The Longest Day Ever

The longest day ever began @ 5:45 2/9/08. I awoke and I was immediately overwhelmed @ the tasks before me. Just the day before we had done 8 cases @ Crestwood, and had 2 other inpatients, all of whom needed to be seen and taken care of, notes written, dressings changed, prescriptions written...all of which was completed by 7:30. There was a quick stop by the office, TOC 7:40-7:50 then off to Huntsville Hospital to 1st assist on my 17th case of the week. Before scrubbing I had 3 inpatients to see, 8 discharge summaries to dictate, and 14 history and physicals to dictate, all of which needed to be completed before I headed out of town for Orlando and the House of Mouse. My last stitch thrown @ 10 am, I had one hour to rush to the gym and get in a quick workout (8x800meter repeats in 2:27 w/ 2 min. recovery - total of 8 miles w/ a warm up and cool down). I made it home in just enough time to pack my clothes and the van w/ all our STUFF (12:30pm). Penny had a pretty busy morning herself. Sam had woken up early and b/c of a worsening cough, Penny had tried to get him some cough syrup. This made him gag and puke all of his breakfast on the floor. So, besides the packing and last minute chores, she got to mop the kitchen floor, ridding it of vomit.
We finally made our way southward @ 12:45 and had a pretty uneventful trip, all the way to Cordelle, GA, about 2 hours south of Atlanta. Sam's cough had gotten worse in the interim and we began to get a bit worried b/c he, for the first time since the cough started, felt febrile. We attempted to go to bed about 9:30 EST, but Sam was having none of it. He was extremely irritable and his cough had reached that "Oh my gosh, he sounds HORRIBLE" level. About 1:45 he woke us up for the 10th time coughing and gagging, so I got up and to my dismay, he had become extremely warm, to the point that with the cough, audible congestion, and fever, I got pretty unnerved. So, finally @ 2:30 am.....we headed to the ER. I mean, what do you do? You're kid is sick, you're in the middle of nowhere, and to be honest I was scared. Only thing to do, trust in God, and your local medical professionals to get him better. The staff @ Crisp County Regional Medical Center did a great job, but typical to any ER visit we were there until 5:45 am. Fortunately, no RSV, no strep, and no pneumonia on the chest x-ray. Chalk it up to a virus, treat the symptoms, and proceed as planned. We managed to catch a wink and head southward by 10am (the following day) and make it, in once piece, to Mouseville by 2:30.
We're thankful for opportunities to get away, and certainly, we hoped to make some wonderful memories during this vacation, but we've gotten a little more than we bargained for thus far. I guess we're re-defining "wonderful."
The good news: Sam is feeling better and his temp is down, although his cough is still pretty nasty, I think he'll make a full recovery; our resort is AWESOME! (details to follow); Magic Kingdom tomorrow (it's going to be mousetastic); we survived the longest day ever.