Session Fifteen: A Camping Life for We

Travels with Our Trachie

Session 15: A Camping Life for We

When our trachie was three years old, we introduced her and our other daughters to camping. Our relatives had been parking their camper on our property for years and had always offered it for our own use and we finally decided to take them up on the offer.

We quickly decided that camping was a perfect fit for our family. It provided a less stressful way of vacationing, since, for whatever reason, we were able to relax in a way that no other vacation could provide. The campground was close by, so if we forgot to bring something, it was just a quick trip back home, that certainly aided in minimizing our stress.

Our first year, we only went out twice, once in mid-September and then again a few weeks later for the Halloween weekend. The girls loved trick-r-treating at the campground so much that we’ve gone camping that weekend every year since! We were looking forward to enjoying more camping excursions in 2019, including our first Memorial Weekend camping adventure, which coincided with our first of many group camping outings with some of my husband’s classmates.

Though we wanted to go more often, we managed to get in four weekend getaways during our second season of camping. Each year, we seem to add more and more camping adventures at area campgrounds as weekend warriors. Our trachie loves camping just as much as we all do.

After several years of borrowing a travel trailer, we eventually purchased our own, which made camp life even more enjoyable. We were able to stock it with all the medical supplies, so no more worrying about forgetting something.

As our trachie has aged, we have encountered some challenges with our beloved camp life since she was no longer content to just hang out with Mommy and Daddy around the campfire. Her sisters were off riding bikes, swimming in the lake, or playing with new friends at the playground. For our trachie to participate in typical childhood fun, it meant we had to be directly beside her carrying the ventilator. There is no watching her from afar. And being that we’re adults, constantly playing on the playground isn’t our idea of camping fun. It’s certainly a battle of wills and she is far more persistent than us, but we manage to find a balance.   

Thankfully, she really enjoys driving her battery-operated truck, which also holds the ventilator, so we don’t have to carry it all over the campground. Little Miss Popularity stops at every campsite with people outside to share a smile, which gives us ample opportunity to catch up with her 5MPH pace. We definitely get our steps in during camping weekends! In fact, it’s a total body workout with pushing her in the swings as well! We do tend to steer her away from lake activities as much as possible, but we’ve braved those waters on many occasions to let her live her best life.  

We were hesitant to try camping with a medically fragile child, but we are sure glad we did. We are a camping family! We love it and can’t imagine that ever changing. It is our most favorite way of traveling with our trachie!