Roostr, your wife is a survivor, and only you and she can decide if this is something you can do. I'd like to at least help with some of my own experiences and
research.
To get the medications issue out of the way, I believe you are better aware than most just how important the meds are, and only your wife's doctors can determine just how that issue can be handled. However, I want to point out that the risk of outdated/adulturated/counterfeit medications is so great outside the US that you need to stick with meds that have been proven to be legitimate. I included in my Cruiser's Dictionary a 1998 article regarding counterfeit medications (see
O-P - CruiserlogWiki under pharmaceuticals.) This is an issue that has gotten worse, not better. In 2002 and again in 2006 the subject of counterfeit drugs has been discussed in New Scientist Magazine - I hope I can get permission to include these articles in the Cruiser's Dictionary in the near future. But I would not trust my life to
cheap meds bought outside the US.
I don't know how experienced you and your wife are at the mechanics of cruising - long passages and regular watches.
Anchoring safely. Handling the physical exhaustion when the
weather or the
equipment goes very wrong. I would suggest that you take six months to
cruise in the
Caribbean before taking on the Pacific passages, because most of the
Caribbean can be done in day
sails, and you can test yourself with longer passages to see if that's for you. We did 7 to 10 day passages in the Caribbean sort-of in
training for the Pacific crossings. That's the nice thing about the Caribbean - you can usually find shelter if you don't feel you can continue for another 24 hours, for example. Not possible in the Pacific.
If you love sailing, I think the Caribbean has the best sailing. And also some of the easiest and safest
anchorages anywhere. But the
coral and
fish in the Pacific are spectacularly better.
Medical facilities. In the Caribbean:
Puerto Rico, decent medical, and a quick flight to the US.
Martinique, excellent facilities for both cancer and cardiac care. The rest, I'm not so confident about, but again, flying back to the US is fairly quick and easy.
Tahiti and
New Caledonia are about the best for medical facilities until you get to
Australia. That's a long, long way to travel, even by plane, if you get into trouble.
Dengue fever is not only in the Caribbean. It's been a problem in the S. Pacific for years. But don't get bitten by mosquitoes, and you're fine.
A little
health awareness and precautions should be sufficient for two savvy individuals as you appear to be. We manaqed to spend 6 months in Equador during the cholera epidemic there without getting sick. We were in Western
Samoa (now just Samoa) when they had a typhoid epidemic, again with no problems ourselves. I think you and your wife are pretty knowledgeable about how to keep yourselves healthy since her life depends upon it, and it is knowledge and reasonable precautions that can keep you healthy, not avoiding any risk at all.
I want to say, "go" to your dream of cruising the S. Pacific, but perhaps as others have suggestion you can get the same benefit from chartering. I loved
French Polynesia, and you can
charter there.
Tonga is a great place to
charter, quite a bit like the
Virgin Islands. I think that you might find this to be a more relaxed way to cruise, rather than try to
race across the S. Pacific not really being able to kick back and just enjoy one place for a long time.
There's nothing wrong with taking smaller steps towards your cruising dream. I think that there's a lot to be said for chartering just to see what it's really like. I suggest, though, that it be for 3 or 4 weeks at a time - then you have a better chance of getting to know a place and really feel you've cruised it.
Having had a few medical problems myself, I'm convinced I'm still here because of our sailing/cruising life. It's a great way to live.
Fair winds,
Jeanne