Cruises are so fun

They also require adaptations since you’re not in your house

We have been looking at glaciers today. Compared to north Texas, it’s downright cold (48 degrees and windy with 76% humidity) which is a heckuva vacation. Before we got here, however, my SHH* and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how we would get normal, everyday tasks completed in our room aka, ADL, better known as activities of daily living, such as emptying my bladder, brushing my teeth, etc. None of our imagined solutions have worked. We brought my scooter, knowing it would be of no help for ADL. But we DID pay an outrageous $130 to rent an additional walker to use in addition to mine. There is a small step up from the dressing room to the bathroom. We had thought I could use my walker to step up into the bathroom, then use the extra walker to roll over to the toilet. My left leg has gone on strike and wasn’t helpful at all. So after we checked into our room, we were happy to discover a small, lightweight upholstered chair in the dressing room, which played a pivotal role in SHH’s next heroic move. When I need to pee, my SHH*(Super Hero Husband) moves the chair into the bathroom, then takes out the furniture sliders (he sneakily packed!) and puts them on the bathroom floor. Then he puts the chair on top of said sliders. Weee! (No, not what you are thinking, but nice try, ha ha.) I sit on the chair, and then I sit on the chair and SHH slides me from the door to the toilet. Then I can fairly easily transfer to said pee collector (aka toilet), and let her rip, so to speak! All has gone pretty well until early this morning (zero dark thirty in the morning), when my sleepy self managed to fall from the toilet to the FLOOR! I will try to explain: I hold onto the chair while I’m trying to urinate; remember that the chair is unattached to anything permanently attached to anything else in the bathroom. I’ve tried to remember how the hell I managed to lose all concept of holding onto anything, but apparently, that’s what I did and I don’t remember how it came about. Even dumber, I then allowed my head to drop to the floor, but only a small boom (I truly believe I was just super tired, but anyway.) At this point, my SHH was as close to panicked as I’ve ever seen him in the 41 years we’ve been married. More than panicked, he kind of seemed irritated with me, like, what the hell are you doing?! My immediate thought was, should we call our daughter, the registered nurse one? I mean, even though I feel okay, I think, I know that head injuries can be very, very serious. Remember when Liam Neeson’s beautiful wife fell while skiing and thought she was fine, but later died?! As RN daughter said, yes but she was moving pretty fast when she hit her head. You dropped your head from a stationary position about 1 1/2 feet from the toilet. I mean, I appreciate you taking this seriously, but I think you’re fine. Does your head hurt? No? You’re fine.

So, I was fine. SHH helped me get back up on the chair, pushed me to the door to the dressing room, helped me get onto my walker/wheelchair and rolled me back to bed. I laid there for a few minutes (this was before I had consulted with RN daughter thinking, okay I’m thinking, I know where I am, I know even WHO I am, I have no pain. How bad could it be? Not bad at all, I decided, just before falling (not THAT kind of falling!) back to sleep.

So even though this is our 10th cruise, things have been somewhat different and gave us a very little scare. Otherwise, we are having a great time, you’ll be happy to know. Right? :-D

It really is kind of funny in retrospect, but we have had to be creative beyond what we thought was possible to make it all work out. So kudos to us!