He also apparently liked the colour blue.

Saint Louis funded hospitals and monasteries, and, with the esteemed Robert of Sorbon, he founded the Sorbonne University in 1257. He also put on his hard hat (aka, stinky knight’s helmet) in order to oversee the completion of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.(He’d be crying in his armour to know of the fire that destroyed the spire and most of the roof in 2019.)

Who created the modern French legal system?

One of the biggest advances in society and law attributed to Saint Louis was his introduction of the concept “Innocent until proven guilty.” Who knew? 

That said, I wonder how long it actually took for this new legal concept to make its merry way throughout the land and into actual legal practice. I suspect that people who held control over certain portions of the land were not too happy to find out that they couldn’t just administer their own form of justice to suit themselves instead of assuming someone was innocent until proven guilty. 

I’m no historian though, and I had the start of a nasty UTI to deal with, so some dead king’s decree kind of just skimmed the surface of my consciousness as I looked for medicine.

What were some of King Louis IX’s more dubious legacies?

While I travel around France admiring beautiful architecture, I am also highly sensitive to the idea that likely millions of people had their homes, farms and lives ripped out from under them when powerful dudes rocked up to town with their armies and shouted, “ Bugger off, we’re building a fort here! Oh and give us your grain and cows and some of your women and we will use your sons for forced labour and don’t give us any lip.”

Good old Saint Louis may have been elevated to sainthood, but was he such a great guy? He passed severe laws against blasphemy, which basically meant no one was able to openly criticize anything he did. He also targeted Jews, (who didn’t!?), and colonialism, war, and crusades were the order of the day.

We walked around town after having gotten me something I hoped would help my infection and then watched other people eating crappy-looking microwaved meals in the central square. We ended up driving back to the camping-on-the-farm place where we’d stayed the night before.

Alas, by morning I was really not very well. I needed to find an open medical clinic and we found one only 20 minutes away.

La Grande Motte

Ok, this place is seriously cool if you like modern architecture. The short story is that a man named Jean Balladur was given the job of designing a seaside resort spanning 400 hectares,(988 acres), in the late 1960’s. He planted 22,000 trees, created walking and cycling paths, fountains, apartments and the buildings are really neat. Architects the world over come here to explore and study his designs.

I managed to find an open health clinic, saw a doctor who looked all of 20 year’s old, got a one-shot antibiotic, did laundry, went grocery shopping and got gas, filled up the water tank and emptied the chemical toilet. If you’re lucky, you can find a place to do all of this in close proximity, but that’s rare unless you stay in a campground. We call it a “technical day” and it seriously takes all bloody day, if the shops are open, which they were, thank God. 

That night we headed inland and camped in an olive grove. I took the antibiotic and by morning I was feeling somewhat better but now had stomach pains due to the stupid amount of unsweetened cranberry juice I’d been drinking. French Pharmacies are pretty good overall and they had some sachets with cranberry powder etc. that I’d taken, but alas, they didn’t work too well for me.

That’s the problem with having acute illnesses like this. Perhaps the cranberry didn’t exactly fix the problem but it may have held it at bay long enough for me to get an antibiotic into me. I once had a UTI so bad that on Christmas Eve in Kelowna, I spent 9 hours in emergency peeing blood until I could see a doctor.

Suffice it to say that you should assume that everything will horribly wrong all at the same time. You will get ill in the middle of the night or on a Sunday, on the side of a mountain, during a national holiday or strike and your van’s battery dies. While I am usually a positive person, when it comes to illness while travelling, I should have anticipated the worst while preparing the van and planned to have a much better arsenal of meds with me. I didn’t.

Saint-Guilhelm-le-Désert

We toodled up through a steep sided gorge and into the small village of Saint-Guilhelm-le-Désert. I don’t know why they call it a desert as it clearly isn’t but because it’s a medieval town, I suspect that when they built it, there wasn’t much of anything around except wild boar.

We heeded the sign saying you couldn’t drive up into the village but after parking a little way down the road at a pull-out and walking the kilometre back into the village, we discovered that there is a paid parking inside the town and there were a few vans there. Still, it was expensive to park but there really isn’t a lot of free camping space around. I also suspect that the place is crammed-packed in the summer so anyone with a big rig is going to find it difficult to park.

The town is gorgeous and is famous as a pilgrimage stop for those doing the St. Jacques de Compostelle hike. It’s filled with beautiful stone houses and meandering cobbled streets and a really nifty church. The path to hike up the hill to see the monastery perched at the top was closed due to erosion and it looks like there is some major work to be done to shore up the hill.

We had a little wander but of course, everything was closed, which I’m slowly getting used to. Still, it’s the perfect way not to spend money on stuff you don’t need because you can’t go into shops when no one is there. We didn’t even stop for a coffee as it was already getting late and we needed to find a free place to stay.

Where to park for the night?

We drove a couple of kilometres further up the road and found a parking lot where there were other vans. Despite the ominous sign saying no camping or you might get a big fine, we stayed there anyway. I wandered down to the gorge where the water level was so low it exposed the craggy rocks making it look like some kind of scene out of the Planet of the Apes.

I sat down on a rock and meditated for around an hour, asking my spirit guides to quickly heal me from the bladder infection so I could get back to drinking good wine. I had my eyes closed and could hear birds rustling about, the soft burbling of water going by and the occasional sploosh as a fish jumped up to snatch a little flying morsel.

I suspected that there were many pairs of eyes were peering out of the forest at me from across the river and wondered if there were faeries or Sasquatch in the area. 

My mind wanders when I am in places like this and I like it. Solitude and time for myself is rare when travelling and I’m starting to realize that my husband and I have very different needs when it comes to time alone. I need a lot of it and it’s times like these when I can gaze at the shadows creeping towards me as the first stars switch on overhead, that I feel at peace. 

That peace was short lived, unfortunately, as we headed off to visit friends near Sète and where my health took a turn for the worse. Ugh.

Bisous.