How a Girls' Trip and a Leap of Faith Changed My Life: Lindsey’s Journey with Magic Journeys
A Message from Lindsey: One of our Magic Journeys owners and the wizard-behind-the-curtain for most of our social media and blog updates:
While we’ve loved giving our followers and blog visitors a peek into our personal lives through our love of travel, it’s rare that we get really personal online. However, this story felt like one I needed to share here as it’s so closely tied to Magic Journeys and our love of travel.
The Start of Magic Journeys and a Special Trip
Our passion for travel isn’t new, nor is our dedication to helping people plan their dream vacations. But a year ago, Brittany and I took a leap of faith and decided to invest in our own travel agency. We both have full-time jobs, multiple kids, and limited time, but this felt like something we had to do—a challenge we were ready to take on together.
At the same time, we had a wild idea: we’d never been on a girls' trip with our mom. In the nine years since we lost our dad to pancreatic cancer, we started our own families, bought homes, advanced in our careers, and been on tons of group family trips together. But we’d never done something truly extraordinary together—Mother + Daughters. It was time to change that, so we booked our first Adventures by Disney trip together, giving us a year to prep kids, husbands, and the real world to let us explore the Canadian Rockies together for a week.
A Health Scare Before the Trip
What I didn’t know at either of those key points was how critical these decisions would be a year later in the discovery of a major health scare and the recovery from it.
At the beginning of June, just weeks before our Adventures by Disney vacation, I found myself with crippling back pain. Barely able to walk and ride comfortably in the car to the doctor, I dragged myself to an orthopedist and begged for help. I was relieved when he told me it was a pinched nerve and that they could expedite my pain relief and get me back in shape for Canada with an epidural. I just needed to go for an MRI so he knew exactly where to administer it.
Wasting no time, he sent me for an MRI immediately, and I waited for a call about when and where to show up for the epidural. The call that came back was an unexpected blow: the MRI of my lumbar spine revealed a mass completely unrelated to my pinched nerve. Best case scenario, an accidental discovery that could have taken months or years of further growth until it encroached on my spine and caused permanent damage to my mobility.
I’m thankful to have the most incredible primary care physician who referred me immediately to a top neurosurgeon. Within hours of his referral, the neurosurgeon had reviewed the MRI and set me on a course of follow-up scans and tests—brain, cervical, nervous system. Having full-blown PTSD and hypochondria from watching our dad die of cancer, plus a splash of claustrophobia, I was in full-blown panic mode. A process that takes many people months to move through, my incredible doctors rushed me through in a week.
Facing Surgery and a Difficult Decision
The results were definitive and crushing: I would need emergency surgery to remove the mass. It was encased in my spine, encroaching on my nerves, and other symptoms I assumed were caused by bad shoes, genetic hip issues, or post-pregnancy sciatica were actually the beginnings of the mass’s damage.
But what about our trip? I know—this should have been the last thing I was worried about.
Talking through it with my neurosurgeon, I explained our itinerary and that we were traveling with Adventures by Disney. If I wasn’t going on an Adventures by Disney trip where we knew we had Disney’s incredible hospitality, we probably would have had to cancel the trip. Instead, we knew the minute we arrived I would be okay—taken care of and watched out for with help should I need anything. The first morning of our trip I was able to pull the guides aside and through tears tell them what was going on—the level of pain I was in, my concerns for time on the bus or how much walking we would do or whether or not I could participate in the activities.
Our amazing guides Josh & Maddy made a difficult time easy and stress free.
The Trip of a Lifetime
That was the last time I needed to say something... they took care of me in a way that allowed me to enjoy the trip like everyone else all while knowing there was someone watching out for me if I needed help or an out. They reserved the first rows on the bus for me and my mom and sister so I didn’t have to worry about climbing all the way to the back as we were on and off—they reserved me two seats so I could extend my leg and plug in a heating pad. As we moved through activities, they warned me how much was ahead and gave me options so that I could easily duck out if it was ever too much. I was always able to try to do what the group was doing but if I needed to stop, they had my back. Like when we were biking—I did the first two legs of the ride and then couldn’t do any more—they put my bike on the bus and let me ride the rest of the way.
Our trip was a beautiful distraction and the most incredible motivation for something to look forward to post surgery and recovery. We shared our favorite moments and pictures through our Magic Journeys Instagram in real time and watched our followers climb. Every picture from Canada was pure joy, but behind my smile was fear. Hiking Sulphur Mountain, the views took my breath away, and I promised myself this wouldn’t be my last adventure.
The Surgery and Road to Recovery
On July 18th, I underwent major emergency spinal surgery and spent the following week in the ICU. The pain and recovery were more than I could have ever imagined—physically and mentally. The recovery path would be dictated by the extent of my surgery and the pathology results—both of which wouldn’t be known for at least a couple of weeks after. Trapped in the limited places I can comfortably sit with severely limited mobility, my greatest distraction and joy has been Magic Journeys: planning more vacations and pulling the strings/making magic for clients about to embark on their California vacation and trip to Disneyland.
Today there’s lots to celebrate. Small but significant milestones for Magic Journeys: passing 500 followers on Instagram, 1,000 visitors to our blog, and getting two new clients and bookings for more Disney Parks trips today alone! (Makes eight trips in the last three weeks!) Most importantly, I received the call we were waiting for from my neurosurgeon: my pathology is clean, the mass was fully resected. I’m on my way to healing and now we can focus on the physical therapy.
Looking Forward
My recovery will be long, but I gratefully now know where the summit is. I have visions of the trips and adventures that lie on the other side of this challenge. More mountains, hikes, waterfalls, and more Adventures by Disney. Until then, lots of blogging, vacation planning, and finding great adventures for our family that are safe for my recovery and mobility restrictions. (Did someone say Disney cruise?)
Closing this chapter and looking forward to the next, I had to stop and reflect and appreciate everything I never could have anticipated would be meaningful for me in the ways that they have been:
Our decision to take that girls' trip, our Adventures by Disney to the Canadian Rockies is what sparked the urgency for me to get checked. If not for that trip, who knows when I would have found out about the looming issues in my spine and what the implications could have been.
Our Magic Journeys business and blog were started so we could give people the gift of travel we love so much: having it now, well established and growing fast, has given me a focus and distraction through a very difficult and painful time. It’s not easy to know how long my mobility will be restricted or when we will be able to take big trips - clients travel and blogging is my window into world and chance to travel vicariously.
Our Adventures by Disney Guides made the trip of a lifetime possible for me in a very vulnerable and scary time. They gave me a week of magic to look back on before facing a major, terrifying surgery. Those memories carried me through scary moments that followed. It’s giving me something to look back on and relive through blogging now.
Although not Magic Journeys related, I also have to say thank you to my incredible support team, family, and friends—including new ones from our ABD trip who checked in on me post-surgery.
Moral of the story?
Travel more! You never know when it will lead to something else you didn’t expect. You never know when you might not be able to!
Now, time to close this chapter! Adventure awaits!
Want to hear more about our Adventures by Disney experience? Check out our additional posts where we dive into each stop on our Adventures by Disney Canadian Rockies journey:
