I can cruise!

 

    Last week my husband and I went on an Alaskan cruise.  The primary motivation was to see if I COULD cruise.  After my brain surgeries I've dealt with quite a bit of nausea, double vision, depth perception issues and overall disorientation. As I write this everything on the screen is overlapping on top of each other and dancing around to some degree.  We weren't certain whether the additional disorientation from the movement of the boat would do me in.  I am happy to report that it did not!

    I actually rather enjoyed the movement of the ship.  The gentle rocking was very soothing and made me sleepy, that was my only side effect.  I did not have any increase in nausea and while there were people all around me using sea sickness bags I did not even feel the need to hold one - that says a lot after the last year!

    The challenges I DID bump up against had more to do with pride and learning to live within my limits (not for the first time, or even the second).  I am just more tired, ALL THE TIME. I needed a nap every day which I was loathe to admit to and put it off until my husband insisted because I was tipping over.  Thanks to my EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) I have permanent sprains in both my ankles (one high and one lateral) and they act up when I walk a bunch.  This happens when I go on cruises because the ships are so big and I like to explore in the ports.  I resolved some time ago to use my wheelchair more in these situations, but man ITS HARD!  I don't like using it because it's inconvenient, people look at me funny, and it puts my husband out a lot.  The door to our state room was not wide enough to push the wheelchair through so it has to be folded up and lifted in - no small task when it weighs close to 80 lbs.  It's also wide enough that I can't get down the hall way if there are cleaning carts present - which is about 60% of the time.  So he would have to go ahead of me and move the carts out of the way and then put them back. Needless to say I could not have done it without him! It's all quite the hassle just to go somewhere on the ship.  So, once more, I walked more than I should have. 

    I did, however, use the chair in ports.  In Juneau this meant that we could not do even the smallest .5 mile loop trail though because the trail was just too rough for the chair to make it.  A small disappointment as we had been looking forward to trying that. Instead we explored the town a little, enjoying some delicious fish tacos in a cool food truck area and picking up a new game from the game store.  I don't care what you say, you can NEVER have too many games!  We also grabbed a few of the free bracelet charms offered by the jewelers to get you in the door.  In Ketchikan, as usual, it was pouring down rain so we finally got to try out the wheelchair poncho we've been carting around for nine months!  I learned that it does an excellent job at keeping the wheelchair dry, not so much my feet that were sticking out on the foot rest.  Next time I'll need to add in a grocery bag for them! Thankfully I'd packed several magnet hooks in my cruise cube, so we were able to hang it up to dry in our room after. I'm glad that I got off the boat and explored a little. I got to have coffee (I love Raven's Brew which is only sold in Alaska pretty much) and I bought a super comfy sweatshirt to remember our trip by.  Ketchikan is not super wheelchair friendly, but that was also good to learn, and I'll write about it in another post.

    The other thing that surprised me a little was how sensitive I was to crowds.  Looking back over previous posts it seems that I had the same issue on our Carnival cruise in January. I did not, however struggle with this on our cruise in December as we were in the Haven, a special area for just a few guests.  I wonder if this has more to do with me being in a wheelchair than anything from the surgery?  I had actual anxiety in most areas of the ship because of the number of people there.  This was intensified in the dining rooms.  We intentionally ate in the smaller of the main dining rooms to avoid this, but any time we were sat in the walking area of the restaurant I had a really hard time.  This made me begin to think about cruising on smaller ships and/or in suites.  In order to do this I would need to travel less to make up for the cost difference, but it might be worth it.

Here's the thing: Our goal was to see if I could handle a cruise and we 100% were able to do that so I count it all as a success!