Tag: first trip

Spasms on vacation

Spastic Cerebral Palsy is the most common type of Cerebral Palsy. I have mild spastic CP where my left side is weaker then my right side of my body. I’ve always had stiff muscles and stretches have always helped, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that spasms started to effect me on a daily basis.

I remember the first time they happened vividly. Margaret and I were on our first vacation together in Boston in September of 2019. It was early in the morning and out of nowhere my legs just started flying up uncontrollably. Margaret woke up with me and went down to her car to get a heating pad and Advil to see if it would help because the pain was excruciating. She made a pit stop to grab food from the buffet but ended up dropping the entire bowl of cereal in the elevator, while the maid was in the elevator with her. I will never let her forget it. Anyways, after a few minutes the heating pad and an Advil worked and my spasms went away.

Following that vacation, spasms became a daily thing when my body is falling asleep, waking up, (especially during the winter and stormy weather). How do we deal with them you must be asking. Well honestly they are apart of our nightly routine now. Margaret does an amazing job keeping pressure on my legs often moving with me throughout the night so I can stay comfortable.

Margaret is not an angel, saint, or whatever else you want to call her for getting me through my spasms. It’s something that has become second nature to her and she wakes up with me each and every night to simply remind me she’s right here and that it’s only a few minutes of pain each time and it is not going to last past those few minutes. To be honest, not many people would be built for that, but Margaret has always been.

Bring us Back to Boston

As we are sitting here during quarantine, we are both sitting here thinking about the days when we were able to leave the house and go places, not unlike everyone else. But Charlie had written a few thoughts about our trip to Boston back in September 2019.

How Boston came to be:

Margaret and I started planning the trip in the middle of July. I just threw out the idea and she loved it. We used TripAdvisor to find the activities to do and Facebook recommendations for the places to eat. We then wrote an outline of each day as a guide, (we kind of used it.)

First trip without parents:

It’s something I thought would never happen, but when we got the okay it was a surreal feeling. Margaret texted me “STOP, NO WAY?! The day of the trip time stood still, but when we were finally off I felt a great sense of freedom and independence. It didn’t really set in until we got into the room, I couldn’t stop smiling.

Our first trip together:

Boston was my first trip without my parents ever, but I wasn’t nervous at all. I trust Margaret with my life and our comfort level with each other is very high. We didn’t get to Boston until 10:30 and we were exhausted. That night was the first time we slept together and it was arguably the best nights sleep I’ve ever had. The next three days were pure happiness from the activities to dinners and everything in between. We can’t wait to do another trip one day soon.