Las Vegas

I took off last Thursday and Friday to take my Mom to Las Vegas for an early weekend. This had been planned months in advance, when my mom was much stronger. The week after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the slowest in Las Vegas, so the casinos plan a promotion to try and get all of their regular gamblers back into town the slow week. It's called the Holiday Gift Shop, and casino regulars are given points all year for their gambling activity, for use one week only during the Holiday Gift Shop to trade for gifts and prizes. As an added incentive the casinos also comp your stay, your food and this time around even offered us tickets to the "O" show by Cirque du Soleil.

The bad part of all of this is of course how weak my mom is lately. She had originally been planning on going to Vegas right after her chemo, but as I wrote earlier it was postponed and instead she had a blood transfusion just before her Vegas trip, a good thing as those generally help her energy level.

So with a bit of trepidation, I left last Thursday with my mom in her wheelchair, one share piece of luggage between the two of us, my backpack and her purse. I parked the car in long term parking, and the driver of the shuttle helped us get all our belongings on the shuttle. He also made a special stop for us in front of Virgin America the airline we were flying (the normal stop was the furthest possible from this airline). I managed to push my mom in her wheelchair and balance the suitcase on the back handle of the wheelchair, so we were fairly mobile.

I took the opportunity to check in online from home before the flight and had us upgraded to first class for the short flight for a small sum of $50 each. My mom was very surprised and I think relieved to see she was sitting in first class. It allowed her to relax and lie back for most of the flight. I got to watch TV and of course they served a special tapas snack as well in first class.

Going from Vegas airport to Bellagio was a similar experience, I got us in a cab and to the hotel with little trouble. We checked in, and had to switch rooms as my mom was offered a suite, but the only problem with Bellagio Suites are they only have a single king bed. So we downgraded to a standard room with two queen beds, a much smaller room, but better for accommodating the two of us.

As weak as my mom was she was a trooper for the whole weekend and even stayed up until 2am one evening. The casino was only moderately crowded, and it was obvious there not too many actually staying at the casino, as they had shut down two of the main restaurants for the entire week. It made for a bit of difficulty for us in finding places to eat, as the comp offer limits the restaurants you can dine at, and in fact we ended up having to pay our own way at some more expensive restaurants.

We came back Saturday, with no problems and were home by dinner time. On Monday my mom went to acupuncture, and by Tuesday, my mom went back to the doctor for her chemo, and she's home now resting.