Vacation! Day One

I was obsessively checking the forecast, about every two hours. I can't tell you how stressed out we were. At 8 am Nate was still …somewhere, I cant even remember, he had been away since Monday. I was packing the kids in secret, as they thought that we were leaving the following Wednesday. Packing four people for 10 days and wildly different climates in secret is HARD! On Thursday we found flights that left PA at 9 am and landed in Atlanta, which would have left us with about a 7 hour drive to Orlando. After missing an entire vacation due to a blizzard two years ago we almost took them. They kept moving up the snow arrival time, and with a 4 pm flight this was scary. Any delay, mechanical, or a delay to our inbound flight (from Paris) would mean that we might not get out. This was a very real threat. I had a good friend who had an 8 am flight departing Saturday morning……she ended up not getting out until Tuesday late afternoon. We opted to chance it, and were one of the last flights to depart from Philadephia. We ended up getting 28 inches of snow at our house by the time the storm moved out on Sunday night. 

We picked the kids up at school. They had NO IDEA what was going on. We picked Jake up first, telling him that we were afraid of the storm messing up our travel plans so had decided to fly out ahead of it. We picked up Luke and Jules next. I had their travel backpacks all ready to go with workbooks and kindles and snacks. They were giddy, if a bit confused, but since they had had a flight cancelled before they actually seemed to understand it. They were so excited to go see their Grandparents! We sat them down in the club, grabbed some snacks and told them we needed to have a talk. Jules got nervous, saying "Is it something bad, Mom?". I told her no, but that we hadn't told them the entire truth. Nate was subtly filming the entire thing. I told her that yes, we were worried about the storm, but that wasn't the entire reason we were flying out early. We handed Luke and envelop and asked him to open it and read it out loud. It was our tickets to Disney. He opened it and read it, something about "Welcome to your Magical Adventure"……they were hilarious……so confused and excited. They kept saying "But you said we weren't going to Disney until Luke was 10 Mom?!!?!?!?" We explained that no, they were going to Disney TOMORROW MORNING! It made me cry…….just seeing their complete excitement and shock after all of the planning and secret keeping and stress about the storm, it all felt worth it. 

Getting on the plane was one of the biggest reliefs of my life. Having it be a giant new international plane with room to actually lay down and sleep was an even bigger relief as I had been running ragged the past few days. I slept while the kids did read and we were there before we knew it. 

We had priced out staying at both Animal Kindgom and the Wilderness Lodge, which both looked beautiful, but at the end opted to stay at the J.W Mariott.  We were able to get adjoining rooms so we had our own room attached to the kids room and two big bathrooms. The best part was that it was free. The hotel itself was beautiful and the rooms were spacious. It was only about a 15 minute drive to the parks, and we had a big Ford Expedition for the week. Although the hotel provided free transportation to all of the parks, we preferred driving to our destination as we liked having total autonomy over our day. This being our first time "doing" Disney, we didn't know exactly what to expect and felt more in control not being beholden to any set schedule. The first night we quickly unpacked and simply went downstairs and had a great meal at the Whisper Creek Farm, The Kitchen. Afterwards we walked it off by exploring the beautiful grounds and checking out the pools and lazy river. It was COLD. Definitely not Florida like weather. I had been looking at the forecast as I packed and knew that the next day was forecast to be 51 degrees…….but lets just say I was in for a surprise. 

I worked with a disney planner, Kristy of Never Grow Up Vacations, who literally planned everything for me. Only having four days at the park we opted to spend the first day at Universal, second at Magic Kingdom, third at Epcot, and the fourth back at Universal. We got Fast Passes and Park to Park passes for each day, skipped the Meal Plan, and skipped the park hopper, knowing that we would spend each full day at one park. All of these decisions turned out to be good ones, for us. 

Day one was a huge success. We got out of Philly, the kids were hugely surprised, all of our bags got to Orlando, (never a given flying out of Philadelphia) and the hotel was perfect for us. More to come!

*In non vacation news I had my much anticipated endocrinologist appointment this morning. My cortisol is indeed very high. I was sent for a ACTH Plasma blood test (this has something to do with my pituitary glands), and then ordered to take a salivary cortisol test (some test of my saliva that has to be done at night, as late as possible…..which means that I will have to keep myself up, somehow, till about 10 pm as I have been falling asleep by 8:30 all week), and also an extremely sexy 24 hour urine collection. Yes, this is exactly as glamorous as it sounds. I have to collect my pee in a jug for 24 hours, starting tomorrow morning and continuing until first thing saturday morning. I guess as cortisol fluctuates throughout the day, this is a way to monitor how much it is fluctuating, or something. From there I will move on to a suppression test, where I take a drug (dexamethasone) to suppress something or other overnight and then have a blood test in the morning. This is (I think) to test more specifically for a tumor. (I think). So. Good times! She mentioned "A MASS"……..which is of course something that no one likes to hear. I really don't think that I have a "MASS". I truly think that this is more related to all of the stress that I went through this past summer and fall with buying the house in DC, listing out house, the stress of showings/keeping the house perfect, the ambiguity of moving/not moving etc. Then there was the concussion, the depression, etc. It all takes a toll. I don't know. I do know that I wasn't able to get my next appointment until April 19th, but I WAS able to set up an online patient portal so that I can view my test results and email with the Dr (who I really liked, she took her time with me and really listened/answered my questions today) prior to that date. I assume that if the testing shows wonky things I will move ahead with the suppression test and/or imaging prior to the next appointment. 

So, that is that. In the meantime I am napping every day, starting each day with a glass of warm water with lemon, really trying to drink tons of water, and meditating daily. My yoga practice and teaching is bringing me a lot of joy and my stress levels surrounding our move to Colorado are low. Vacation was a wonderful time away, Nate and I had so much fun together and the extra time with the kids was a gift. The break from cleaning/organizing/cooking was a gift that came at a great time after the holidays and I am grateful for it. I'm focusing on thinking about all of the things that ARE working with my body and not letting the one thing that is out of whack consume me. At least, I'm trying to. I'm grateful that within the next few days I should  have some more answers.