CRUISING 7 WEEKS POST-OP

18 months prior to my surgery, we booked a Caribbean cruise with Carnival Cruise Lines aboard their brand new ship the BREEZE.

At the time, I had no idea what lay ahead.  We booked the trip of a lifetime......2 weeks aboard Carnival's newest, biggest and most beautiful ship.  We would head 8 days south to La Romana, Grand Turk, Aruba, Curacao and 6 days west to Grand Turk, Nassau, and Ocho Rios.  This was not our first cruise by any means but our first back to back cruise where we would stay on board when the ship returned to Miami for a total of 14 days at sea.   We booked excursions such as taking a catamaran to climb Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica and zip lining in La Romana.

When my surgery was originally booked, it was scheduled 10 weeks prior to my cruise.  Based on the all of the original discussions with my surgeon this should have been plenty of time to recover.  But unfortunately the surgery was postponed more than 2 weeks due to Operating room over-booking.  I was looking at a 7 week recovery. 

Up until 1 week prior to our cruise I was still taking Percocets every 4 hours with Tylenol #3's in between, Zofran and Gravol for nausea and sleeping pills at night.  We were really starting to panic, 7 more days until embarkation and the best vacation of our lives.  We expected that I would still have some pain while on vacation but not to this extent.  Every day during the week before our cruise my pain improved during the day but nights were still a nightmare literally.  

The physical pain was the least of my concerns, I knew that I could always load up on fruity cocktails and tylenol #3!  My main concern was my state of mind.  I had worked so hard to lose weight and get toned prior to my surgery, I couldn't believe that I was going on my dream vacation looking the way I did.  I mean instead of looking sexy in my bathing suit I was frantically searching the stores for a bathing suit that would cover my scars and indentations and mangled chest. All of my bathing suits were too big, and so were my bras.  Unfortunately, with on going weekly fills of saline, I was only able to reach about a large B cup size.

I had nothing to wear on the cruise.  My formal dresses in my closet were too low cut in the front, and most of my tank tops and blouses were too revealing.  I was so stressed out, in pain and vomiting daily but had to some how put together the strength to find new clothes, pack for four kids and myself, and plan for a ceremony aboard the ship!

Yep that's right I said a ceremony:)  

Carnival cruise lines were amazing! I called about 2 weeks prior to embarkation to explain my current recovery status.  The customer service manager made lots of notes and said that they would do anything necessary to ensure my comfort.  
This included... an aditional mattress pad, extra pillows, a breakfast in bed tray so that I could sit up in bed comfortable to eat, a comfortable chair, and strawberries & champagne in our balcony suite the 1st night of our cruise with a personal note from the hotel director thanking us for choosing carnival for this special vacation and his direct cell phone number in case we needed anything. 

Over the course of the cruise, he personally checked in on us at least twice.  Honestly, Carnival made this a once in lifetime vacation!

Click here to read about our special ceremony aboard the Carnival Breeze




Previvor