After loading up my car, we all hopped in and headed south for spring break.  Actually, after having Cody sit in the backseat, Chuck and I loaded every inch of the SUV, including precariously putting things around and on top of Cody.  I mean, we loaded that vehicle.  Clothes, food, Cody’s small acoustic guitar, basketball, Godzilla DVDs…a hard plastic, 12-inch Godzilla toy that Cody nicknamed “Godji.”  All the essentials.

Fully packed, we started on our journey.  As we drove, the snow on the fields disappeared and bare ground emerged.  We finally arrived at our hotel and managed to extricate all of our belongings – and eventually our son – from the car.  Thank goodness for luggage carts (two of them). 

We had a two-room suite with a kitchenette/living area and separate bedroom because we planned to be there for 10 days.  With celiac disease, Cody and I can’t go out to eat at most restaurants so the kitchenette was crucial.  Amazingly, I had discovered that the one celiac-safe restaurant in the whole city was only 5 minutes from our hotel!  Which, it turned out, was really fortunate because most of the frozen meals I had purchased to pack didn’t fit in the car…what with all of the other essentials.

We unloaded the luggage carts and put luggage and boxes roughly in the areas where we would use them, i.e., food in the kitchen, luggage in the bedroom, Godzilla DVDs by the TV.  The first thing to be unpacked, however, were the swimsuits.  Truly, the most critical items we packed.  After donning suit, goggles, Crocs, and grabbing Godji, Cody announced it was time to swim!

For the next few days, we swam (I consider hot tubs to be swimming), ate great gluten free food from the local restaurant, and watched Godzilla movies.

I had planned on taking lots of pictures with my phone to show you our trip (because…no room for the real camera, of course, what with all of the other essentials) – except I forgot my phone at home.  “Oh, well,” I decided, “that just gives me a chance to unplug” (plus Chuck had his phone, Cody had a tablet, and I had my laptop – so, you know, unplugged).

I was going to take pictures of us crammed in under mountains of luggage, swimming at the hotel, standing outside of an historic building across from the hotel. 

And then I planned to tell you the story behind the pictures.  Something about not comparing your life to what you see on social media.

Because, while everything I have said is true, the full story isn’t as exciting as I’ve made it sound.

We did indeed drive south, but only 90 miles south.  We didn’t even get out of the state.

The hotel room is true, the restaurant, swimming, watching (painful) Godzilla movies.

But this trip was not a vacation.  Our hotel was across the street from the hospital where Chuck was scheduled to have a rare type of open-heart surgery, the one place in the whole state qualified to perform it.

We packed so much stuff because I needed to entertain an 11-year-old boy stuck in a hotel room for the majority of 10 days while I expected to be at the hospital (my mom came with us too to stay with Cody during the day). 

I had also packed a small, stuffed toy intending to put it in Chuck’s hospital room so he could see it and think of us when Cody and I weren’t with him.  Three years ago after Chuck’s first surgery, I brought Cody to the hospital to see Chuck once he was moved out of the ICU.  Cody and I stopped in the hospital gift shop on the way in, and Cody selected for daddy a small version of a stuffed puppy that Chuck had previously bought for Cody. (He also selected a monkey for himself.)

A boy visiting his dad in the hospital.

So, I brought that toy along for this surgery and sneaked it into the bag Chuck brought to the hospital.

Two days later, after the open-heart surgery, after the stroke, I saw the puppy laying on a table in Chuck’s ICU room – the room in which he’d been intubated and sedated for over 24 hours as a huge medical team tried to assess his diagnosis and prognosis.  As I got ready to leave at the end of visiting hours at 9 pm that night, I saw the puppy.  Then I looked at Chuck’s paralyzed right hand that had started to curl in on itself. 

And I thought, “No way.  We are not letting that happen.”

Man in hospital bed holding a stuff toy. I did not tell my son the story behind the picture.

I picked up the toy and brought it over to Chuck’s still body.  I uncurled his stiff fingers and managed to wedge the puppy in his grasp.  Then I took out my phone (which a chain of friends and family had brought to me that day) and framed a picture of Chuck holding the puppy, making sure to exclude the multiple IV lines in his hand and arm.

The next morning, I showed the picture to Cody, telling him daddy napped most of the day but held “Slush” while he slept.

“Awwww,” Cody replied, smiling.

I didn’t tell him the story behind the picture.