Mini-Moon Time and a Blog-cation

My vacation starts tomorrow.  Oh gosh, you have no idea how excited I am.  I don't know why but I am one of those people who is just absurdly obsessed with taking vacations and traveling somewhere for them.  You won't catch me doing a stay-cation.  Vacations are supposed to be a break from the norm.  And you're probably saying, "Jewel...don't all people like vacations."  And the answer is...no.  I KNOW people who do not take vacations.  I know some people who haven't taken a vacation, ever, despite having the means to.  I know people who have so much vacation time saved up because they never take vacations, that you would probably want to strangle them if you thought that meant they'd give you their vacation time.  

I am not one of those people. I blame my parents.  My dad was in the military and every summer we took a vacation.  Not just a "school's out let's goof around at home" vacation.  We were blessed enough to travel places, mostly because we were moving so it just made sense to go to Disney World while we move.  And Ben's family was kind of the same way.  They drove across the country for many years, stopping at different places and doing all sorts of fun things.  Growing up with a yearly vacation really warped my sense of reality.  When I first started working, I think within the first month, I sent an email to my friends, alerting them of a group vacation.  The first vacation we would take after I'd graduated and had a grown people job.  We went to good ol' San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The first vacation I took was over a long weekend; it was essentially four days long.  I had just started working and I didn't have that much vacation time but by golly, I was going on a vacation.  Upon returning from Puerto Rico, I was hellbent on planning another vacation.  This one had to bigger.  It had to be better.  It had to be Maui.  I told Ben we were going to Maui.  He said OK. And we went.  That's what I love about Ben. He's not much for planning vacations, but he's always down to go on one.  We make a great pair.  

Later that year (2011) we moved in together.  I knew funds would be tight for a number of reasons.  We were paying a much higher rent for living inside the beltway, closer to Washington, D.C.  And I was secretly hoping/thinking that we wouldn't have enough money to go on a vacation in 2012 because Ben was planning to propose.  Rings ain't cheap!  So when I asked him if he thought a trip to Costa Rica in Spring 2012 would work, I naturally thought he'd be hesitant, because, after all, he was going to propose.  Wrong.  Without blinking an eye, he said "Sure.  Costa Rica sounds great." I should have been happy but I was fuming.  I thought Ben would have said no to a Costa Rica trip if he was really planning to propose.  Little did I know that Ben was planning a surprise, secret proposal.  Like most men should be.  And that was all part of his little game.   We got engaged March 2012, and my Costa Rica plans were scratched because we had a wedding to pay for.  But all was not lost!  We took another 4-5 day vacation in May to Miami to attend my grandparents' vow renewal.  

Which brings us to 2013.  Kidney transplants really do cramp your vacation planning. As I've written about before, Ben and I were planning the most spectacular honeymoon to Santorini, Greece.  Looking at pictures of Greece gave me life some days.  We were so excited.  We kept hope alive that we might still be able to go to Greece, up until about three weeks before the kidney transplant happened.  I made a call to our honeymoon planner, and explained that going to Greece in June was not going to be a reality.  My kidney transplant was coming up and Santorini just doesn't have the hospital infrastructure that I need at this point in my life.  Our honeymoon planner was and is so understanding.  He's been working with us to postpone our honeymoon until Spring 2014.  As many people have said to me, Greece will always be there.  It is one of the oldest countries in the world.

So with our Greece travel plans pushed back, that left Ben and I without a vacation to take this year.  This could not happen.  There's just something about going to a different place, even if it's the most boring place, and seeing something other than the same scenery that I see every day.  It refreshes you and makes you appreciate that scenery that you see every day even more.  Unless...you go to Hawaii.  Ben will agree with me:  there is not enough scenery in the state of Virginia to make me forget how gorgeous Hawaii is.  It should be illegal for a state to be THAT beautiful.  But I digress.

I asked Ben if he thought it would be possible to go on a vacation this year.  He said yes but it had to be a domestic vacation for health and budget reasons.  We reviewed several locations.  New Orleans was one of them.  Acadia was another.  One of my savvy travel friends suggested Lake Tahoe. Every place we reviewed had it's attractive qualities and we want to see all of these places eventually. But nothing really grabbed us and made us feel like we HAD to go THIS year.  Then during a quick search of romantic destinations to visit in the U.S. I came across Sedona, Ariz.  I had never heard of it, but apparently most other people have.  Ever since Ben and I decided to go to Sedona, we've been mentioning it to various friends and people at work and family members.  And all of those people have said this combination of things:  A) that they've been there and it's really beautiful; B) that they haven't been there, but they've heard it's beautiful; or C) that they know someone who's been there and that person said it was beautiful.  Then there was this Frommer's guide: 

"There is not a town anywhere in the Southwest, perhaps anywhere in the country, with a more beautiful setting than Sedona."

Well alrighty then!  When you've only heard great things about a place, that's a good sign that you should plan to visit at some point.  From our hotel, it's a two-three hour drive to the Grand Canyon.  I've never been to the Grand Canyon and the funny thing is I don't actually know many people who have.  Most of my friends haven't been, and most of my family members haven't either.  Except for my new family.  Ben's immediate family went to the Grand Canyon during one of their road trips.  The Grand Canyon is one of the few places that I've heard Ben actually describe with excitement, and he doesn't get excited about anything.  The fact that he's agreed to go with me to the Grand Canyon, despite having been there before, is a BIG DEAL.  

Anyways, enough about where I'm going!  Let's talk about my OTHER vacation.  My blog-cation, aka time off from bloggin.  I've been trying to be a consistent blogger ever since I started this blog.  This isn't the first blog I've had.  I've had others and they all failed because I wasn't consistent.  With this blog, I've managed to keep my promise to myself to post a certain number of times each week.  But I figured I would coincide my mini-moon with a blogging break.  There are a number of things I want to share on this blog, and I just need more time to meditate and journal to fully develop them.  To the readers of this blog:

THANK YOU SO MUCH for coming to my little space on the internet, to share in my trials and triumphs, my whining and rejoicing, my pleasures, pain, run-on sentences, typos, and tangents over the past eight or nine months.  I write for you just as much as I write for myself.  

That said...it's AUGUST.  Stop reading this and go enjoy your summer.  Plan a stay-cation, if you must.  But just this once.

Danny's Top Five-- Kidney Transplant Travel

Have a kidney transplant? And planning a trip?  Do not despair!  Danyelle is back with five tips for traveling with a transplant.  And just in time too! I'm scrambling last minute to pack up for my trip.  When will I ever learn.  Anyhoo, enjoy!

1.  Bring your medicine. Double check to make sure you have enough medicine to last you for your entire trip. And it's also a good idea to pack medicine for an extra set of days.  You never know what can happen!  If you're flying, do not pack your medicine in your checked luggage.  Take it with you in your purse or carry-on bag to the plane.  

 

2. Hygiene is very important, and planes and airports are filled with germs.  Your first line of defense:  washing your hands!  Definitely be sure to wash them before touching your face and eating food.  If you don't have access to soap and water, hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes will work as well.  Definitely, add several packs of those to your carry-on bag.

 

3. Depending on where you're going, definitely check with your doctor to make sure you're up to date on your shots and vaccinations.  And if you have a kidney transplant, make sure your doctor knows where you're going and that they don't have any additional instructions for you.

 

4. Hydrate, and hydrate safely.  Known countries like Mexico and many in Europe don't have incredibly clean and safe drinking water systems.  For that reason, it's best to drink bottled water at all times. If you're in the United States, do what you feel comfortable with, bottled water or tap. But definitely make sure you're drinking plenty of water, between 1-2 liters, especially if you're going to a place with a warmer climate.

 

5. Always check to be sure you know health information in case of an emergency.  You never want anything to come up, but sometimes having a kidney transplant can be unpredictable.  First, make sure you scout the area where you're traveling to for the nearest transplant center.  In Jewel's case, the nearest transplant centers are in Phoenix.  This is important to know because not all hospitals have the facilities or physicians to treat patients who have undergone transplants.  Second, look for the nearest hospital.  This hospital doesn't need to have a transplant center, but it will be good to know in case any other problems come up.  And third, keep a list of your medicines and contact information for doctors and transplant coordinators with you at all times. 

 

And obviously, take lots of pictures to remember the amazing moments! 

The Blueprint

"Scars are tattoos with better stories."

I hear music in my dreams.  There's a symphony narrating the plot of someone flying or saying what they really mean or winning the lottery.  My eyes flutter open and I realize it's just my cell phone alarm, and I get up and begin my morning prep.  I turn on the shower. The steam feels the room, I undress, flinging what I slept in into various corners of the bathroom floor.  I look into the mirror to tie my hair up before stepping into the tub.  But I pause after my eye catches a glimpse of the black dot on my torso.  This is not a new dot, but I still inspect it as if its appearance is some kind of mystery to me.  

I run my hands over the black, brownish circle, sliding my fingers three inches up higher on my torso to a short and thick brown line, massaging the subtle bump underneath.  I step into the shower feel mixture of warm water and soap glide over my new kidney. Using my fingers, I walk along the five-inch incision, as if it were as if it were a balance beam.  I pause along the jagged path to poke at various rises and falls, numb spots, smooth and thin patches of scar tissue on the incision.  I chuckle at the "baby bump" that this new kidney has created, only this "baby" leans heavily toward the right side of my abdomen.  It doesn't kick but every once in a while I'm hit with a bout of shooting pains on the right side of my gut, which cause me to rub the new kidney as if I'm convincing it to calm down. 

Once clothed, for the rest of the day these various scars get hardly of the attention they received in the morning.  But at work, while working on a report, I stop to think about what I want to write next and reach my left hand up to the right side of my neck and feel around for two little bumps.  Once found, I rest my fingers on the tiny bulges until the next round of phrases comes to mind.  And I start typing again.  

Day becomes night, and it is once again way too late, and I know I will be exhausted in the morning. I begin to fly through my bedtime routine--brushing teeth, washing my face, putting on pajamas.  During each phase, I pause to admire my collection of body art, and I think about how this skin, once covered in a flawless blanket of chocolate pigment, has little chips in the surface, un-perfect crocked lines, uneven groupings of dots and bumps and bulges, and healing cuts.  Like icons on a map, I glide over each one with my hands, to remember how I got here.

 

What Summer/Life is About

 It is...

A cat nap after work on a hot Friday afternoon.

Frizzy hair and no make-up on a Saturday morning.

Outdoor picnics at a historic Virginia plantation.

Blowing a tire on a gravelly road in the country, spending a Sunday afternoon searching for at least one repair shop that could fix it.

Waiting three hours at bankrupt shopping mall for new tires, eating food court pizza to push back the hunger pangs.

Arriving at family dinner with all the ingredients two hours late.  But a low-country shrimp boil tastes good anytime. 

Being exhausted, sweaty, having frizzy hair, running late. 

A trip to the bank, a boring work event, a birthday party, early Sunday morning church, a blown tire, riding with the windows down, good seafood, good people.

 

"A life without love

 is like a year without summer."

Swedish Proverb

Faith Through Hearing: The D.V. Philosophy

"Now listen to me, you that say, 'Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.'  You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be!  You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.  What you should say is this:  'If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.'"

James 4:13-15 (GNT)

When I was a teenager, as a way to cope with my diagnosis with kidney disease and bring some stability to my world, I became a chronic planner.  To this day, I get made fun of by my sisters because of all the pieces of computer paper, journal paper, and sticky notes with scratched out To-Do lists I'd leave around.  They'd be complete with timelines to the second and an estimated amount of time that it would take me to complete an action.  I was obsessed, I was sick, and I didn't know how else to cope.  Actual hours would pass in a day where I'd sit in my room, journal, write to-do lists, and cry.  

I eventually grew out of it. I'm still very much a natural planner.  I wouldn't be defined as "spontaneous" by an meaning of the word.  Have I relaxed over the years? Yes.  I'll usually plan things up until a certain point, and then (in the words of one of Ben's and my favorite songs) let Jesus take the wheel.  And sometimes that wheel leads us to having a really awesome unexpected experience.  

Life is very different for me now.  Not that Ben and I never planned anything before, but now that we're married we have so much fun just talking about the future.  And we talk about these things as if being married means they are automatically going to happen.  It's almost as if when we were engaged or just dating, we weren't sure if these things were really going to happen, because there was always the possibility of an unexpected break-up.  But now that we're married, we've started to think more about things we plan actually coming to pass.  

When I discuss "plans" with other people, I'm always incredibly excited.  Dreaming and imagining is one of my favorite pastimes, as is planning stuff.  But then it's only a matter of time before I start to have a panic attack, and anxiety and frustration creeps into my psyche.  When you've gone through any experience with chronic illness, you know that even the best laid plans can fail.  You've lived through it.  You've seen dreams that you hoped, believed, and just knew would happen, shatter right before your eyes on the rough, gravelly concrete known as reality. You think about what it felt like to have that happen, how broken-hearted you were.  You wonder, what's the point.  When you have a disease with no cure, you feel like you're constantly in a state of limbo, waiting for the other shoe to drop...or organ to fail. Why even plan or dream of anything in the future?  We can't predict what path our lives take. Only God knows.  And God knows me so well. 

This week of marriage, just as Ben and I passed the one month mark, was spent discussing our money, and what we want to do with it going forward.  Like most young married couples, there's talk of houses and traveling and emergency funds.  Unlike many married couples our age, there's talk of medical bills and health insurance and what if IT happens again.  As excited as I was to have a joint budget and the same ideas on how we manage it, I was also nervous and frustrated with how we'd deal with another major surgery like this.  I'd been studying this devotional on my Bible app called "Battlefield of the Mind" written by Joyce Meyer.  On one of the days she wrote about a man who was big on saying D.V. after talking about everything he hoped to do for the next day, week, month, year, or even life.  D.V. is an abbreviation for "Deo volente," which in Latin means "God willing."  The man described his D.V. theory as "having great ideas" about things he wanted to do or see, but D.V. was a reminder to him that he just wanted his ideas to in line with what God had planned for his life.  

I so want to subscribe to this D.V. mindset.  Because it's been a struggle for me to be able to dream freely or even plan what I'm going to eat for dinner without thinking, "Well, that could happen, if my kidney doesn't fail."  What I know for sure is that God says He knows the plans that He has for my life, "plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for."  So there is no need to feel like any idea I dream up will end in calamity.  And what I hope to remember, as I dream and plan with Ben and as we talk about our lives together:  even if something we really want falls through, we can still rejoice.  Nothing that we want for ourselves is ever better than what God wants for us.  And sometimes, what we want and what God want are the same thing.  

I really wanted my sister to donate her kidney to me. We had both planned on it.  We both wanted it to happen in February!  As you know, it didn't happen that way.  But you know what:  what God had planned for me and my dad, and the way it happened, and the timing of it all, I wouldn't go back and change one single thing.

 

"My heavenly Father, please help me live today.  Whether I actually say the words D.V. or not, remind me that Your will is more important than anything in my life.  Help me not to allow Satan to get me thinking so much about tomorrow that I fail to live today in a way that pleases You.  I ask this in Jesus' name.  Amen."