If you follow me on Facebook, you know Jay and I returned to Phoenix for four days last week.
You may well ask: Why go to the desert Southwest in August, when it's 100 degrees or more outside? And why go back to the same city -- the same resort, even -- where you spent the post-Christmas week of 2016 crippled, confined to a hotel suite and zonked on pain medication?
The first question is relatively easy to answer. We crave sunshine and dry heat, and we got plenty of both. (Yes, we were diligent in the use of sunscreen, and we kept hydrated.)
The second question is a little more complicated, but it boils down to a writer's craving for a good story with a happy ending.
December 2016 was a tough time for us. My mother had died on Sept. 5; I'd spent much of the year, including the month before Mom's passing, running to and from Des Moines to address one crisis after another. My brother Matt and I were with Mom when she died -- and as painful as the experience was, it was also holy, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But after her failing health in August, her death in September and her life celebration (and burial with my dad's ashes) in October, Jay and I badly craved some time for ourselves,
I was feeling twinges in my left knee in the weeks before our trip -- actually, for months and years before. The pain got more pronounced as our travel date, Dec. 26, approached, but usually a dose of ibuprofen and a hot bath in my jet tub would make the aching subside.
We took a shuttle bus for the three-hour trip from Madison to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, where a non-stop flight to Phoenix awaited. There was no leg room, none, on the bus. When I disembarked, I knew I was in trouble, and so did the the Frontier Airlines skycap, who asked me three times whether I needed a wheelchair before I finally conceded that I did. I was wheeled to the gate, and this was my first time pre-boarding a flight along with other "passengers in need of assistance." We had great seats -- roomy seats. And with a four-hour flight, I truly believed that time off my feet would make the pain go away. It didn't. I got a wheelchair ride as far as the luggage carousel, but we were on our own boarding the shuttle to the rental car facility at PHX. I could not walk. While Jay checked us in to our resort -- the Pointe Hilton at Squaw Peak -- I used my iPhone to locate the nearest ER. We thought we'd go in the morning. We did -- at 3 o'clock in the morning, after I got out of bed to relieve myself, and couldn't get up from the toilet to walk back the five feet between the biffy and the bed. We called 911. An ambulance took us to the ER. Several hours later, after I was discharged with a pair of crutches, an immobilizer and two pain prescriptions, a Pointe Hilton vehicle picked us up at the hospital, because I couldn't get into a Prius cab, and the van we ordered never came.
I ate every meal -- every one -- in our suite. While Jay went to Taliesin West, I zoned out on Percocet. The only time I left the room was to practice hobbling with my new crutches in the courtyard, and to go to the Pointe's business center to book roomy seats for the trip home.
Near the end of our vacation, Jay suggested we take a drive around Phoenix, so the trip wouldn't be a total loss for me. Our "mid-size" rental car, however, was so low to the ground, I damaged my knee even further by getting into the passenger seat, and we drove for maybe 15 minutes before I insisted he take me back.
That was why I rode to the airport in a hired SUV. And that's how I came to meet the driver, who, with my permission, laid hands on my knee (at a stop light) as he offered a healing prayer.
So why did we want to go back to the same place?
One key reason: To show how the prayer was answered.
I thought about trying to reconnect with the SUV driver -- to thank him, and to join him in giving glory to God for the answered prayer. But we didn't have time.
We were so busy going places that we missed out on seeing on our December 2016 trip, places like the Heard Museum, the Desert Botanical Gardens and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Arizona Biltmore. We walked a lot on this trip, and never stopped marveling at the miracle that I COULD walk. But I also insisted on pool time, and time in the fitness center that was available to us with our mandatory resort fee. There were a gazillion pools on the resort's sprawling grounds, and I found one, connected to the fitness center, that was for adults only and long enough for lap-swimming. One afternoon, I had that one all to myself.
So we didn't have time to track down the healing-prayer chauffeur, but I made time to speak directly to the manager of the Pointe, to tell him exactly why we came back: Because the people there were so good to us during what Jay called "the Apollo 13 of Vacations" in December 2016. We tipped the housekeeping and maintenance staff extra -- for being right there with a wheelchair when I needed one, for installing a raised toilet seat in our bathroom, for cleaning up some unusual messes created by my inability to shower, and my inability to perform certain bodily functions in the manner customary for females.
The people around us didn't know it, of course, but I also was rejoicing in my stronger, more slender and certainly more mobile body. Our first afternoon there, I wore my bikini to the pool, with pride and with confidence. Every time and place where Jay and I took long walks, I thanked my PT team, Dan, Dan and Katie -- and made sure I sent each of them a postcard.
Jay took some photos that I'd like to share now.
The first one was taken by the room we had in 2016, the room I rarely left during that week.
This one, however, is my favorite. Jay took it at twilight, in a courtyard, just after we'd finished dinner and were walking back to our room.
You may well ask: Why go to the desert Southwest in August, when it's 100 degrees or more outside? And why go back to the same city -- the same resort, even -- where you spent the post-Christmas week of 2016 crippled, confined to a hotel suite and zonked on pain medication?
The first question is relatively easy to answer. We crave sunshine and dry heat, and we got plenty of both. (Yes, we were diligent in the use of sunscreen, and we kept hydrated.)
The second question is a little more complicated, but it boils down to a writer's craving for a good story with a happy ending.
December 2016 was a tough time for us. My mother had died on Sept. 5; I'd spent much of the year, including the month before Mom's passing, running to and from Des Moines to address one crisis after another. My brother Matt and I were with Mom when she died -- and as painful as the experience was, it was also holy, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But after her failing health in August, her death in September and her life celebration (and burial with my dad's ashes) in October, Jay and I badly craved some time for ourselves,
I was feeling twinges in my left knee in the weeks before our trip -- actually, for months and years before. The pain got more pronounced as our travel date, Dec. 26, approached, but usually a dose of ibuprofen and a hot bath in my jet tub would make the aching subside.
We took a shuttle bus for the three-hour trip from Madison to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, where a non-stop flight to Phoenix awaited. There was no leg room, none, on the bus. When I disembarked, I knew I was in trouble, and so did the the Frontier Airlines skycap, who asked me three times whether I needed a wheelchair before I finally conceded that I did. I was wheeled to the gate, and this was my first time pre-boarding a flight along with other "passengers in need of assistance." We had great seats -- roomy seats. And with a four-hour flight, I truly believed that time off my feet would make the pain go away. It didn't. I got a wheelchair ride as far as the luggage carousel, but we were on our own boarding the shuttle to the rental car facility at PHX. I could not walk. While Jay checked us in to our resort -- the Pointe Hilton at Squaw Peak -- I used my iPhone to locate the nearest ER. We thought we'd go in the morning. We did -- at 3 o'clock in the morning, after I got out of bed to relieve myself, and couldn't get up from the toilet to walk back the five feet between the biffy and the bed. We called 911. An ambulance took us to the ER. Several hours later, after I was discharged with a pair of crutches, an immobilizer and two pain prescriptions, a Pointe Hilton vehicle picked us up at the hospital, because I couldn't get into a Prius cab, and the van we ordered never came.
I ate every meal -- every one -- in our suite. While Jay went to Taliesin West, I zoned out on Percocet. The only time I left the room was to practice hobbling with my new crutches in the courtyard, and to go to the Pointe's business center to book roomy seats for the trip home.
Near the end of our vacation, Jay suggested we take a drive around Phoenix, so the trip wouldn't be a total loss for me. Our "mid-size" rental car, however, was so low to the ground, I damaged my knee even further by getting into the passenger seat, and we drove for maybe 15 minutes before I insisted he take me back.
That was why I rode to the airport in a hired SUV. And that's how I came to meet the driver, who, with my permission, laid hands on my knee (at a stop light) as he offered a healing prayer.
So why did we want to go back to the same place?
One key reason: To show how the prayer was answered.
I thought about trying to reconnect with the SUV driver -- to thank him, and to join him in giving glory to God for the answered prayer. But we didn't have time.
We were so busy going places that we missed out on seeing on our December 2016 trip, places like the Heard Museum, the Desert Botanical Gardens and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Arizona Biltmore. We walked a lot on this trip, and never stopped marveling at the miracle that I COULD walk. But I also insisted on pool time, and time in the fitness center that was available to us with our mandatory resort fee. There were a gazillion pools on the resort's sprawling grounds, and I found one, connected to the fitness center, that was for adults only and long enough for lap-swimming. One afternoon, I had that one all to myself.
So we didn't have time to track down the healing-prayer chauffeur, but I made time to speak directly to the manager of the Pointe, to tell him exactly why we came back: Because the people there were so good to us during what Jay called "the Apollo 13 of Vacations" in December 2016. We tipped the housekeeping and maintenance staff extra -- for being right there with a wheelchair when I needed one, for installing a raised toilet seat in our bathroom, for cleaning up some unusual messes created by my inability to shower, and my inability to perform certain bodily functions in the manner customary for females.
The people around us didn't know it, of course, but I also was rejoicing in my stronger, more slender and certainly more mobile body. Our first afternoon there, I wore my bikini to the pool, with pride and with confidence. Every time and place where Jay and I took long walks, I thanked my PT team, Dan, Dan and Katie -- and made sure I sent each of them a postcard.
Jay took some photos that I'd like to share now.
The first one was taken by the room we had in 2016, the room I rarely left during that week.
This one, however, is my favorite. Jay took it at twilight, in a courtyard, just after we'd finished dinner and were walking back to our room.
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