In the cabin bag
- Passports, visas, printed invitation, insurance certificate
- A paper list of medicines with generic names and doses
- Recent clinic letters (we also hold digital copies)
- Phone, charger, a cheap second SIM or eSIM once we meet you
- Glasses, hearing aids, a week of regular medicines in original boxes
Clothes
Front-fastening shirts after a sternotomy or shoulder. Loose trousers after a hip or knee. Something with dignity for the walk to the car. Kerala is humid; cotton, not wool. A light shawl for over-air-conditioned wards.
Leave behind
Jewellery. A suitcase you cannot lift with one hand. Assumptions about “just picking up something at the chemist” — we will get the prescribed generic before you need it.
Companion
The companion packs as if they may sleep in a chair for one night and in a proper bed thereafter. They carry a copy of every document. They know the coordinator’s number by heart, not only in a phone.