Thursday, May 1, 2008

Health Issues on Hajj

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Hajj is hard on everybody’s body. If you have health problems, work closely with your doctor to try to be in the best health possible and try to have as many contingencies covered as possible.

· Divide your medications and testing supplies into two bags and store them in two different suitcases or bags. One may be lost or stolen.

· Make sure you have extra of all your medications. One hajj group experienced unexpected travel delays that got them back to the U.S. about 10 days later than planned.

· Get a health bracelet listing your medical conditions and all of your environmental, food and drug allergies.

· If you are diabetic, make sure you have tablets, even if they don’t work quite as well on you. You may not have refrigeration problems for your regular insulin, but you have to be prepared with something that will sustain you until the problem can be resolved.

· Make sure you carry on your person at all times any emergency medications such as nitroglycerin for your heart or an epi pen for life-threatening allergies. Do not expect that others will have the time to search for your emergency medications through luggage that has been moved and re-packed numerous times already. Do not assume you will only get sick when you are at your hotel and your luggage is easily accessible.

· If there are any specific treatments or tests you need to receive, make sure you carry a letter from your doctor stating what the procedures are. Make sure it stays dry and with you at all times.

· If you are paraplegic and have a special cushion for your wheelchair, try to bring an extra. Yes, one sister’s cushion was stolen right out of her chair when she was being transferred to another seat.

Finally, there is one fact that you and those traveling with you should understand and be prepared for. If you become ill, say, in New York when everyone is boarding the plane for Jeddah or in Mina when everyone is leaving to go the Arafah—they have to go. That is hajj. They cannot stay with you. It would be a difficult test from Allah to leave someone behind or to be left behind in the care of strangers, but hajj is exactly that kind of test. Trust in Allah. All of us have to trust in Allah.


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