Pre-departure:
I should first and foremost give a bit of context for my ‘situation’, which may be applicable for people similar to myself. I didn’t receive a lot of guidance on how to handle my particular health issues and type of medication, which isn’t surprising, due to the rarity of people with one of my chronic illnesses – ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis which primarily attacks the spine and causes the slow fusion of vertebrae. I didn’t expect to receive a lot of guidance from the university on how to handle being abroad with AS, but hope that my experience will be used in the future for people who have similar relatively unknown conditions which require a lot of planning ahead for travel. The medication which I’m on is not only several thousands of rand more expensive than my rent, but it needs to be kept at a temperature between 2-8 degrees Celsius and comes in glass. It’s perhaps unnecessary to describe how on edge I was about travelling internationally by myself with this obscure, expensive and fragile medication.
