Then came the Illness Vacation. I was the only one who got ill. But I’m the adult, the driver, and the funder, so it’s kind of a big deal for me to be sick on a vacation.
It was a weird summer anyways. I had already gotten food poisoning at the beginning of the summer. And I just kept getting sick. I have the immune system of a cockroach.
It all started on our second day. I came down with a yeast infection at Disneyland. I just never had one before, and it was very uncomfortable. I just had to be zen all day. I wasn’t going to leave Disneyland until we were ready. Tickets are really expensive, and rides are very fun. But I did run to the drugstore as soon as we left Disneyland for medicine.
Everything was fine. For a little while.
A few days later I took the boys exploring, looking for a really cool slide that I knew about. My throat was scratchy and getting worse. I was feeling run down and tired. I decided I must be dehydrated, so I picked up water and a soda.
By the time we met friends at Medieval Times, I was starting to go down hill. My throat was feeling worse. I was getting more and more tired. I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent. I asked my friend if she knew where a drugstore was. She gave me a funny look and told me. Later I realized that she remembered that I had worked in this area, so I should have known. I was getting sick.
After dinner, we went to the store. I bought medicine. I bought the boys more snacks. I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel, put the boys to bed, take my medicine, and get to bed too. I never get sick, so a little NyQuil, and I was sure to be fine the next day.
Even with medicine that night, I woke up feeling hellish. But we were driving home. I could do this. I’ll be sitting all day. How bad could it be?
I had to stop the drive within the hour to rest. I was falling asleep.
I took a cat nap and traveled on. For another 45 minutes. Then I had to stop again. We made it 30 minutes before we had to stop again for me to quickly nap. The boys thought it was weird, but they had movies and snacks.
Then every 20 minutes I was stopping to rest. By this time, it was getting later in the day; we were moving out into the desert. I didn’t want to sleep with a car running, but I couldn’t turn off the car and leave the windows down because it was so damn hot.
I realized that I couldn’t keep us moving. I couldn’t keep the boys safe. I was so worried, scared, sick, and tired. We had to stop. I had to rest. Maybe for a few hours. Maybe for the rest of the day.
I pulled over and called my parents, who were on vacation in another state. My dad agreed with me over where I was going to stop for the night. I called the ex to let him know I had to extend the vacation and why. He was fine with it.
I made it to the state border town and pulled off at the first exit with a hotel that I saw.
I walked in and asked if there was any vacancies.
Yes.
Can I do early check-in?
The woman gave me a once over and looked over at the boys. Absolutely. Let’s get you in now.
It was noon.
Thankfully it was a nice little hotel. Because we were in the middle of the desert in the middle of the summer on a weekend, the hotel wasn’t expensive.
I dragged up the snacks and DVD player up to the room. The boys brought in their toys. I hooked up the DVD player and put on movies. I showed the boys the snacks and drinks and told them to eat what they wanted. We had plenty of healthy snacks like fruit, nuts, chex mix, and fruit leathers.
I slept all afternoon.
When I woke, I checked our supplies and noted what we needed for an extra night. I took us out to a place I knew had soup. The boys were ecstatic because the restaurant had a salad bar. At dinner I looked for an urgent care of some sort, but because we were in a small town, they didn’t have one. The nearest one was in Phoenix, so I booked an appointment for the next day.
I took the boys to a box store to pick up a few extra clothes, another DVD, and some more snacks. I sent everyone to bed early because we need to be up early so I could make my emergency appointment.
Luckily the hotel served breakfast, so that we were able to get something to eat before we got on the road.
At my appointment, I learned I had strep. The 2nd time in my life. The nurse told me the antibiotics they gave me for my root canal earlier that month just destroyed my system. She gave me different antibiotics and other medicines. We had lunch while we waited for the prescription to be filled.
We made it home two hours later, and with the medicine, I was feeling much better.
I should end every single on of these posts in one way: my boys believe we have never had anything go wrong on our trips.
Nothing ever goes wrong on our trips.