SOUTH CAROLINA VACATION PART 2: SO GREAT...AND ALMOST ANOTHER E.R. VISIT!

If you read Part 1 you know our recent trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina didn't start out so swell.  I'm happy to report the rest of the trip was better than expected, but ended on another bit of a low note.  Such is life, huh?

So...where did I leave off?  Oh yes, we were waiting for Son One and his family to arrive at the resort on Hilton Head.  They did and it was great to welcome them!  

Frankly I had a wee bit of trepidation about a weeklong family vacation.  But then I have trepidation about a lot of things.  (I'm working on that.)  I tend to ruminate on all that could go wrong and try to mitigate it before it even happens.  It's exhausting.  By now I should know that my rumination and pre-problem solving does nothing to help and most of the time my fears never come to pass.  The things I don't see coming in a million years happen instead (Hub in the E.R.) and I then I realize that I deal with those things just fine, so go figure.  

Anyway, sometimes family togetherness gets tense.  There are the inevitable frustrations, compromises, misunderstandings, grumpiness....human stuff.  But I'm here to tell ya, NONE OF THAT HAPPENED!  Seriously!  Everyone was in good spirits; we were in almost 100% agreement on our joint activities; we had plenty of time together and ample time apart.  We even joyfully welcomed extended family from Savannah to join us for a day-long family reunion early on and got to see them again a week later as the vacation came to a close.  Whatever fretting I had done pre-trip was wasted time and energy.  (Note to self: knock it off!)

The weather was fabulous -- mid-upper 80's and sunny.  There were three swimming pools and the beach a 5 minute walk away.    The tree canopied courtyard area, which our villa overlooked, had a covered grilling/picnic area, a shuffleboard courts, table tennis, corn hole, foosball, a fire ring, and one of the pools nearby.  Where Son and fam had their villa (a 4 minute walk from ours) they overlooked the "kid" pool with a walk-in splash pool entrance and one of those enclosed twirly slides on the deep end.  Our 7 year old granddaughter started the week unsure of putting her face in the water and ended the week with a swim across the pool and diving down to retrieve pool toys on the bottom of the pool.   Proud moment.

The resort had daily activities, which was unexpected. One of my worries was "Will the kids be bored"?  "Will the adults"?  We all ended up loving planning which activities to do together each day!  Nature talks (sea turtles were nesting and we learned all about it!); birds of prey (with live owls!); stargazing (watched the moonrise over the Atlantic); various trivia games that both kids and adults could enjoy (our 12 yr old granddaughter won the Marvel Cinematic Universe contest and I'm sure would have won Harry Potter had we had time to go that day); Campfire S'mores and storytelling by the oceanside firepit; "Name that Tune" "Junk Food Bingo" and Disney trivia games at one of the pools; Milk & Cookies Oreo taste testing (who knew there were a dozen flavors of Oreos?!?).  We didn't make it to the popcorn bar, the ice cream sundaes and floats, tie-dye tees, guided beach strolls and bike trips and movie nights, and Civil War history, and various game tournaments in the courtyard and many other options.  As you can tell, there was no reason to be moping in the room making claims of "boredom"!  Nor was anyone staring at a cell phone to pass the time.

On top of that, one day we rented kayaks and hit the inland waterways through the marshlands paddling alongside dolphins leaping beside us, including a mama and her baby.  Afterward we had a creekside seafood lunch which featured so many oysters!

With so much to do on the resort grounds, we spent less time on the beach than I had anticipated.  Hub and I went for a daily 4 mile beach walk but as a family we didn't have many "just beach" days.  For me, there is zero shade and I'm not into baking all day on the hot sand exposing my poor white girl body to yet more skin-cancer rays.  Been there, done that, and still treating it!  But with only 2 days to go on the trip,  we declared a beach day.  We spread out on the sand, away from the most crowded part of the beach.  We were all eager to jump into the warm sea to frolic in the gentle rolling waves.  Hub and I had such pleasant memories of when we lived in South Carolina on the Isle of Palms where going to the beach and splashing in the ocean was a daily event.  We were excited to share that experience with our grandkids.  And we all were having such a great time, until....

Our 12 year old granddaughter suddenly started yelling for help.  Hub and I were on the beach and saw her making her way out of the water limping on one foot, crying.  We ran to help her, with her parents not far away in the water making their way to her as well.  She cried, "Something bit me!"  We assumed it was nothing...sometimes a little fish will take a nip.  But her foot was bleeding and she was obviously in great pain.  Her dad ran to get help while we tried to comfort her by elevating her foot and putting some ice on it.  WRONG!!!  The beach patrol immediately diagnosed a stingray "stinger" attack and said to get the foot down and apply the hottest compress we could to draw the venom out.  He had a hot pack with him, which he taped to her foot, but advised we get her back to the room to soak her foot in very, very hot water.  

That was no easy task.  We were quite a ways down the beach, away from the villas, and she was in no shape to walk.  Hub and our son got on either side of her and "fireman carried" her all the way -- about a 10 minute or so walk over the sand and through the resort grounds.  Our villa was closest so we got her there, seated on the side of the tub with her foot submerged in hot water. It took about an hour before she felt some relief, but by later that day she was walking around just fine, if a little sore and a bit traumatized.

During all the drama, of course I Googled stingray stings only to find that the Hilton Head E.R. sees about 200 patients a year for stingray attacks, especially during the season when they are most prevalent, May-June -- just when we were there!  A more severe attack would have required an E.R. visit but we determined there were no big spines in her foot; it was likely a glancing blow, but certainly enough to really, really hurt.  Now we know to do the "stingray shuffle" by dragging our feet through the sand so the stingrays can scurry away instead of getting stomped on by ignorant tourists jumping up and down in water like we were!

Vacations are made of many memories.  We made some good ones...and some that make a good story only after the fact.  

At least, that's the view from here...©

P.S. Stay tuned for Part 3 -- adult drinks and the sweet heart-space of family reunited.

SOUTH CAROLINA VACATION: PART 1

I'm cleaning off my desk today and have a little stack of tourist stuff from our recent vacation to South Carolina.  I realize I never wrote about this trip, which surprises me.  It deserves to be documented for starting out so poorly but ending up not being a disaster after all.

Hub and I arranged to take Son One and his family on this trip with us.  We chose a resort on Hilton Head where we had stayed a few years ago and thought it would be perfect for a family vacation and only an hour away from Savannah GA where my sis-in-law, nephew, and niece and her family all live.  Since Hub and I lived off the shore of Charleston S.C., on the Isle of Palms for two years in the early 80s, going there every so often also holds a nostalgic vibe for us.  Two years is not long, but it was a transformative time in our younger lives and made an outsized impact on us.  Anyway, he and I left a few days early to spend time in Charleston before heading to Hilton Head.  

Hub got up not feeling great on travel day.  He is generally a happy flyer (unlike me) and we had sprung for the upgraded seats that came with drinks, which he finds to be a nice perk.  He was pretty quiet at the airport, complaining of stomach ache.  On the flight he sat upright, rigid, not eating OR drinking OR interacting in any way -- just trying to endure the 5-1/2 hour flight, eyes closed.  

Off the plane we waited and waited for our luggage, realizing at long last that one suitcase was not gonna show up on the conveyor belt.  After checking with the airline, it was confirmed that bag was still in Seattle.  Damn.  Hub was miserable by this time and just wanted to get to the hotel, but we had to fill out lost luggage paperwork and still pickup our rental car.  

Once finally at the hotel, our assigned room with a great view reeked so strongly of chemical cleaner that we couldn't imagine sleeping in it.  The Marriott prides itself on "new enhanced cleaning technologies" (whatever that means) but that was ridiculous!  We trooped back to the front desk to request a different room, which took awhile to arrange since they were nearly full with the convention of an NFL security organization, everyone wearing team logos. We finally got a new room, with a crappy view, and two Queens instead of a King, but we were able to breathe.  Hub went straight to bed in agony.  I took the other bed feeling he'd sleep better alone.  (Or I would....but I didn't.)

Hub being ill is such a rare event that I was concerned.  He was obviously in pain, unable to get comfortable.  He tossed and turned for hours until at 4 a.m. he said he felt he should go to the E.R.  This was a startling turn of events.  Hub suggesting an E.R. visit made me think he was at death's door. We got dressed and I drove him to the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where he had actually been on staff all those many years ago.  Deja Vu.  But this time he was the patient.  He suspected a bowel obstruction or pancreatitis.  I was too uninformed about the perils of those possible diagnoses to be as worried as I could have been...me with the diagnosed medical anxiety that turns me into a worst case scenario scaredy cat at the mere mention of a possible health issue.

No E.R. visit is fast or easy, so even though they were not busy, we were there for 5-1/2 hours.  Exams, tests, scans, waiting, waiting, waiting....  Finally we were told everything looked normal and nothing life-threatening was going on.  During the course of things, Hub had started to spontaneously feel a bit better; not great, but better, with less pain.  We don't know what caused his symptoms exactly.  Maybe something he ate, but it wasn't the classic puking/pooping food poisoning response.  It was just lots of pain and bloating, indicating blockage, but there was no blockage.  

He was discharged and we went back to the hotel to sleep most of the day, only venturing out to the deli at the Publix grocery store across the street to get him some nice bland chicken soup for supper.  On the way back we intercepted our lost suitcase being delivered to the hotel.  Our visit to Charleston was not as we'd planned but we were grateful he was not admitted with a serious illness.  Thirty-six hours into our trip things were finally looking up.

The next day we drove out to the Isle of Palms, past our old house, and took a walk on "our" beach, still so beautiful.  Then we headed to Hilton Head, 2-1/2 hours away, grateful we weren't still at MUSC fighting an infection, or worse.  We looked forward to welcoming our family to join us the next day with hope that a whole week together would be as much fun as it seemed it would be in our imaginations; one never knows.

At least, that's the view from here...©