A month or so ago, my lifelong friend Nannette, (hey, we rode the same school bus) wrote an inspirational blog about a trip she and The Sweetheart took this summer. Her post started out, “Take two senior citizens on one road trip in a rented RV for 13 days, 4000 miles and you are asking for nothing but trouble. Or are you?” You can read the rest of the post Stranded here on Hope in the Healing. It is quite an inspirational piece on God’s faithfulness and protection. It also takes you on quite a journey.
At our house, we were not exactly having a fantastic summer. I spent a month in the hospital from mid-June until mid-July with multiple blood clots in both lungs, bilateral pneumonia, severe sepsis and four liters of fluid in my left chest cavity. The fluid had caused a collapse of the left lung. To say the situation was precarious, and that I was in a life-threatening condition, would be no exaggeration. (I had not been negligent, but my pulmonologist assumed I had Covid-19. The possibility of pulmonary emboli never came up.)
Every new specialist who joined the care team would tell me how fortunate I was to have survived thus far. The bulk of that month was spent in the pulmonary critical care unit of a high acuity hospital. Let me just say, an illness that brings you into intimate contact with your own mortality does something to you. My heart was still reeling from the death of my older sister, nine months earlier. As if that was not enough, my step-father-in-law, who was a wonderful man, died suddenly while I was hospitalized.
Eventually discharged, in a debilitated condition, my doctors told me it would take three to four months to recover. Feeling so vulnerable to everything, especially the new Coronavirus, my lungs could not take another serious assault. (I had four negative Covid-19 tests, and a negative antibody test. Nope, Covid-19 had not caused it.)
My first month home was spent trying to gradually increase the amount of exertion I could tolerate and maintain adequate oxygenation. It was a slow process. Between forays into the kitchen for Diet Coke, I spent most of my time in my recliner. Day after day, the same chair, the same view, the same drink. By nature I am a calm person, but admittedly, I was having anxiety almost to the point of panic attacks. My life was flying by, while I sat in the same chair with the same view.
I have always enjoyed traveling. There is a great big world out there, and I have seen only a speck of it. We have a big, beautiful country, yet there are still states I have never visited. Because of the continuing havoc of rheumatoid arthritis, lumbar fusions, and now respiratory problems, it seemed my traveling days were over.
After reading Nannette’s blog, I started thinking maybe there is a way we can travel, now. My sweetheart, Doug, was intrigued. By the next day, he had mapped out a route. By the end of the week, we had rented an RV, and Saturday, it was at our house ready to go.
Spontaneity does not allow time to think through the possible problems.
Now, we were two senior citizens (ouch), in an RV rented for two weeks, and a trip of 4600 miles all mapped out. What could possibly go wrong? Our plan was to follow the path of Route 66 outbound, visiting the Grand Canyon, and then continuing to Las Vegas. The plan was to take a northern route, through Arches Park in Utah and then Denver on the way back.
We took my home oxygen concentrator, assuming we should be able to run it using the power inverter during the day and then use power from an RV park at night. Our first day out was great. However, on the second day, the power inverter shut itself down, and took with it any access to daytime oxygen. We live at about 500 feet above sea level, where supplemental daytime oxygen is not needed. Did we even think about the fact we were going to places that are 8000 to 9000 feet above sea level? Nope! At those elevations, I would need non-stop oxygen.
Did we think about portable oxygen, so I could tolerate walking? Nope! I could not walk ten, no make that five feet without huffing and puffing which meant all of my sightseeing would be enjoyed from a comfy front seat. I still had oxygen at night, until the concentrator rolled across the RV and down into the stairwell, breaking a piece of it. Doug took what we had, and like Apollo 13, “fixed it”! The next great fall broke the part beyond repair. Yes, we were trying to prevent this from happening. In an RV, with every curve or sudden move, anything not tied down acts like a pinball. That included me. Walking down the hallway tossed me from the sofa to the counter and back to the table. Being on blood thinner, those hits turned me into a patchwork of bruises.
The same day the inverter crashed, the sensor in the emergency brake thought it was engaged. After some troubleshooting, Doug Apollo 13-ed it with a bungee cord. On this same glorious day, we were needing gas. We had passed a station twenty-five miles behind us; we were in the middle of lots of rocks, but no gas for many miles so we backtracked those twenty-five miles. Did I mention we had not gotten a rental car for the Grand Canyon? Taking a 32-foot RV on those twists and turns…. Off we went to Flagstaff to get a rental car!
Did our trip go perfectly? No, but we sure learned a lot that we can use on our next RV trip. Doug and I agreed this was the best vacation ever. We could have focused on the uncertainties of my physical condition, and the fact I could not walk enough to see the Grand Canyon, or Arches Park up close. We could have focused on the other issues that occurred. Fear could have sent us back to the predictably of home…where I could sit in the same chair, with the same view, still drinking Diet Coke!
Come back tomorrow for Part Two of When the Plan Falls Apart: Make a Decision to Adapt and Climb on Board!
Joy is a pharmacist in early retirement due to health problems. She is trying to live the best version of life and be willing to adapt to the continuing changes. She and her sweet husband, Doug, have two golden doodle furbabies. Oliver and Kenzi have recently discovered their love of going on RV trips! It’s become a family affair.
