We decided not to take our youngest to urgent care. Instead, we would treat him with regular cold medicine. We were leaving for Florida the same time as our friend's the Faes's and didn't want to fall too far behind. My youngest was doing well under medication so we made a run for the Pennsylvania border.
We raced to catch up with the Faes family, cannon ball style. We saw their van on the horizon and started closing the distance. There was no way they were going to beat us to the Pennsylvania border! The gap quickly closed. We started passing them. And they crosses the border half a car length before we did.
We lost that race. But we were determined to lose no others. We left them in the dust as we sped southward and speeds not permitted by the law of man.
Our decision to not take my youngest to urgent care was a huge mistake. By the afternoon, he had coughed and hacked enough within the confines of our van to make us all sick! I counteracted the effects of the cold medicine by drinking energy drinks to keep me alert on the road. It was clear we had all been infected with flu symptoms.
Runny nose, coughing, headache, fever, achy - all the stuff you hear in the cold medicine commercials. And it came on fast!
Our destination for the night was Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. There was an urgent care center in the town, but the closed at 8 pm! And we weren't going to arrive until just after 8. We needed medical attention!
"No more pit stops! You'll need to hold your bladder. We have to make it to the doctor!" And so I sped through the foothills of the Allegany and into the Blue Ridge Mountain. As the sun set and it turned dark, I kept the gas pedal to the floor. I ignored my symptoms: the drowning feeling in my chest, snot flowing down my face, drenched in a cold sweat. I kept chugging energy drinks. I had to get the family to the doctor!
We pulled into the urgent care facility with smoking tires just moments before they were going to close. We made it! And the rag tag bunch that is my dear family, entered like the walking dead and collapsed in chairs in the waiting room.
We were given a mountain of paperwork that I didn't care about. I would have signed off my left kidney and ten years of earning just for medical attention!
The verdict? Sentenced to five days in flu hell. Positive for Flu type A. I haven't been sick during Christmas since that time I had the Chicken Pox! And worse: to be sick at Disney.
The good news - we have a prescription for Tamaflu! The bad news? There is no Tamaflu in at least a twenty mile radius of us. We will have to go on a search in the morning.
For now, the hotel room is spinning. And two minutes after my head hits the pillow, I will be unconscious until revived in the morning.
