Don’t read this post if you don’t like medical discussions. Heck, if you don’t like medical discussions, why are you reading this blog to begin with?
This Christmas was topped only by Christmas 1996 when my grandmother died and I missed the wake because I was vomiting (7 times!) instead.
Two-and-a-half weeks ago, we had our annual Thanksgiving gathering of some college friends. The original Thanksgiving weekend date was postponed due to illness of our friends’ daughter. This time, she was “mostly over” a cold, so we thought it was no big deal. Major mistake apparently. The Toddler almost immediately stole her sippy cup and drank from it.
Tuesday, The Toddler came down with the sniffles. Wednesday, The Husband was also sniffling. It was enough that we cancelled an end-of-the-semester potluck at our house. Thursday, The Toddler was worse and woke up with an amazing amount of gunk in his eyes–enough that it was tough for him to open them. So The Husband brought him to the pediatrician and The Toddler was prescribed a course of antibiotics (he had a double ear infection in addition to the eye gunk).
I got sick on Friday. Sore throat, stuffy nose, cough, sneezing, all the good stuff. Saturday I got an ear infection. I didn’t even know adults got ear infections! Sunday morning we cancelled going to a friend’s toddler’s birthday party. Sunday afternoon I threw up. Sunday night, The Husband threw up. Monday (Christmas Eve) morning, The Father-In-Law prescribed us both antibiotics just in case, so we wouldn’t have to find an open pharmacy on Christmas Day or on the road. Yes, we were still planning on traveling up to New England! It’s good to have a physician in the family.
Christmas Day we drove to Northern Virginia to say hello to The Parents and The Grandparents and to rest a while before continuing to stay with my uncle in New York for the night. We were there for about 5 minutes before The Father-In-Law said we weren’t to leave before he wrote us a prescription for codeine. It’s good to have a physician in the family.
We were feeling much better with the codeine and we were sure we were on the mend, since we felt better than the day before and it had already been a week. Colds only last a week, right?
So we loaded into the car and headed north with a bag full of ham sandwiches that The Husband’s grandmother made us take because everyone else refused to take home leftovers.
We made good time through Delaware and headed onto the New Jersey Turnpike around 9 p.m., where we promptly heard a thunk and then the thwap thwap of a flat tire. We called my uncle to say we wouldn’t make it that night, since we only had a donut. The Husband attempted to remove the tire, but was unsuccessful. We called AAA, and not only would they help change the tire, they said, they could actually repair/replace it that night. Wonderful! We called my uncle to say we would make it after all. AAA arrived and he couldn’t remove the tire either. According to him, it was the first time in 6 years on the job he couldn’t get a tire off. He called the tow truck. We called my uncle again to say we weren’t coming again.
So after about 1.5 hours on the side of the Jersey Turnpike, the tow truck arrived and he drove us to a motel, since by that time the shop was closed. The motel was empty except for us, and we got the military discount which felt a bit like cheating since the only thing we’ve done regarding the military so far is the swearing in and the IDs and the collecting money. Nothing actually hard yet.
The Husband started his antibiotics that night on the advice of his dad since he had been out in the cold and dirt. I decided to hold off since I was still convinced it was still just a cold. This is probably why I’m not the one that’s going to med school.
That night I had these extremely vivid hallucinations of my sister-in-law as a fairy surrounded by light and wind, book pages made of sugar in wine glasses surrounded by laughing aunts, and colorful parrots with feathers made of paper. I wondered why The Father-In-Law said it was okay to drive on the codeine. Turns out I had a fever and that was why I was hallucinating. I also had major sinus pain and eye gunk in the morning so I also started the antibiotics. We ate the ham sandwiches for breakfast. They were dry and cold by that point, but they were delicious.
Wednesday morning, the 26th, the car was ready. One tire had been slashed by some metal and had to be replaced and the tire behind it had been punctured and was slowly going flat also, but could be patched. So, even if we had gotten the original tire off, we would have only made it a little bit further until we were stymied again.
We left the motel around 10 and still had hopes of making it to my parents’ house in Connecticut around 2.
This post is getting very, very long and it’s getting late, so I’ll say to be continued tomorrow…