It’s Thursday and we are lightly getting packed for our family vacation to Cancun, Mexico. Family and friends are meeting us for our Anniversary at Moon Palace. Would have been celebrating our 10 year last year, but Covid changed those plans to 2021. Nonetheless, Mark pulls out the passports and low and behold he realizes that our sons passport expired October 2021. We were confident we had looked at this already and it was 2022, but clearly that was not the case. This was a huge problem as we were literally leaving in less than 48hrs to Mexico. We immediately began calling the government passport agency number to get an expedited, same day, passport. Well, it seems that Covid didn’t just change our 10 year wedding anniversary plans, but it also changed the way passports are renewed during an urgent situation. There is one number to call and after they take your flight record number to ensure you’re leaving the country within 72 hours, they tell you the closest facility with an appointment available. The first time we called Honolulu and Houston were two of our options. What?! How about Illinois, Wisconsin or Indiana? Sorry, no appointments available. We pleaded with the lady on the phone, but there was nothing she could do.
Mark and I knew this was a long shot, but we picked Cole up from school early and drove all the way to Chicago to see about getting a passport. For much of the time Cole was very upset. You see, when you have a medically fragile child who has spent more time in hospitals, doctors, and operating rooms than anywhere else it’s no surprise when he gets in the car and didn’t know beforehand, he’s worried he’s going to the doctor. It started at school and his nurse told me he was very upset. They tried to sign to him he was simply getting his picture taken and a passport. Most people wouldn’t understand, but as his Mother, I knew exactly what he was thinking. We tell him every 6 months he’s getting pictures on his back. It’s true, only pictures, but soon to follow (weeks later) a surgeon opens his back up to adjust his traditional rods for his scoliosis. After a while, I was able to convince him by showing him his passport and explaining that October 20, 2021 has already passed and in order for us to leave the United States we needed a new passport for him. Cole is always very concerned with the order of what things are happening and his most important stop, home. He signed multiple times first I’m going to get my passport, then going home, then vacation on Saturday? He looks for confirmation and I gave it to him, even when he asked a tenth time I gave him the same confirmation.
When we show up at the passport place in Chicago, we were stopped by security and they explained we cannot go any further without a confirmation number. We tried everything we could to get in, but after over an hour, absolutely zero luck! We get back in the car, on the way home, and I begin frantically calling the number again to see where appointments were available. New Orleans at 8am tomorrow, without having any clue on what we were going to do, we booked the appointment. As we’re driving home we were looking for flights, Mark was ready to buy them, but I was honestly sick to stomach with the whole thing and couldn’t make a decision so I asked him to hold off so we could figure out specifics. We began discussing all of our options. Afterall whenever a difficult situation presents itself it’s imperatively important to assess the situation clearly before making decisions. We discussed me staying back with Cole and Mark and Lexi going, we discussed the entire family staying home, we discussed Mark staying home with Cole, we even discussed my Mom staying home with Cole because she offered during all of this via text. Staying home didn’t feel right. We had pumped the kids up for months with this trip. We had cancelled numerous trips last year due to the pandemic and we felt it was the right decision for us to do whatever we could to make this trip happen. Vacationing is important to our family and my kids are fortunate enough that they’ve travelled ever since they were babies, to many different places. The other honest to God truth is I worry about Cole every minute of every day. Children like Cole do not typically have a long lifespan. The fact is he breaths out of an artificial airway that if taken out or falls out could easily result in death. We’ve had more near death and coding experiences than I care to recall, but all of this makes it so each and every trip is that much more important and memorable. We want to give him every opportunity to see as much of the world and have as many amazing memories we can help create for him.
We show up at home where my parents were watching Lexi, but Lexi had a playdate so she was busy playing on the aerial silk with her friend. I briefly explained to my Mom what we were considering and in typical fashion, she states “whatever you decide I’m here to do whatever you need.” I wish someday to be half the amazing person that my Mother is, but I digress. Meanwhile, Mark drops the f bomb in the kitchen. I ask, what happened? He explains that the same flight we looked at in the car has now gone up over $200 per ticket. Keep in mind that because the passport is for Cole, he is required in person and so are both of his parents. I tell Mark to go ahead and book it. He tries but there are only 3 seats left and it won’t let him pick the seats. I immediately get on the call with the government passport agency again and ask about other locations. They stated Houston had an appointment tomorrow. We cancelled the New Orleans (since you can’t have two appointments) and we booked the Houston. Luckily, I didn’t let the guy off the phone while Mark was trying to book the flights because Houston tickets were $2300 per person versus $760 for New Orleans. We immediately switched back to New Orleans and cancelled the Houston appointment. Oh, I may not have mentioned, the flight for New Orleans was leaving at 7:30PM and it was already 4:00PM. Meanwhile my Mom ran out to USPS to get the forms for passport renewal and I ran, with Cole, to get a passport photo at CVS. My Mom gets back just in time to learn that we are leaving ASAP to the airport and she needed to leave to take Lexi to kickboxing. We said our quick goodbyes and were on our way. We were leaving with simply a backpack with only the clothes on our back. The backpack had Cole’s feeding pump, food, water, ambu bag, and we had his suction machine. It’s funny because even when you’re packing for a less than 24hr trip, a medically fragile child has a lot of neccessary accessories.
We made our way to the airport and spent most of this time explaining to Cole that we didn’t forget to take his sister on vacation with us. We needed to fly to go get his passport and we’d be going right back home to get Lexi and on Saturday morning we would all leave for Mexico. The one thing that got him distracted in a good way was explaining that tomorrow, Friday he would not be going to school. He was pretty excited about that! When we arrived at the airport it was not at all crowded and we were able to sit and relax an hour or so waiting for our flight. Cole and I practiced drawing pumpkins. He loves to draw Cole’s pumpkin and then have me write a big X on it. After I draw Mom’s pumpkin and he puts a big X on it. For whatever reason this doesn’t get old to him and it’s pretty funny for me too. We both completely exaggerate everytime our pumpkins get crossed out, as if we can’t believe anyone would perform such an act. I’m at awe most days pertaining to Cole’s incredible sense of humor and pure happiness. We have a quick flight to New Orleans and we’re off to get a rent a car. Mark, of course, asks for a complimentary upgrade so we rocked out of the parking lot in a new Tahoe. Totally unnecessary to have that large of a vehicle, but anything complimentary feels nice right now. We get to the hotel and the whole time during our commute we were looking at Door Dash. It’s funny as stressed out at this situation as we both had to have been, we kept it together so well and stayed laser focused on solving the issue and working as a team. Now it was time to eat food we do not typically get to eat at home. As we were perusing the menus we decide, we’re not that hungry and a Po Boy would be perfect. We get to the hotel and we find out that the machine that makes the room key cards is broken so we have to have security let us in our room. Mark decides on shrimp because it’s fresh and local in New Orleans and I get chicken. I got chicken because regardless what state, country, or continent I find myself in, I always order chicken! It’s 1AM and Mark states the food will take 30min to arrive. Mark decided he’s going down to the bar to wait for the food or else he’s concerned he might fall asleep. I immediately fall asleep because what else is there to do at that time after the day we had. Sure enough I get woken up, probably really hadn’t even fallen asleep yet, to open the door for Mark. We eat our sandwiches at 1:30AM and go to bed without the ventilator for Cole. We knew there was a big risk with not bringing Cole’s ventilator, but we took that chance for the sheer convenience. The whole vent situation I find myself overwhelmed thinking about. Years ago Cole had a sleep study and he passed with flying colors which means no vent. In fact, we travelled and didn’t even bring the vent the last time we went to Mexico. Apparently, he had a reconstruction surgery on his airway and it must not had worked the way it should’ve because now he’s back to needing or at least, strongly, preferring the vent. He slept pretty well, without the vent, but he was quite dry and needing bagging throughout the night. Mostly, what this means is Mark and I barely slept. I would’ve told you eight years ago that I needed a minimum of eight hours of sleep to be a decent human being. However, I can tell you, confidently, there are not many medically fragile Mommas out there getting any type of non-interrupted sleep.
We woke up at 6AM to ensure there was absolutely no way for us to miss our appointment. Mark went down to the lobby and grabbed us some coffee while we let Cole sleep in a little longer. The hotel we stayed in was on the same street and literally a few minute walk from the passport place. We planned on being there fifteen minutes early, but none of the buildings had numbers on them and Cole walks extremely slow. Sometimes when I find myself wishing he would just walk faster, I quickly remind myself that this little guy was told he wouldn’t even walk at all. It’s not always easy and sometimes it seems damn near impossible, but keeping perspective is important. We still ended up getting to our appointment early, just to wait in line behind everyone else. Our number gets called and they tell us our passport should be ready in four to six hours. The issue is our flight leaves at 2pm and if it takes six hours, we would miss our flight. We negotiate with the lady and she confirms it will be done in three hours or less. First things first, we go to Cafe Du Monde and take a picture of Cole with one of our passports in his hand, simply so we never forget this memory and we could laugh at it later. We, leisurely, walk around New Orleans looking for a good breakfast spot. We come to a place where we eat outside and we get some seafood crepes, again something we would never eat at home. We grabbed a couple cocktails and headed on our way. Walking the streets of New Orleans, Cole immediately realized all the garbage and asked if a Mom or man was going to clean all that up.
We get the call we’ve been waiting for so we pick up the passport and head to the airport. We are sitting at the gate and it’s announced there is a 20min delay. We aboard late, but no worries at least we’re on the plane. As we’re sitting there, it’s announced that one of the tires didn’t pass inspection and they needed to swap it out. We were told it would take approximately forty-five minutes. The pilot states he appreciates our patience, sorry for the delay, and we are off. The thing is, we never went anywhere. After twenty minutes or so, there was another announcement. Turns out, after final inspection, the new tire that was put on was expired and they needed to put a new one on. It’s incredible to see so many different types of people face adversity. Some people had connecting flights and were worried about that. Others were just complaining about the idiocracy of not checking the date first before putting on a new tire. Many people sat quiet and didn’t say a word. Did I want to get home? Absolutely! It had been one hell of an eighteen hours so far, but complaining about it certainly wouldn’t speed up the process. We waited another thirty minutes or so and we were off to Illinois.
We landed right around 7PM and thought we would just grab an Uber, turns out it was over $100 just for a 30 mile commute. We thought that rate was ridiculous so we would just go get a taxi. We first had to stand in line for a taxi and it ended up costing us $150 for that same 30 mile commute. Oh well, at this point, we just wanted to get home so we can finish packing for our trip to Mexico tomorrow morning. While in the taxi, Lexi video called us asking when are we going to be home because she missed us tremendously. She is honestly the most compassionate, loving, and empathetic girl and it constantly warms my heart. She stays on the video call the entire time until we walk in the door where she greets us with a ginormous hug. First Cole, then Mom, then Dad. Each of us got the biggest hug ever and she was so happy to see us.