Came to a sad conclusion this weekend

[minkydog]

We took our little camper up to the lake--the weather was warm and beautiful. We haven't been out there since October and i thought, wouldn't it be lovely to take Christian out to the lake for a little campout. He loves camping so much. We have a nurse, SAmuel, who comes in the evenings to help us with the bathing, exercising, and dressing for bed. Samuel lives close to the lake, so he came out to help us. I grilled our burgers and dogs and we really enjoyed having a campfire and watching the sun go down.

But in the morning...Christian woke up saturated with urine. He is wetting the bed pretty much every night now. So I had three wet blankets, sheets, pjs, diaper, and one 120-lb freezing wet boy to deal with immediately when i woke up. Ugh. Got him cleaned up and then, of course, he wants breakfast NOW. He's starving! So I fix his breakfast and feed him. Then he wants to GO. NOW! Wait...I need to eat breakfast. NOW! So we go outside. That's when I realized that the fun was headed downhill. There is no place to keep him contained. He has no sense of danger. There are trucks and RVs going by. Strange dogs. The whole fricking lake out there.

Honestly, I couldn't wait to get him to his caregiver. This just made me so sad. Christian loves to camp. He was so happy to be there with us and he loves his little bed. Four years ago we took him and his sister on a 2 month cross-country tour of the US with our little camper in tow. We took him to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Disneyland, and more. And it was wonderful! But he's so big now that it's not so wonderful anymore. In fact, it's kind of a pain in the butt. When Christian goes with us, I don't get a moment of peace and isn't that the whole point of going camping? To enjoy the peace of being outdoors?

It's just another sad transition. I really never saw it coming. DH & I love to camp. I thought we would always be able to camp with Christian, because he just loves it so much. But I think he just went on his last campout. I guess our camping will be limited to those weekends when we have a respite provider until he finally gets placed in a group home. I just can't manage him at a campground anymore.

 

[brat]

minkydog

There used to be a respite camp that I loved, it closed a couple of years ago.It was so sad because I knew it was one of the few places that some could safely camp.I liked that it was an accessable campground but for others it was on-site respite care or having a gated yard around their campsite.
Maybe someone here knows of another respite camp that is still open?

 

[SueM in MN]

Sorry to hear about your realization and hope you are able to come up with some way to still safely enjoy camping - maybe not the very same way you have in the past, but something that would be a satisfying substitute.

 

[Singledad]

Things like this are really hard.

 

[minkydog]

Things like this are really hard.

Yes, it is hard. Sometimes we're just rocking along and something hops up and slaps us hard in the face. i just wasn't expecting this and it makes me sad to lose this very special kind of family time.

 

[mickey&minniealways]

Contact your local chapter of Easter Seals. They may have a camp in the area that is approriate. There are even a few scout camps around that open up their facilities for a few weeks every year to Easter Seals families. This has been going on for years.