In all our years of cruising, we’re happy to report we’ve never used any of the serious medical stuff we carry aboard. By now, the total of supplies we’ve either thrown or given away amounts to thousands of dollars. Even the rubber and metal products have had to be replaced several times. Yet we still carry this stuff, hoping we’ll never need it.<\/p>\n
And what to carry – that’s a big question. In our case, when we’re close to shore-based facilities, we’re not as concerned. But as we’re getting ready to cross the Atlantic twice during the rest of the year, we are starting to think about what to carry again. We’ll start with our family doc, and ask him what he suggests – he knows us best. As our age is creeping up there, he might recommend certain categories of supplies like heart-related medications (although we’ve both had stress tests and are fine in this regard).<\/p>\n
In the tools department, we carry the usual plastic and pneumatic splinting kits, catheters, cutting and sewing implements, and syringes for injecting the serious doses of medicine. We’ll be looking at a new category of age-related gear – portable automatic defibrilators and oxygen – both used for heart attacks (with this gear aboard you have a chance of surviving – without it, your are usually toast). A couple of grand sounds like a lot to pay for something we hope never to use, but then the life raft costs twice this…<\/p>\n
And then there is the medicine chest. We’ve always carried a variety of antibiotics. Our philosophy is that we want to be able to discuss symptoms with a doc on shore, and then have him choose from our inventory. And if the patient is not responding to one medicine, it’s nice to have something else available to try.<\/p>\n
There’s one other item we will probably add to the inventory. That’s an IV system and plenty of inventory of fluids. In the Southern Ocean leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, there was a crewmember on one of the boats with an intestinal blockage. The IVs kept him going until they got to Australia (and had to be delivered offshore by military aircraft).<\/p>\n
The last issue is where to buy this stuff. Our experience is that the most expensive place will be the US. We’ll pick up the oxygen and defibrilator here, if we decide to carry them. But will probably update the medicines in St. Martin before we head across the pond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"