Vacation Anxiety

My family has taken only two vacations in the last ten years. Because I am a single parent of four children, three of whom have significant disabilities, planning a vacation overwhelms me.

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For instance, one of our two vacations has been a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World. That one worked pretty well because I had all the Make-A-Wish folks planning almost everything for me. But, I still had to figure out how to get a wheelchair on a plane whose aisles weren’t wide enough. And, I had to pack medicines, including syringes, and figure out how to get all that on a plane.

Then there were all the supplies we would need for a week away from home. We had one huge duffle bag full of nothing but Depends. Another duffle contained Pediasure and tube feeding supplies. Many bags were required for clothes and bedding, because as so many of you know, several changes of each of those things is not unusual in a day.

After that trip, I was so very grateful for the Make-A-Wish planners!

Our other vacation involved a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Again, just the sheer volume of what we had to pack was overwhelming. But in addition, I also had to figure out the location of the closest hospital should we have a seizure or other medical issue. I had to know if my child could be air-lifted to a trauma center if necessary. I had to know if the house we were renting had back-up power in the event of a storm outage.

And the list went on and on.

We’re going to try again at Christmas this year. I have rented a mountain cabin and have already started my list of things to check on and work out.

How do the rest of you do vacations? I really would like to take my family on one each year, but I am just too intimidated.

Deborah can be found writing here at 5MFSN every Wednesday, and can also be found at Pipecleaner Dreams.

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