browser life

I've got a ton of stuff to do, such as: appeal my medical insurance's denial of coverage for the Mayo Clinic visit, put together a rebuttal of the LTD company's denial paragraph by paragraph so the lawyer can see if there are any avenues he hasn't pursued yet, book a place to stay in Rochester next month, look up gluten free places to eat there, put together comprehensive lists of tests and surgeries and symptoms and questions for the Mayo docs, and other things that escape my mind at present. But I'm gonna pause for a bit and focus on my trip to Florida as the memory of it is already fading. I'm not gonna do a series of posts on it like I had planned, just a summary, but I suppose that's better than nothing.

Let's see....we left for the Sioux Falls airport EARLY on the morning of October 6, at 5am. Dan and I went through security ahead of his parents because it always takes me a long time to get through there with my wheelchair and all. We waited and waited at the gate for them to show up; turns out Dan's mom had lost her parking slip already and looked everywhere for it, but they made it to the gate just in time to board.

The first flight was to Denver and was uneventful except for the usual uncomfortable seats. But we had an incident in the Denver airport: Dan's mom wanted to push my wheelchair even though she had knee replacement recently, and for some reason, she wheeled me onto a moving walkway, a bad idea anyway because with the wheelchair traveling at a different speed than the walkway, I got really nauseous and thought I was gonna pass out. But then when we got to the end of the walkway, my wheelchair got stuck, and Dan's mom tripped over me, fell and couldn't get back up!

I don't know who yanked my wheelchair off the walkway, but I saw two strangers helping Dan's mom to her feet after I got turned around. She said she was fine, but she injured her back, and it bothered her for at least a few days. Not a good start to the trip.

We waited to meet Dan's aunt at the gate to the flight to Tampa as she'd had to fly in from Rapid City. We thought she was gonna miss the plane, but she finally showed at the last minute. Seems she was using the airline's wheelchair service, and they took their sweet time getting her a ride.

The flight to Tampa wasn't too bad, especially since they changed the seating so Dan and I could sit together. They showed a movie, "Evan Almighty", but I couldn't see the tiny little screen because of the glare from the window, and we didn't have headphones for sound anyway. So I just read my book about Rush by Neil Peart and munched on snacks I'd brought from home since they only served pretzels.

Upon retrieving our baggage, we discovered that Dan's suitcase was BROKEN and UNZIPPED! Amazingly, though, nothing appeared to be missing. But we had to buy a new suitcase and a TSA lock in Florida for the trip home.

I was pretty wiped out when we finally got to the rental car place, but we weren't nearly finished with our day yet. We had rented a van that was supposed to hold seven, but it turned out to be barely large enough for five adults plus suitcases plus a wheelchair. And no one seemed to be able to figure out how to adjust the steering wheel or the driver's seat so Dan's mom could fit in there, so that took awhile.

We still had an hour and a half drive to where we were staying in Lakeland. By this time, everyone was hungry, but I wasn't comfortable leaving a van full of suitcases in plain view while we ate someplace, so I convinced them to get us checked in at the hotel first (after we got lost twice). Then we tried to go to the Outback, but the wait was over an hour, so we tried Chili's, which wasn't much better.

At Chili's, I asked the waitress for one of their wheat allergy menus, and she'd never heard of one. The manager found one for her, and I ordered plain salmon with plain mashed potatoes, but I got a plate covered in gravy! Neither she nor the cook knew that gravy contained wheat, so I had to wait while they did my entire order over from scratch.

By this time, it was almost 9pm, so we went over to Dan's grandfather's house (after getting lost again) since his aunt was going to be staying there. Various other relatives were there already, and they wanted me to go to church the next morning before the birthday party, but I declined as politely as I could because there was no way I'd have the energy to do both. I was already so exhausted that I could barely follow the conversation in the room.

Good thing I'd begged off church, because I was a mess the morning of October 7. I'd gotten no sleep due to pain and muscle cramps, I was vomiting and I couldn't stop coughing (still had the bronchitis). Luckily, I was able to keep a couple of hard boiled eggs down after awhile, and I was able to limp around somewhat and help set up for the party, which was held at the clubhouse of the trailer park where Dan's grandfather lived.

I was really surprised when the guests started arriving early (in my family, everyone is late for everything). Dan's grandfather's wife, Virginia, pointed out to me all the people who were related to her, but I was so fibrofogged I pretty much forgot all the names. Still, I had brought my camera, and I tried to get candid shots of all who attended, difficult because there were at least 75 people there.

Taking pictures, however, is one of my favorite activities, so it gave me a bit more energy than I might have otherwise had. I did try to be sociable even though I had trouble following the conversations. But I have to admit I was relieved when things wrapped up three hours later, and I was looking forward to going someplace quiet and resting.

Dan's family had other plans though. We went back to his grandfather's house and hung around another four hours, I think. I socialized, but a lot of what I said was probably babble because I was on fumes.

I did get a chance to chat with Dan's cousin's wife, who has celiac disease and fibromyalgia. We compared treatments, symptoms and diets. It was good to talk with someone in person who understood all the hurdles these ailments present in one's life, and I think Dan might not have minded hearing that I am not the only one with these sorts of problems.

Some of the group planned to go to Sea World the next day, and I desperately wanted to go too, but I knew I would likely collapse if I didn't take it relatively easy, so I had to decline. Dan's parents and he and I agreed to come back to his grandfather's house for lunch the next day at noon and then go to a museum in Lakeland, something much less exhausting. We got back to the room sometime after 10pm, and I still hadn't had my eggs and rice for supper, so I ate them quickly and fell asleep sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs, not something I recommend.

Had serious trouble getting up the next day; kept dozing back off after Dan woke me up. Did manage to keep the lunch appointment, but Dan's grandfather was too tired from the previous day's party to go to the museum. I was bummed, but to be honest, it was probably actually a good thing I didn't go either because it would have been too much activity too many days in a row.

Instead, we hung around and talked more. Dan's parents and he and I did drive around Lakeland for awhile in the afternoon because I hadn't gotten a chance to see the town yet, so I appreciated that. We went to the college campus that had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, to some of the larger lakes, gawked at some lovely homes, and I of course took pix.

On Tuesday, we embarked upon a major outing: my sister-in-law had invited us to Anna Maria Island for the afternoon where she and her husband and mother-in-law were renting a condo right on the beach. Most of the rest of Dan's family was coming too. It was an hour and a half drive not counting the times we got lost, and I dozed off in the van.

The condo was pretty spacious, a two bedroom, two bath number with a screened-in balcony overlooking the beach and private pool. I knew I had only one day to enjoy the Gulf coast, so I made the most of it by hanging out on the balcony, watching the pelicans diving for fish and marveling at the dragonflies (at least I THINK they were dragonflies) the size of birds. I did go inside long enough for lunch.

After we finished eating, I could feel what little energy I had waning already, so I boldly announced I was going to the beach while I was still able. To my surprise, several people went with me. I brought my camera, naturally, and a bag for collecting seashells.

The Gulf of Mexico is pretty tame compared to the waves I'd experienced in Hawaii, particularly in the middle of the day, and I'd been doing water aerobics for four years, so I figured I could handle it. But even though there wasn't any undertow, I'd seriously underestimated just how poor my balance and strength had become. At one point, I got knocked right off my feet and onto one knee, and when I tried to get back up, I fell right on my butt.

I was determined, though, and I continued to wade around looking for shells even though I was swaying all over the place like a drunken idiot. I wandered out to deeper water for a few minutes to get a break from the waves, but I didn't go out any further than chest deep because I knew I no longer had the strength for swimming, and I didn't want to get so fatigued that I couldn't make it back to shore. I would have been happy to stay outside all day, but my legs started getting pretty weak after maybe 20 minutes in the water, so I reluctantly came back to shore and retrieved the camera from Dan (I'd asked him to hold it for me while I played drunken sailor).

Once semi-safely ashore, my brother-in-law asked our niece if she wanted to bury Dan in the sand. Dan played dutiful uncle and agreed, but I don't think either of us really believed they would do it. Were we surprised when Dan found himself covered completely up to his neck!

Not too long after that, despite having only been outside for 45 minutes tops, I began to feel as though I would collapse and asked Dan to help me get back in the condo. I'd forgotten there were two flights of stairs to climb, and my legs were shaking so badly that I could barely put one foot in front of the other. Dan had to keep catching me as I nearly fell multiple times.

I spent the most of the next hour or two sprawled in a lawn chair on the balcony. I did watch some video my brother-in-law had made of my niece trick or treating at Disney World, but have to admit I was so exhausted that I nodded off a few times during it. I slept in the van pretty much the whole way back to Lakeland too, not good for the neck, but I didn't care because I'd had my vacation day at the beach.

I'd been invited to go to the Tampa Zoo on Wednesday, but I knew there was no way I'd be able to handle two straight days in the sun, so I reluctantly declined. I'd already committed to a big family dinner Wednesday night anyway, and I figured I'd better save my energy for that. I honestly don't remember what I did the rest of Tuesday, if anything.

And I can't remember what I did before dinner on Wednesday, either. I suspect I may have stayed at the hotel most or all of the time before we went to the Steak and Ale restaurant at 5pm. I'm pretty sure Dan went shopping without me.

Anyway, since there was such a large group at the restaurant, we got a separate room all to ourselves. Dan's aunt had phoned ahead and inquired about gluten free options, which was way cool. I got to have a delicious 6oz. filet steak, baked potato, steamed asparagus, and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Thursday was a really big day for Dan and me. We went with his aunt, uncle, cousin and cousin's wife to Epcot Center. I naturally brought the wheelchair, and it was a good thing because I doubt I would have lasted two hours in that park without it due to the extreme heat and the sheer size of Epcot.

I had been there before, but enough years had passed so that there were new things to see and do in addition to the old faves. We started near the entrance in Future World since that had the most things we hadn't seen before. Our first stop was at a building called The Land.

We found out really quickly that Disney World is truly the most wheelchair-friendly place on the planet. Every ride had an icon that told you whether you needed to get out of your chair to go on it or whether you could go on it staying in the chair. For the ones that you needed to get out to ride, they asked if you needed transfer assistance, and they would move your wheelchair to the place where your ride ended so you didn't have to hunt for it.

The coolest ride at The Land, and actually my fave in the whole park, was a hang gliding simulation called Soarin'. You are lifted into the air so that your feet dangle, and your motion exactly matches what's on the screen, so images of going over water are accompanied by just the right amount of wind and moisture. It was so realistic that when it appeared we were going near an ocean wave, I instinctively pulled up my feet so they wouldn't get wet, heh heh.

The Sea has been completely redone. The giant aquarium with the manatees is still there, but there is a cute Finding Nemo ride and a really awesome Q and A with Crush, the animated turtle from the movie. I don't know how they pull this off, but the turtle actually has conversations with real kids in the audience, identifying them by what they're wearing and giving unique responses to what they say!

Land of Imagination is still there, and so is Figment the purple dragon, but I think maybe they added something new to the ride (either that, or my memory just sucks, heh heh). There was a 3D movie called "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience", where they use visual effects as well sensory stuff in the theatre to make it seem like you have gotten smaller. I was in my wheelchair with my feet in the footrests, so I missed the sensation of mice running across the floor, but judging from the way the audience was screaming, it must have been pretty realistic.

After that, it was after 1pm, and Dan and I wanted to take a break by going to a gift shop, but the others wanted to go to the race car test drive ride, so we just agreed to meet them out front when we were done (my reflexes are too slow now to do very well on a race car anyway). Dan and I had wanted to do the ride in the geosphere, but it was getting late and we had reservations for dinner at 5:30 at the opposite side of the park, so we skipped that and the Energy stuff and headed for the countries. We started with Mexico and went in order around.

By this point, Dan's uncle was pretty worn out, so he rented a wheelchair, and his wife pushed him. It was a little awkward because we were all going different speeds in different directions (Dan pushes my chair really fast), and I think I threw everybody off because I kept pausing to take pix. We did a water ride in Norway and a 360 degree movie in China, and then we were out of time to do anything but just blast straight through Germany, Italy, Japan and America before we got to the Morocco restaurant for our reservations.

The restaurant was really cool with authentic food and live entertainment. Not every night you get to listen to sitar music and watch a belly dancer while you eat, heh heh. Dan looked particularly pleased.

Since we had two in our party with celiac disease, we asked the waiter what on the menu might be safe. To our surprise, the head chef personally came out of the kitchen to our table and helped us figure out what we could eat! He even made gluten free bread just for me along with my roast lamb, which was delicious.

When we got done with dinner, it was nearly dark outside, too late to really sightsee in the other countries. We decided we would go back to America to see their show featuring various historic figures. We found out the next show wasn't for another hour, but that a concert by Starship would be starting right across the way, so Dan and I went there while everyone else went to France for pastries to eat later on.

This was the incarnation of Starship with Mickey Thomas. The arena where they were playing had steps, so the wheelchair area was at the very back. Surprisingly, I still was able to get some photos using the zoom lens.

The history retrospective in America had been updated with film footage and a more elaborate montage at the end. By the time it was done, though, I had a case of sensory overload going on because it had been an extremely long day. I think I wasn't the only one, though, because we didn't do any more poking around in the countries and just headed closer to the park entrance where there was a space set aside for wheelchair viewing of the fireworks show.

We had gotten there early enough to snag a place toward the front near the water. Good thing, too, because the centerpiece of the show was a floating rotating globe on a barge in the lake that was lit with moving images in the shapes of the continents. There were also fireworks on the water and in the sky, and I impressed myself by actually getting some photos, not easy with a digital camera where you have to guess where the explosions will go off and press the shutter before it happens.

The park closed for the day when the fireworks ended, so everyone headed for the exit at once. Fortunately, we were already close to the parking area and got out surprisingly quickly. And it was only a 40 minute drive back to Lakeland, good thing for Dan because he must have been exhausted from pushing my wheelchair around for 12 hours.

On Friday, Dan's parents wanted to go back to the beach condo, but I was wayyy too wiped out from the Epcot advanture to even leave the hotel the next morning, so they went without Dan or me. Dan entertained himself by walking to a nearby mall, and I alternated resting with packing up the room so I wouldn't have to do it Saturday morning at the last minute. We did go with them in the evening to take Dan's grandfather and his grandfather's wife to dinner at the Outback so we'd have a chance to bid them adieu.

Saturday was the big departure day. We left the hotel at 9:30am and headed for Tampa. We got lost in Tampa and nearly got t-boned, which my neck didn't appreciate.

The Tampa to Washington DC flight was pretty uneventful. We even lucked out that the departure gate for the next flight, which was only 30 minutes after we landed, was moved closer to our arrival gate. And they boarded a bit late, which helped.

The next segment was Washington DC to Denver. I was most pleased that the in-flight movie was "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", and I even managed to snag some headphones that worked. Good thing the movie made the time go by a bit faster, because we ran into problems after that.

When we were just 150 miles from Denver, the airport was shut down due to a freak hailstorm. We couldn't turn around and go somewhere else because we didn't have enough fuel! There was some discussion about trying to make it to Colorado Springs, but DIA relented and told us we could land.

But once we landed, we pretty much just had to sit outside the airport. The grounds crews were all inside due to lightning, so there was no one to set us up with a gate. Weird, sitting on the tarmac watching a thunderstorm.

We finally got off the plane well after our connecting flight was supposed to have left. But it hadn't left yet because as luck would have it, the pilots were stuck on ANOTHER plane. So we boarded, and waited, and waited.

It was 9:30pm when we took off from Denver, and I was in agony. But we still had an hour and a half to go, and it was high turbulence all the way. I was trying not to cry by the time we touched down in Sioux Falls.

It got worse when we discovered after a considerable amount of waiting that some of our luggage was missing! My suitcase and one of Dan's parents' bags never arrived. So we had to go over to check-in to have their lone employee to file a claim.

I thought we were finally on our way home then, but Dan's mom had never found the stub she had gotten for parking, so we had no proof how long we'd been in the lot. We had to sort it out with the attendant, and then we got lost again. Dan and I got home at midnight, and I made a vow to NEVER do two connections in one day again.

Our luggage finally showed up Sunday night. Stupid airline. They again managed to mar an otherwise decent trip.

I'm glad I went, especially since we're not gonna be able to do any more vacations for I don't know how many years. I just wish I was well enough to really make good use of our rare travel opportunities. Despite having to miss so much, I still managed to take 400 pictures, heh heh.

And I probably should have broken this up into segments after all, because it took me eight days to type this post.