Disaster Trip!

Have you ever been on a trip that turned into a disaster? I've been on a few like that. For instance, years ago when my children were young we went to Ohio to visit my husband's family. We had a great visit and when we were leaving for home we came to a traffic light at a 4 way intersection in a small Ohio city. All four lights turned green at the same time and, consequently, we got into an accident. We had to rent a car to get home and we sold our totalled car then and there to a local mechanic. What an ordeal! But, somehow we made it through.

Last weekend we experienced another disastrous trip. My daughter and her family now live in the Baltimore area of Maryland. My sister, Stacey, also lives in Maryland nearby. I planned a 4 to 5 day trip to Maryland to visit my family and to throw a baby shower for my daughter as she is pregnant and due in June with my third grandson! My sister was going to host the shower at her house. We were going with the Red Neck theme. It was going to be hilarious! Stacey and I had all kinds of funny red neck things to do. We had a great time planning this funky little shower. Rachael has a weird sense of humor like the rest of her family and we knew she would get a kick out of it.

My husband and I decided to drive down. It's about a 12 hour drive according to traffic and weather. On top of building my business, Air Companions, I also take care of people in my home. I have done this for years. Presently, I have been certified to be a VA Medical Foster Home and I care for a disabled veteran. He suffers with frontal lobe dementia; also called PICS disease. I have been caring for "DC" for almost 4 months. Overall I find him to be relatively easy to care for. So, I decided to take him along with us. I thought he might enjoy the trip. DC's son told me that his father did not like to travel. But, I thought that since he was with me he would do okay. Bad decision!

DC did well on the trip down to Maryland. He likes to ride in the car. However, once it was time to go to bed things went downhill very fast. Due to his dementia DC is almost nonverbal. But, when he realized he was not going to sleep in his own bed he started demanding to go home. He tried to run away and he kept us awake all night long. Still, I wanted to try to stay through Sunday as that was when we were doing Rachael's shower. So, we stumbled through Saturday with no sleep since Thursday night. Things went okay during the day but, sure enough, when it came time for bed DC would have none of it. He was even more insistent than the night before and he was making himself physically ill from all the stress. We made the agonizing decision to drive home through the night.

Once in the car DC calmed right down and fell asleep almost immediately. My husband and I on the other hand, had to drive home on no sleep for almost 2 days. And to make things really challenging it was raining all the way home! Without going into all the details I will just say we did make it home in 12 hours. It took my husband and 2 days to recover. DC slept like a baby all the way home and once he was home he was fine.

The baby shower did go on without me. My sister saved the day and went on with the show. Every one had a good time at the red neck shower. Johnny, Stacey's husband, is in the picture holding a shot gun and greeting everyone when they arrived at the shower. Everybody got a big kick out of it. I really feel bad that I missed the shower. I was so looking forward to it.

Lesson learned: Sometimes you don't take your work with you!