Delighted Dames do Disney and Dialysis!

[txnana]

We are starting a pre/during/post trip report chronicling all the phases of putting together a trip for two retired teachers doing the MSNSSHP and Food and Wine Festival as well as staying in the newly opened Little Mermaid wing of Art of Animation Resort. Adding to these wonderful events is the fact that we will both be scooting about on scooters because one of us is just flat out old and the other is on dialysis and will be receiving treatment three days per week while we experience all that WDW has to offer. To introduce us, I (txnana) am the planner. Two years ago I knew I wanted to return for a visit to WDW to the food and wine festival and decided since most of my friends and family are all either teaching or finishing degrees and cannot travel during the fall that I would go alone for a few days just to have the experience. Step in “Brandi1leigh” whom I have known for years and taught with for a few of those. She jumped at the chance to join me, I will say we have traveled together before a lot on school trips (we were both speech and debate coaches) and were part of a Grand Gathering at WDW a few years ago gathering up 18 friends and family for a great adventure.
Next up, “Brandi1Leigh” weighs in on the fear, trepidation, and excitement of arranging dialysis while on vacation and I will be covering the planning of 14 days of free dining and food and wine festival reservations.

 

[Brandi1leigh]

Hi, I'm txnana's traveling partner. First, it has to be said that this mega trip would never have happened without her tireless planning and understanding.

Since this is the pre- trip, I think it's important to introduce myself and my situation... Because it's a little different. I'm 36 years old and have stage 5 end stage renal disease. In 2008 (ironically the day before txnana and I were leaving for WDW on grand gathering with 18 of our closest friends and family), I was diagnosed with a genetic kidney disease called PKD. It's very important to me that people understand this is a genetic disease with no cure and no treatment. There is absolutely nothing I could have done to change my fate. So anyway in 2008, I was diagnosed, by 2010 I was listed for a kidney transplant and on in center hemodialysis.

Once I started dialysis, I was too sick to work. Most people assume that dialysis just replaces your kidney function ( I know I did), but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. There are a lot of things that your kidneys do that the machine can't. Also your kidneys work 24/7, the dialysis machine works every other day for 4 hours. Basically, dialysis gives you less than 20-25% kidney function. So all in all dialysis is great in that it keeps you alive, but it doesn't make you feel all that great.

So back to Disney! When Txnana asked me if I'd like to join her on an adventure to Florida, I immediately said yes! After all WDW is my favorite place on earth. We've traveled together more times than I can count, and I'd had a really, really bad year.

It didn't take long for the panic to set in. After all, every other day I'm hooked up by needles to a refrigerator sized machine that keeps me alive. And I've never traveled away from my home center.

So my upcoming posts will deal with setting up dialysis out of state, the fears, traveling with someone else, money issues, and then eventually exactly how much fun the actual trip is and my experiences.

Txnana and I hope that this trip report will have something for everyone. And we hope that it might inspire anyone who has challenges (especially health ones) to take the risk and enjoy your vacation. More to come later!

 

[txnana]

(tried to fix that title, oops) Planning on this trip has been going on for about 2 years. I knew I wanted to visit the food and wine festival and that everything else was going to be icing on the cake. So we started with dates and resort planning. We knew it would be a Value resort because airplane flights and scooter rentals always up the cost of this type of vacation for us. We selected POP since it was so highly recommended on these boards and we had stayed at All Star Movies before and loved it. So reserved a week at POP with a dining plan. WAIT . . . time passes and free dining becomes available, but the only resort we can get is ASMu so we reserve that and by now have rethought the amount of time and go for 10 days on the reservation with free dining. A few weeks pass and Art of Animation Little Mermaid rooms open up so an early phone call has our reservations changed to AOA and we decide 14 days would be better and in reality with free dining was less than we were spending on 10 days with the dining plan upgraded to regular dining. We knew a good part of our time three days a week would be taken up with trips to dialysis and back so we celebrated the idea of 14 whole days to do everything Disney that we wanted to do.

 

[txnana]

Final reservations made:
Where we are dining:
Jiko
Chefs de France
Le Cellier
O'Hana
Brown Derby for Fantasmic
Raglan Road
Tokyo Dining
Fultons Crab House
Sanaa
Yachtsman

Also taking in
3D Dessert Party
Tequila Lunch
MNSSHP

and a side trip to Universal Studios, We were glad to find out that we could
buy tickets and transportation for ourselves and our scooters from AoA to Universal Studios and back!! So glad not to have to rent scooters on site at Universal for the day since we are already renting scooters from an outside source for the length of our stay.

We still don't have a firm time for the dialysis treatments so we are really hoping for first thing in the morning which is what we have requested. Most of our dinners are reserved in the 5-6pm range to allow some rest time and then trips to the parks for the ones open later in the evening.

She has dialysis here tomorrow morning so hopefully there will be news from the caseworker then about her reserved time.

We are really looking forward to having time to stop and smell the roses since all our other trips to the world have been with friends and family young and old so "smelling the roses" was not a top priority before.

We also have a former student who is now a CM that we are looking forward to seeing. We were both speech and debate coaches in high school so we have the advantage (some would call it a disadvantage) of really getting to know our students as we have traveled all over the US with them competing in speech, theater and debate events.

TEN MORE DAYS!

for now!!

 

[SoNotAPrincess]

Hello!

How exciting for the two of you to embark on such a fun Disney trip! Your plans sound great!

Yay for being able to take your scooters to IOA and not having to rent them there! I've been scooter-bound on my last few Disney trips, too (bum knee, long story), so I can identify. I've got my fingers crossed for early dialysis appointments!

 

[Brandi1leigh]

I know I've been a slacker posting in this pre-trip thread, but I promise an update on my end of the planning is coming soon! Thanks for all the support!

 

[Alysa]

How wonderful! Have a fantastic trip - can't wait to hear more!