Aloha.
We are just back from an almost two week vacation in Hawaii. It was our first time there and we jokingly referred to this trip as Cassie’s “make a wish.” Going to Hawaii is the only thing that Cassie’s said she wanted to do before she died. So we made it happen. “Don’t wait.”
It was a wonderful trip but it also got us thinking about vacationing with cancer. Like everything else, it’s different now. The biggest change is that we used to be able to go on a long vacation and leave life behind. Unplug. Forget about work or our to do lists. Recharge. It’s what made vacations so special and we were good at it. Despite our mutual Type A personalities we had both become excellent vacationers adept at letting go, shutting off our email and leaving life at home.
Now though, after Cassie’s diagnosis there is no true way to get away. Her cancer is with us all of the time. It’s a constant. She doesn’t suddenly feel better because we are on a beach (though it is certainly better to feel crappy on the sand than in the snow) and our sadness doesn’t miraculously disappear as we board an airplane. MBC is on vacation with us and that’s a hard reality to accept because you want to escape it. You want a break. You want vacation to be what it used to be and you don’t get any of that. It’s unrelenting and omnipresent and that’s hard.
And it’s not just the cancer’s constant presence. It’s small things, too. Like the night Cassie had an allergic reaction to something for the first time ever and we freaked out. Do we go to the ER? Do we call her doctor? Do we take pictures of the rash? Thankfully a Benadryl took care of it but we were totally freaked out in a way that never would have happened before.
Like we do at home, we tried to adjust and create room for the cancer – you can fight it or you can buy it a seat on the plane so that’s what we did. Feeling sad – bet a Mai Tai will help with that (don’t tell our therapists). Low energy – no problem the pool is right there. We didn’t ignore it or try to be cancer “champs” and tough it out. We talked about it, explored how it was making us feel and how we could respond to those feelings by changing our expectations, plans or pace. It wasn’t easy but it also wasn’t bad. We only had to accept that vacationing with cancer is just different. Fortunately, in spite of the differences, the three of us (Cassie, Dan and our third wheel MBC) all had a great vacation.
P.S. The lizard incident wasn’t really that big of a deal. We were driving back from the beach. Cassie had her window open and her arm hanging out. She felt something on her arm and looked down to find a lizard. She screamed. Dan almost crashed. We pulled over and got it out of the car. That’s all. But then we decided it would make a great title for a blog post so there you have it.
