Our trip to the beach

Last week Summer, my dad and I traveled to Fort Walton Beach for a much needed vacation.  About an hour into the drive, she started with the "how much longer?" question.  "How many more minutes?" was a another of her favorite questions.  She played her Leapster some, but did not really play the iPad like I thought she would.  I figured she would be glued to Fetch with Ruff Ruffman like she had been the week before, but I guess that did not interest her.  After about seven and a half hours, we made it to our destination:  Island Echos on Okaloosa Island.  She only slept for about thirty to forty minutes the whole way down.  We were not at the condo long before she was ready to head to the pool.  After a little time there, we headed to the beach to build a sand castle.  We were almost finished with it when a rain shower blew over and cleared the beach.  We headed to our unit to get our things settled in and relax.  We were tired from the long day on the road so we decided to eat in instead of going out like we did for supper the rest of the week.    


On Sunday when we woke up, a tropical storm had blown in.  The waves were huge, but the rain had not arrived yet so we headed to the pool.  Summer and Paw Paw swam together while I watched.  It was a little cool out for me with no sun in sight.  While they were swimming, it started sprinkling, but that did not bother them.  When Summer was chilled to the bone, we headed back up to the room.  That was when her vacation took a turn for the worse.  She started running a high temperature so I ran to the store to get some medicine.  On Monday morning, she also had developed a sore throat so we took her to an urgent care clinic.  They gave her a strep test which was negative, but since she also had a painful sensation at the end of her peeing, they put her on amoxycillin to be on the safe side.  Her fever continued to spike over 102 for the next few days and added to the sore throat were body aches and a sore mouth.  On Thursday, we returned to the doctor for more tests since she did not seem to be improving.  After another strep test, urine culture and a trip to the hospital for a blood test, it was decided she had a virus.  They called her in a prescription of nystatin for the thrush that had developed in her mouth.  


Her week pretty much consisted of watching DVDs on the couch.  Blues Clues and Barney kept her quite entertained.  We met some nice people on the beach who loaned us some of their movies.  Her favorite was "A Bug's Life."  We also watched "Ant Bully."  On Wednesday night, she asked me when she was going to get to have some fun on vacation, but the poor thing just did not feel like doing anything.  It broke my heart that I could do nothing to make her feel better.  Her mouth was so sore we could not brush her teeth and pretty much the only thing she consumed all week was yogurt drinks. The pool was not even appetizing to her.  I did manage to get her to take a trip to the beach twice where she sat under the umbrella and buried her feet in the the sand.  She did seem to enjoy that some, but it did not last long before she was ready to head back up to the couch or bed.  She went through lots of ibuprofen trying to manage her fevers and slept quite a bit too.  


On Friday morning, she still did not feel great, but she did want to do something fun.  She begged me to take her to the water park. So, after getting her to take her medicine (that was a struggle the entire trip), drink a glass of Gatorade and gulp down a yogurt smoothie, we headed to Big Kahunas.  We had lots of fun going down water slides.  It was great to see her finally having fun.  Her favorite was the one where she and I got to ride double down an enclosed yellow slide.  We rode most of the slides two or three times.  We enjoyed the wave pool for a little while until hunger hit us, and we headed to the snack area.  We ordered a philly cheese steak to share, but her mouth was still her enemy and she could not eat.  Her fever also started rising again, so we left the park and headed back to our condo.  We had about two and half or three hours of fun though so it was worth the trip.


Saturday morning we packed up and our vacation was over.  On the way home, she slept more than the first down so her "how much longer" questions were not quite as bad.  We were all ready to get out of the car when we got back to Chattanooga.  The not so great vacation was over, but the sickness was not.  The main thing bothering her is her mouth.  She is so hungry, but she it just hurts too bad to eat.  She's hoping we will get to go back to the beach later this summer or maybe for fall break.  We'll see though.  Our life has gotten pretty complicated in the past week, but I'm sure in the end we will be fine.  The next few months will probably be rough for us both, but at least at the end of the day we still have each other.