Month: March 2016

It’s my third day of vacation here in Grand Cayman and as I sit here and reflect on it, I must admit I’m kind of missing my home back in Toledo. I think that’s mostly because I find it safe and comforting to be confined in the familiar, especially when my health issues continue to plague me even here.

Some may think that getting away and being in a tropical paradise sounds just divine and that nothing could ruin that for them. But that’s quite easy to say when feeling well in every facet of the mind and body. Except that’s not the case with me at the present time.

When I began today, it was with a pile of tears praying to God on why I continue to suffer so greatly in life. Ever since I began turning my entire will and life over to my Higher Power I feel like my life has been a roller coaster. I really hoped that being here in Grand Cayman was somehow going to be miraculously healing for me, but unfortunately it’s been more of the same. The only thing different is that I’m in a much more beautiful locale.

Somehow I pulled myself together today by noon, after my morning spiritual routines were done, and from there I proceeded to spend a considerable amount of time floating in the ocean on and off for the next few hours. My partner even commented on how I must be feeling better because I was back to be my joking and prankster type self that hasn’t been around much for quite some time.

During those few hours of relief, I got to enjoy a small walk alone on the beach, a stroll out onto a pink-colored pier where I got to see many beautiful fish, and even felt a moment of peace when I watched a bird from these parts navigate some strong winds for a decent amount of time before it finally dove into the water for a tasty meal.

But the difficult thing with my healing process is that even when I seem to feel good for any short period of time, it never lasts very long. That 180 for me today came right around 4pm when some serious irritable bowel related symptoms hit me. After that my mood rapidly declined and left me in a place where I just wanted to isolated in the bedroom.

I’ve always tried to draw closer to God when painful moments like these begin to happen, because ultimately I find that’s the only thing that truly seems to bring me any comfort. In this case, I prayed, shed some tears, read a few devotionals, and flipped through my Bible, which helped enough to get me headed out the door to dinner. Except I did have some reservations on route to dinner because we were heading to a total stranger’s house for a small get together.

How we found ourselves going to this dinner party came about solely due to us meeting the concierge in our resort lobby. There he seemed to take a liking to our energy and friendliness, which in turn ended up with us receiving an invitation to his home for dinner. In the past I normally would enjoy going to things like this, meeting new people and exploring greater realms of connection. But nowadays, trying to do that feeling just like I did this afternoon and evening constantly poses a much greater challenge. I have to give credit to my Higher Power for getting me through this get together because the prayers I said prior to leaving for it and the ones I said during it gave me enough strength to remain present and cordial the entire time there.

In the end, it was actually nice to have met a bunch of native islanders and learn about their culture. It did also help me slightly to shift my focus off of the pain I was feeling. I should mention as well that dinner was quite tasty, especially the jerk chicken pasta. Unfortunately, I had to abstain from the homemade dessert though because it was rum-soaked cake.

Before we left our new friend’s home to head back to our resort, we were given a quick tour of the property across the street that he also owned. It was directly on the ocean and had a beautiful stone double-level patio that overlooked it. He told me the house had been rebuilt twice over the years due to two completely different hurricanes, with the last one being Ivan. It is now worth $3.5 million dollars. Wow, was all that I could say!

As the evening of our 3^rd day came to a close not too long after, I sat out on our balcony gazing upon the night sky and ocean, trying to find an appreciation for one of God’s most amazing creations as I continued to feel a ton of pain in my body. While it might not have taken away all the sorrow and suffering I felt inside, it did do one positive thing for me. It helped me to find some gratitude for still having two eyes and two ears that were able to indulge in a little of my Higher Power’s magnificence…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It’s Day 2 of my Grand Cayman vacation and thankfully it started with me awaking from a good 7 hours of sleep around 9:30am. After having next to no sleep the night before, this truly came as a welcomed relief.

As usual, my day started with me doing my morning spiritual routines. I always find it interesting when I try to do them while away on vacation. Why? Well take for example here in my resort room, the floor is tiled, which makes it a little difficult for me to pray on my knees, as well as do my simple yoga stretches. But I was grateful to find few spare blankets in the closet to use to get the job done. They also came in handy for my meditation so that my feet could rest on it versus a cold floor.

By the time I my prayers, stretching, and meditation were done, it was close to noon and time for breakfast, which I guess might seem kind of weird to everyone else who normally is having lunch around that time. Today was Honey Nut Cheerios adorned with a banana and some raisins and a cup of yogurt. What made it overly enjoyable though was being able to sit on the balcony and have the view of the ocean in front of me at the same time.

After my last bite of it was finished, we headed down to the pool where I didn’t stay long actually. That’s only because I’m more of an ocean swimmer when I have the opportunity to go in one, especially when it’s only a few feet away and over 80 degrees. But even more of a reason is how healing I find it to be for my mind and body. Somehow I always feel far closer to my Higher Power in the ocean versus being in a man-made swimming pool. There was a challenge I had to face though during my first full swimming day in Grand Cayman and that was to not get sunburned.

Quite often people who come to the tropics think the strength of the sun is going to be similar to what they experience during summer at home. But in the tropics, one can get severely burned in a relatively short period of time because of how close it is to the equator. For a fair-skinned guy like me, I’m definitely one of those who burn easily. That’s why I have to constantly apply tanning lotion. And with the wind having been as high as it was throughout the entire afternoon, it was even harder to know whether I was burning or not. That’s why I made sure to take a number of breaks from being in the sun so that I didn’t become a lobster by the end of the day.

Later that evening, after getting showered and refreshed from our day in the sun, we took a drive out to the northern most spot on the island, Rum Point. There I had a few experiences that I’d really like to say felt like they brought me closer to my Higher Power. One was at a small cove-like area where starfish are in abundance. There I saw a father encourage his young daughter, who was in the water, to pick one up and carry it over to my partner and I so that we could touch it and take a picture. I must say I felt very blessed after that. That feeling only continued when we walked out a very long pier shortly thereafter where the winds were so strong I felt like I might blow into the water if I wasn’t careful. Have you ever leaned into an extremely strong wind and felt your body be almost entirely supported by it? On some level, experiencing that made me realize I too have been sustaining very strong winds in my life in recent years, but still have remained standing.

Our evening began to wrap up about an hour later with my partner’s homemade taco dinner made directly from our fully stocked kitchen. He’s really a great cook and I’m so thankful for that because I honestly can’t cook worth a bean. J After our bellies were full and everything was cleaned up, we caught the latest episode of Grimm on NBC, which I think is probably my favorite television show right now.

As the second day in Grand Cayman came to a close, I have to say, even with all my pains and ailments, which indeed were still high today, I felt much better. But I think that’s only because I had a few moments throughout the day where I ultimately felt that God was truly with me…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

 

2:30am. That’s the time I started my morning on my first day of travel from an average-sized Howard Johnson’s motel room. Given that our flight was due to leave at 6:25am, we either had the choice to get on the road from home at 3am for the hour drive to Detroit Metro or stay at one of those nearby airport motels. We opted for the motel option after we found a deal that was actually cheaper than using the long-term parking lots. Unfortunately, with my built-in sleep patterns that usually begin around 2am on most nights when I finally start getting tired, I found it hard to get any sleep at the motel. All in all, I think I got about one and a half hours of rest, which for a guy who’s riddled at the present time in life with various pains and ailments, this didn’t bode well for the start of my vacation.

Needless to say, I did my best to suck it up and do my morning spiritual routines. By the time I was finished with them, as well as my shower, I was feeling overly grumpy and pessimistic. My body felt off, way off in fact, which regrettably only led to me snapping at my partner a bunch of times as we headed to the airport. Sadly, this is something I know I need to work on some more in life.

Nevertheless, when we entered the airport at 5:15am, I honestly thought it would have been rather quiet, but boy was I wrong, it was totally slammed with people everywhere. After making our way through the American Airlines check-in process, checked in our bags and received our boarding passes, I decided to give in and follow the advice of my spiritual teacher and ask for wheelchair assistance. And man did that feel like it was going against my ego on every level.

Regardless, as I sat down in my first assisted ride out to the security checkpoint, I watched as everyone stared at me, eyeing me up and down trying to assess what was wrong with me. I felt like an invalid because of it, yet I suddenly remembered plenty of times when I myself did the same exact thing in prior airport visits.

Thankfully, a nice perk came along with that wheelchair assistance though. My partner and I were ushered ahead of everyone at those long security checkpoint lines. That was such a welcomed relief given how hard it is for me to stand for long periods. Not too long after this, we were well on our first leg of the flight. I spent most of it meditating, saying positive affirmations, and dozing off, which for the most part made it go by rather quickly. Once in Charlotte and off the plane, we were whisked away by one of those loud beeping carts, heading for our next place of departure. Once there, I purchased breakfast for the two of us at a Starbucks: two yogurts, two oatmeal’s, and two hot chocolates. If you can believe it, the total was a whopping $30!

Anyway, the second leg of the flight departed after a brief delay and for most of it, I tried to sleep. Yet somehow I was just too wrapped up in my frustrated thoughts about my health to get any real quality shuteye. I think that’s why it was such a welcomed relief to finally arrive in Grand Cayman a few hours later. I thought it rather interesting how we disembarked from the plane, as the airport didn’t have those jetways. Instead, we walked out the back of the plane, headed down some tall stairs, and stepped onto the runway itself. From there a woman was holding a card with my name on it, while standing in front of a wheelchair. To be honest, I was actually going to try walking through the customs process instead of using the assistance, but given my pain levels, I graciously accepted her help. After doing so, we made it through the luggage retrieval and security checkpoints with ease and not too long after were well on our way in a Ford Fiesta from Budget Rental, heading to the other side of the island for the Wyndham Reef Resort.

Driving in Grand Cayman was a little scary to say the least because they do so on the left side of the road versus the right. I narrowly avoided a few accidents right from the onset, but after settling in and getting used to it, we drove along the beautiful coastline to our resort on the other side of the island.

Upon arrival, we checked in and swiftly headed to our room in total exhaustion, but somehow gained a second wind after seeing the view from our balcony, which looked straight out onto the beach and ocean directly in front of us. After unloading our luggage, we headed across the street to a small grocery store to get some supplies, since we had planned to cook more than not. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a variety so we headed 20 miles back to where a much larger store was. $350 dollars later, yes $350 dollars, our car was full of breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods for the next 10 days. Prices for food on Grand Cayman were extremely expensive, but I wasn’t surprised given how everything had to be flown in. For example one cup of Chobani Yogurt was $2.00, while a package of bacon cost $10.00!

By the time we got back to the resort after our extended grocery trip, I know my partner was totally exhausted, not just from the long travel day, but also with me. My obsessions about my health had gotten the best of me, much in part due to my lack of sleep. Given that, I decided to take him out to dinner instead of cooking for our first evening there. We headed across the street to a nice Italian place and both opted for some gourmet pizza, which was rather tasty. I had a BBQ Chicken and Artichoke combo, while he had some deluxe meat-based one.

An hour or so later, our evening came to an end with a short stroll along the beachfront. Upon reaching our room, I began to wind down for the night and reflected on my first day. I realized in doing so that I had made one major error throughout most of our first day of vacation. I hadn’t turned over much of my frustrations and fears to my Higher Power and instead had lolled in them, which only caused unnecessary fatigue to both myself and my partner. But, as they always say in recovery, tomorrow was another day, and I was sure after a good night’s rest, I would feel far better…  🙂

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson