Nervous about a trip!

[reneesmom]

Hi all, I'm relatively new to this site and I'm so grateful for all of the ideas and support. I've been having a terrible time of anxiety lately in regards to being sick, especially this season as over Christmas nearly everyone in my family got it except for me and my hubby (knock on wood we don't get ill!).
We have a 16 month old daughter who goes to daycare, I have nightmares and panic attacks every day about what she might bring home in the way of bugs. So far...she has been relatively healthy and only sick a couple of times. I'm grateful but I fear every day and what lies ahead!
We've planned a trip, our first flight with her, in early March. My BIGGEST fear right now is what would we do if one of us gets sick before we go? I'm totally afraid that we'll be hit with a virus right before we leave, or during or when we have to fly home. We don't have travellers' insurance that would allow us to cancel without paying loads of money! Anyone have any ideas how to cope with this? And what would you do if this happened?

Thanks SO Much for any advice!!

[alexikiss]

We've planned a trip, our first flight with her, in early March. My BIGGEST fear right now is what would we do if one of us gets sick before we go? I'm totally afraid that we'll be hit with a virus right before we leave, or during or when we have to fly home. We don't have travellers' insurance that would allow us to cancel without paying loads of money! Anyone have any ideas how to cope with this? And what would you do if this happened?

Thanks SO Much for any advice!!

I always have this fear in regards to making any type of plans in advance, which is why I never like to make plans. It makes it hard to be social and deal with friends sometimes.

Last summer, I made plans to go with a friend on a trip and at the last minute, literally, I had to bail out. Besides the fact that I was having really bad sinus headaches all week, I was having major anxiety about the plane, if anyone would be sick on the plane, etc. (see the Airplane thread for more of that type of thing). I blamed it on my sinus issue when in reality, it was more about me having an emetophobic attack. Of course, I couldn't admit this and I knew no one would feel sorry for me in that case. I felt sooo awful and guilty for not being able to go, and losing the money. I owed my friend a couple hundred dollars for the hotel (she went ahead without me) and I did not get a refund on my flight. (I did get a credit that I can use, but there was a fee taken out of it.) So on top of feeling like crap that I decided not to go, I had to deal with the financial ramifications.

I just told myself that the money didn't really matter, that you can always make more money and money comes and goes. I mean, it wasn't thousands of dollars. There's no need to beat yourself up about things even more and make yourself even more anxious. I realized that by making myself feel as if there was no way out of the trip, my mind then created one out of defiance. It just needed an escape once I told it that there was no way out.

I hope this can help you in some way, in a "been there, done that" type of way. Trust me, I still don't like to think about what happened and it still disappoints me. I talked to a therapist shortly afterwards because I was so upset with myself and he told me to wait a while before attempting something like that again (I had gone on a trip a couple months earlier and he felt like I had pushed myself too much). I'm near ready to make another trip very, very soon...and having anxiety about it as we speak! But I learned my lesson, I hope...