Big festival
Tl;dr: my partner has received an invite from his friend to drive to Calgary for Stampede and I am overwhelmed. The event is in early July and I am so worried about attending. What advice do you have to make this trip enjoyable for both me and him?
This might be a bit of a rant because I have big feels about this and nobody who understands.
Context: Calgary stampede is a large carnival with lots of live music, a rodeo, and a bunch of other events around the city. It's busy, it's loud, it's all outdoors or in bar type venues. Everything in the city is premium prices that weekend - capitalism makes money when crowds are available.
My partner recieved an invite from his friend to drive to Calgary, stay at her place, and take in everything going on during opening weekend. It's a wonderful opportunity and he doesn't get to see his friend nearly enough. But I don't know how I'm going to survive it.
My fatigue started in January following a cold/flu/covid over Christmas (they only test if you end up in hospital and I wasn't that sick). Since then, I've been pretty much housebound. On a good day, I can socialize with a friend for a few hours or go wander around a shop for a bit. On a bad day, I use my limited upright time to feed myself. Otherwise I'm in bed. I don't have a diagnosis yet so I don't want to claim me/cfs but it follows the symptoms pretty closely.
I try my best to stay within the energy I have but I still overdo it sometimes. This trip is going to overdo it. Period. No questions.
Everything being outside worries me. Summer is just starting here so I don't know yet if being in the sun is going to wipe me out or how badly. Walking any significant distance isn't really a thing. My partner has trouble walking slow enough to walk with me most days.
His suggestions so far are to
-go watch the parade. His theory is that we'll bring a chair and I can just sit. It's outdoors with unpredictable weather. I'm not maintaining my body heat super well so being too cold or too hot is a concern. We're not going to be able to park super close to the parade route so it'll be walking a couple of blocks there and a couple of blocks back. He doesn't see these parts.
-go to the zoo. I love the Calgary zoo. But it's kilometers of walking in a day. I'd never make it to the far exhibits, never mind getting back to the car. I haven't looked if they have wheelchairs I could borrow. I've never used a wheelchair so that is intimidating on its own.
-go to concerts. The noise, the crowds, the being upright. I'd have to sit the whole time for sure and if everyone else is standing and dancing, which I encourage, I'm just going to be looking at someone's butt.
-Pancake breakfasts. Again, we can't exactly park right next to a door and would have to walk an unknown distance. It's outdoors with an unpredictable layout. You have to stand in line for food.
-the fairgrounds. I'm not exactly a fan of big carnivals like this previously. I've never enjoyed rides, the games are just a money sink for a toy that you could have bought at the dollar store, and the food is unappealing. On top of that, people are dumb, panicky herd animals and this is thousands of them in a fenced in box. I don't trust the situation at the best of times. Now I'm even more vulnerable.
-the rodeo. Tickets on the weekend start at $140 each so they're not in our price range. No other factors even need to be considered.
-going out to eat. The most reasonable thing but we don't have to go to Calgary to do that.
I'm fairly certain that I could do one of these things in a weekend. For a while. He doesn't understand how tiring it is to sit upright for that long. Even if I'm not up walking around, I'm going to be exhausted from just sitting where my neck and head aren't supported. A bar stool for the length of a concert sounds like torture. A lawn chair in the sun sounds painful. Even a wheelchair that's of generic sizing sounds uncomfortable and exhausting.
He says that if I'm tired, I can just skip things and stay at his friend's place and rest. I don't really want to hang out alone in a house that I'm not familiar with while I miss out on in interesting things.
I'm fairly certain that he won't go without me and I don't want to be stuck at home while he goes on a big adventure. How do I navigate this? How do I be okay with either staying home or sacrificing my health for a weekend of events that I don't care about? The only thing I'm interested in is the zoo honestly and we don't have to travel on the busiest, most expensive weekend of the year to do that. I don't want to be a party pooper. I don't want to limit his life just because I'm sick and can't do normal people things. I am not interested in hanging around his friends place by myself.
I know that this is what travelling is going to be like now. I'm always going to be a limiting factor. I can't even take a turn driving because I can't drive for more than 20 minutes. I can't even drive all the way across my home city, never mind for any length of time on the highway.
How do I not wreck his weekend and not end up bedridden for a month? Open to suggestions and input.