And...back to reality.
The really short version: Morgan, my dad, and I went to Waikiki for a week and had an absolutely incredible time, and now we're back to reality.
Hawaii is incredible, and gorgeous, and I don't want to live there but I'd happily go back and visit anytime. We did a few things this trip that we hadn't done last time--we went to the Dole plantation, and the Iolani Palace, but we didn't manage to go snorkeling which was a bummer for me.
My head decided to behave--mostly--until Friday, and then I lost Friday and half of Saturday to a migraine. But we didn't end up in the ER and I managed to squash the migraine by Saturday afternoon so it could have been a lot worse. However I'm now out of everything I use to kill migraines so I will need to resupply later today.
I also managed to break a tooth (not really a surprise; it was kind of broken already) and my phone although I don't think the latter was my fault? My phone just randomly started rebooting itself, and would get stuck on the boot-up process, so we took it to the Verizon store in Honolulu and now I have a blue phone, same model as the old phone. Annoyingly the old phone is now working, but I'm hoping I can reset it to factory defaults and sell it.
I'm also really frustrated with my PCP because I kept having issues where I would do something and just be completely out of breath, and I discovered about half a dozen new bruises on the trip. One of them I got by banging my knee into the car door. The rest just showed up randomly. I've been on supplements for a month and in that time I've lost about five pounds because I'm pretty much existing on ice and small amounts of food. I mean, trading ice for snacks isn't terrible, but the whole "all I want to eat is ice" thing is getting a bit old. I actually lost about 2lbs on vacation, maybe 3, I'm not sure, and I wasn't limiting myself on what I ate except in portion size.
But no, I don't need iron transfusions. Fortunately I'm seeing the actual hematologist on Thursday and we can deal with it; then I think I need to find a new PCP.
But back to Hawaii itself--it's just incredible. So beautiful, and just lovely. I don't want to live there because I think the sun and heat would kill me--the sun came close a couple times--but as I said, I'd happily visit anytime. We didn't spend as much time on the beach as I would have liked but we did get in a fair amount of beach time, and when I made it down to the water Saturday I found the combination of being in the ocean and wearing my sunglasses killed the migraine. I've always been a water girl; when I was a kid I was the first person into the ocean and the last person out. I would come out with blue lips and insist on going back in. (I'm also a Pisces, so water sign if you go for that).
We went to the Dole plantation because that was where Mom wanted to go when we went to Hawaii in '07 and we never made it. I don't actually like pineapple (I've never been a huge citrus fan; it took me years to warm up to orange juice and the only citrus fruit I like are the Cuties) but whatever. We took the Pineapple Express, which is a 20-min train tour of the plantation. We had been going to do the walking tour but I was too out of breath and tired to manage it. Thanks, Dr. L.
There's also a maze there but we all opted against it from the beginning.
We also went to the Waimea Valley which was absolutely incredible. It's a hike to this waterfall, which is gorgeous. We opted to take the shuttle bus back down because it's a somewhat strenuous hike and also I'm still anemic and tired, but we managed the hike up there and it was just amazing. I took a bunch of pictures; Dad took a ton more.
I considered going in the water when we got to the waterfall but while I had my bathing suit on I didn't have a towel with me so decided not to. Lesson for next time: bring towel.
We were staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which if you've ever seen H50 (the new version), they have a bunch of stuff shot there, or did in the first season or so (I stopped watching after that). We stayed there because we were using Dad's timeshare, and that's where it's located. The resort was lovely but damn expensive. I mean, I know that we were both in Hawaii and at a fairly upscale resort but paying $10.75 for a hot dog kind of galled me. Morgan and I have decided that if we ever save up the funds to go back on our own, we'll stay at a cheaper hotel and use public transit to get around. Hawaii isn't cheap, but even so.
The resort is right on the beach, like we left our tower and walked down to it, and it also has a manmade lagoon in it where you can do things like rent stand-up paddleboards and aqua bikes. Morgan and I had thought about trying one of the aqua bikes but never got around to it. A couple times in the morning Dad and I saw people doing paddleboard yoga out there, which was pretty cool.
Mom and I would usually go on vacation or something and get some kind of spa service, so this time Dad told me to book something. So I had a really lovely facial which got rid of a lot of my blackheads, and then I bought a mask after that will hopefully help keep them away. I liked the skincare products she used, but it was all from the Elemis line and Elemis are fucking expensive. I prefer my First Aid Beauty which I can actually afford.
At the Dole plantation they had the "pick a pearl from the oyster" deal, and we kind of got upsold into buying three pearls. We originally did two, and they were both big pearls and gorgeous. The plan had been to set one for me and bring one home for A's daughter (we got presents for the kids and a couple other people), but we ended up getting both of those set for me and they gave us a third pearl for free which we didn't get set, because A is a jeweler and should be able to set it for her kid. But now I have a really pretty pearl necklace (I'm acquiring these; so far I have two sets of pearl necklaces and now this pendant. It's kind of funny because I'm not a huge fan of pearls. But the ones I have are special to me--one set was my grandmother's, and I wore it at my wedding. The other set was my mom's, given to her by my dad, and so I'll keep those forever) and the chain is just long enough that it fits with the rings I already wear (Mom's wedding ring is too small to fit any of my fingers except maybe my pinky so I wear it on a chain, and my grandmother's wedding ring is much the same so it's on the same chain. I'm going to have to get ring guards for the rest of my rings because they're getting too big. It's a bit frustrating because I had them all resized a few years ago and my wedding ring can't be resized again due to the pattern. I didn't actually wear my rings to Hawaii because I was afraid I'd lose them in the water, so now I have them on again.)
We probably spent too much money but we had such a fantastic time.
And now we're back to reality. Sigh.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1379940.html. Please comment there. |
comments
Hawaii is incredible, and gorgeous, and I don't want to live there but I'd happily go back and visit anytime. We did a few things this trip that we hadn't done last time--we went to the Dole plantation, and the Iolani Palace, but we didn't manage to go snorkeling which was a bummer for me.
My head decided to behave--mostly--until Friday, and then I lost Friday and half of Saturday to a migraine. But we didn't end up in the ER and I managed to squash the migraine by Saturday afternoon so it could have been a lot worse. However I'm now out of everything I use to kill migraines so I will need to resupply later today.
I also managed to break a tooth (not really a surprise; it was kind of broken already) and my phone although I don't think the latter was my fault? My phone just randomly started rebooting itself, and would get stuck on the boot-up process, so we took it to the Verizon store in Honolulu and now I have a blue phone, same model as the old phone. Annoyingly the old phone is now working, but I'm hoping I can reset it to factory defaults and sell it.
I'm also really frustrated with my PCP because I kept having issues where I would do something and just be completely out of breath, and I discovered about half a dozen new bruises on the trip. One of them I got by banging my knee into the car door. The rest just showed up randomly. I've been on supplements for a month and in that time I've lost about five pounds because I'm pretty much existing on ice and small amounts of food. I mean, trading ice for snacks isn't terrible, but the whole "all I want to eat is ice" thing is getting a bit old. I actually lost about 2lbs on vacation, maybe 3, I'm not sure, and I wasn't limiting myself on what I ate except in portion size.
But no, I don't need iron transfusions. Fortunately I'm seeing the actual hematologist on Thursday and we can deal with it; then I think I need to find a new PCP.
But back to Hawaii itself--it's just incredible. So beautiful, and just lovely. I don't want to live there because I think the sun and heat would kill me--the sun came close a couple times--but as I said, I'd happily visit anytime. We didn't spend as much time on the beach as I would have liked but we did get in a fair amount of beach time, and when I made it down to the water Saturday I found the combination of being in the ocean and wearing my sunglasses killed the migraine. I've always been a water girl; when I was a kid I was the first person into the ocean and the last person out. I would come out with blue lips and insist on going back in. (I'm also a Pisces, so water sign if you go for that).
We went to the Dole plantation because that was where Mom wanted to go when we went to Hawaii in '07 and we never made it. I don't actually like pineapple (I've never been a huge citrus fan; it took me years to warm up to orange juice and the only citrus fruit I like are the Cuties) but whatever. We took the Pineapple Express, which is a 20-min train tour of the plantation. We had been going to do the walking tour but I was too out of breath and tired to manage it. Thanks, Dr. L.
There's also a maze there but we all opted against it from the beginning.
We also went to the Waimea Valley which was absolutely incredible. It's a hike to this waterfall, which is gorgeous. We opted to take the shuttle bus back down because it's a somewhat strenuous hike and also I'm still anemic and tired, but we managed the hike up there and it was just amazing. I took a bunch of pictures; Dad took a ton more.
I considered going in the water when we got to the waterfall but while I had my bathing suit on I didn't have a towel with me so decided not to. Lesson for next time: bring towel.
We were staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which if you've ever seen H50 (the new version), they have a bunch of stuff shot there, or did in the first season or so (I stopped watching after that). We stayed there because we were using Dad's timeshare, and that's where it's located. The resort was lovely but damn expensive. I mean, I know that we were both in Hawaii and at a fairly upscale resort but paying $10.75 for a hot dog kind of galled me. Morgan and I have decided that if we ever save up the funds to go back on our own, we'll stay at a cheaper hotel and use public transit to get around. Hawaii isn't cheap, but even so.
The resort is right on the beach, like we left our tower and walked down to it, and it also has a manmade lagoon in it where you can do things like rent stand-up paddleboards and aqua bikes. Morgan and I had thought about trying one of the aqua bikes but never got around to it. A couple times in the morning Dad and I saw people doing paddleboard yoga out there, which was pretty cool.
Mom and I would usually go on vacation or something and get some kind of spa service, so this time Dad told me to book something. So I had a really lovely facial which got rid of a lot of my blackheads, and then I bought a mask after that will hopefully help keep them away. I liked the skincare products she used, but it was all from the Elemis line and Elemis are fucking expensive. I prefer my First Aid Beauty which I can actually afford.
At the Dole plantation they had the "pick a pearl from the oyster" deal, and we kind of got upsold into buying three pearls. We originally did two, and they were both big pearls and gorgeous. The plan had been to set one for me and bring one home for A's daughter (we got presents for the kids and a couple other people), but we ended up getting both of those set for me and they gave us a third pearl for free which we didn't get set, because A is a jeweler and should be able to set it for her kid. But now I have a really pretty pearl necklace (I'm acquiring these; so far I have two sets of pearl necklaces and now this pendant. It's kind of funny because I'm not a huge fan of pearls. But the ones I have are special to me--one set was my grandmother's, and I wore it at my wedding. The other set was my mom's, given to her by my dad, and so I'll keep those forever) and the chain is just long enough that it fits with the rings I already wear (Mom's wedding ring is too small to fit any of my fingers except maybe my pinky so I wear it on a chain, and my grandmother's wedding ring is much the same so it's on the same chain. I'm going to have to get ring guards for the rest of my rings because they're getting too big. It's a bit frustrating because I had them all resized a few years ago and my wedding ring can't be resized again due to the pattern. I didn't actually wear my rings to Hawaii because I was afraid I'd lose them in the water, so now I have them on again.)
We probably spent too much money but we had such a fantastic time.
And now we're back to reality. Sigh.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1379940.html. Please comment there. |
comments