Traveling with chronic illness

I just got back from vacation in the Pacific northwest.  As always,  vacation was very taxing on my body. It seems like it should be the opposite,  but when you're flying 2500 miles with two little kids, it can be rough.  Traveling in general is not for the faint of heart.  Hours waiting in security lines, having to get up at 3 am to catch a flight, crowds of annoying people, etc. Plus, I just gotta say, human bodies were not designed to be cramped into tiny airplane seats for hours at a time. Even normal people find it extremely uncomfortable, I found it excruciating. 

My strategy when it comes to traveling with chronic illness is just to follow my usual principle of time management (having adequate rest time) and then plow through and hope my body holds up. Needless to say plowing through did have an effect on my body, but because I was on vacation and had very few responsibilities I recovered faster then I would at home.  I took full advantage of not having responsibilities sucking my energy and am proud to say I survived (and enjoyed) a very difficult hike in the middle of nowhere in Canada. The old healthy me probably wouldn't have had shaking legs afterwards,  but even the old me would still have been tired over such a distance.  It was great to pretend to be healthy for a little while, and I got to see amazing views I will probably never get to see again.

It will probably take a couple of days for me to recover from vacation. Meanwhile the suitcases will be sitting in the front hallway and the laundry will go unwashed,  but it was totally worth it.