With my luck...

I'd get stuck sitting next to these sickly people who should just stay home.

Like the time I had a flight where the guy behind me had a mild heart attack.

Care travel by Trip Nurse

Boulder-based Trip Nurse pairs private caregivers with people who need help traveling

'Boulder - Joyce Thurmer remembers how frazzled she felt when she and her husband, Rigomar, traveled to Ireland two years ago.

"Rigo" struggled with health problems related to congestive heart failure and emphysema, leaving him too frail to juggle much of the details.

"It was overwhelming for me to be in charge of the tickets and be in charge of myself and be in charge of the luggage and in charge of Rigo," said Joyce.

The couple, both 77, had traveled frequently, often visiting Rigo's family in Germany over the years, but after a while, Joyce said, "I kind of realized ... it would be just too hard to do it on my own."

For that reason, the Thurmers have embraced Trip Nurse, a Boulder-based company that pairs skilled private nurses with people who want to travel but are constrained by health problems.

The company, which carries the slogan "Have Nurse, Will Travel," was co-founded last year by licensed practical nurse Andrew Fallon and registered nurse Suzanne Brandler after both began getting requests from clients to accompany them to weddings, family reunions or vacations.

"It allows the family to enjoy the vacation, and it relieves the patient of feeling like a burden," said Fallon, who has been a nurse for 13 years, including work with Alzheimer's patients. It also "alleviates the pressure on the caregiver."

The service appears to be unique in the nursing industry but is one other providers say they can envision gaining popularity among affluent seniors who don't want to be limited by illnesses.

Clients must pay all travel costs for the nurses, including airfare, lodging and meals, in addition to medical care, which can range from $300 a day to $1,000 a day for 24-hour care.

Trip Nurses will handle such things as arranging with airlines to have portable oxygen aboard planes, scheduling medications, assisting with personal care and navigating airport metal detectors.

"With this population exploding as it is, we're going to see more and more businesses directly catering to this age group," said Morie Smile, spokeswoman for Colorado AARP, a lobbying group for Americans 50 and older with 655,000 members in Colorado.

She said AARP officials have not seen trends in seniors hiring private nurses for travel but support any "service to keep people out there enjoying life."

"It's a brilliant idea," she said.

The use of private nurses is not a new phenomenon.

"It sounds like, in the old- fashioned days, what was called a private-duty nurse," said Amy Barton, an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center.

"It was kind of in vogue for wealthy families decades ago," she said. "From that, the whole home-care movement kind of was born."'