CRABS, MONO AND THE ER

The Party of Five went to the beach this past week.

 Getting there was a major event.

#2 got home from Jamaica at 1:00 AM Saturday.  Of course, their flight was delayed for several hours because of thunderstorms in Miami. When she and her dad walked in the door, I tried to pretend that I was wide awake and waiting for her. Actually, I was waiting for her, but I was just "resting my eyes" too.  She crawled onto my bed ready for Show and Tell. She had taken over 400 pictures and wanted to not just SHOW all of them to me, but TELL the story behind each one. She and the group had a great trip and I will share the pictures one day this week. Well, at least some of the pictures. 

Saturday was going to be a busy day for all of us. We had a lot of errands to run and a lot of things to do around the house before going out of town. #2 was exhausted.....we thought it was because of her trip and late flight.

 We got a call mid day last Saturday that a good friend of ours and The Man of the House's co worker was being rushed to the ER by ambulance. He had had a stroke while having lunch out with his family. Well, everything came to sudden stop at our house and we rushed to the hospital. We sat in the ER for the rest of the day, along with  about fifteen other friends. His wife came out and gave us updates. At first, it didn't look too promising. Right now, a week later, there has been great improvement and he has been taken out of ICU and is in the rehabilitation center of the hospital and is being evaluated.   Scary stuff.  

Our beach plans were very much up in the air at that point, understandable so. We didn't feel good about leaving town with our friend in such a serious condition. Also, things were up in the air about the office and what was going to happen there with the turn of events. We found out that our friend was not going to be able to have visitors for at least a week. So with that, it was decided that we were going.  The packing, house and yard prep kept us up all night. Isn't it amazing how much prep goes into going out of town? I have to clean my house before going. I cannot stand to come home to a dirty house. I wish I could break that habit!

We finally got there!!!!!

We took lots of pictures!!

Monday night, The Bachelorette was on and we couldn't wait to sit in front of the TV and watch it while we ate. 

Our favorite thing to do for dinner at the beach  is to go and get fresh shrimp straight off the boat!

Summer on a Plate!!

All the veggies were straight from the field!!

Taken care of business while at the beach.

(Un)fortunately the Blackberry worked there.

I kept telling #2 that she looked puffy and swollen. (She was very appreciative of the compliment!) We all thought she was still recovering from her trip. When she started to complain of a headache and sore throat, I knew it was something that needed to be checked out.

After a trip to an Urgent Care:

strep - negative

mono - positive

She rested for a few days.....

...even though her siblings had a hard time letting her!

One day #2 felt good enough to come walk with us. 

At low tide, we waded out to a sandbar to look for shells. 

It was a strange feeling to be sitting on you own "private island" and look back at the beach. 

#3 was having some sun issues! HA!

That's better!

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We've dealt with mono once before and know that #2 will have good and bad days for about a month. For the most part, she will be exhausted some days that all she can do is sleep. The sore throat will come and go. Right now her tonsils are the size of nickels and look gross!  Her spleen is enlarged so she will have to careful about lifting things. It is an interesting virus to have to deal with. I am just glad she has it now and not in the fall when school starts. #1 missed three weeks of school when she had mono several years ago. The bad thing is that she was contagious while she was in Jamaica with all of her friends on the mission trip. She says they all shared food, water bottles and shared very tight quarters the entire week. OOPS!!!