What last minute emergencies just before your trip have you had?

[Simba's Mom]

I can't be the only one who feels like, "Whenever we plan a trip to WDW (well, in this case HH), something always goes wrong at the last minute". This is the third time I've gotten an abscessed tooth just before we've gone and the dentist has had to put me on medication to hopefully get me through the trip with a minimum of pain. And no, my teeth aren't usually bad, they've just waited for an upcoming trip to interfere. On one trip, I realized in the MK that I'd left my much needed medication in the hotel, spent an hour round trip on buses to retrieve it, and missed the then new afternoon parade. And in the 1980's, DD needed to have stitches removed in Disney, which wasn't easy for us to figure out (our first trip). First Aid refused to do it (they claimed insurance liability), but they were nice enough towalk DH through doing it himself. But when he turned white as a sheet (DH is brave about certain things but...), the nurse finished! Once I got let go from a job the day before I was planning to leave. You get the idea. So what have you all encountered to "put a monkey wrench" into plans?

 

[MELSMICE]

Our story:

We were leaving for Disney on a Wednesday afternoon I believe. The Friday before we were to leave one of my DD's (8 at the time) slept at a friend's house. Came home in the morning with a swollen eye. We thought it was a cyst.

Gave her some warm cloths to put on it & called the Dr. Yeah, probably a cyst they said. Dr. calls back a few hours later & says he wants to see her in the emergency room because it could be something called cellulitis (never heard of it at the time)
Take her & realize she has cellulitis. Give her an antibiotic & send us home.

Sunday morning doesn't look any better - even a little worse. Call Dr. They say keep an eye on it & if it doesn't look better Monday to bring her in.

Take her to Dr. Monday because it's not better. Dr. says "pack your bags" she's being admitted to the hospital!!! Call DH & he meets us at the hospital. Admit her & put her on an IV drip with stronger antibiotics.

Monday evening after 2 doses of meds eye still doesn't look too great. Tell the Dr. about our trip & she says if it doesn't get better they can't take her off the IV. Tuesday morning the eye looks pretty good. Nurse tells us that it seems as though everything will be okay & that if it was her she would insist that we are released Wed. morning before the trip & have her on very strong oral antibiotics (Augmentin).

Wednesday morning (we are leaving at 2 p.m.) Dr. comes in & says eye looks very good but wants to get one more dose in her around 11 a.m. before taking her off IV. Got the last dose in, got released around 12 noon, came home, did last minute packing & got on the plane.

Luckily I had packed most things early before this happened & DH & I switched being at the hospital with her so we could get last minute things done.

Same thing happened the following year, but a few weeks before the trip. We found out that she develops what is called Chalazions (sp?) on her eyes which turn into cellulitis which can be very serious & almost a flesh eating type of thing, that's why there was concern of it moving into her brain.

Anyway, all worked out okay. We had a great time (as usual) & she now applies ointment nightly to her eyes. Talk about a last minute emergency though. I know it's something we'll never forget & pray that it never happens again, whether before or trip or any other time. (it's happened 3X total)

 

[JVL1018]

In October of 2002 we were going to WDW for the first time in a year and a half(longest break for me in 10 years!), my son was 1, this would be his first trip.
He goes for his 1 year appt in September, gets his chicken pox shot(and we find out he has a hole in his heart-oy vey-but that's another story and has not caused any problems but my worry LOL).
Then a few days before our trip I notice he has chicken pox-like marks on his scalp.
Bring him to the dr., in case it isn't chicken pox I want to know what it is, they say they think it is the pox.
It was a reaction from the shot-luckily it was gone in a couple of days-if you get the cp from the shot it is a very very mild case and is gone pretty quickly. I was stressed about my daughter(about to be 3) possibly coming down with it.
I said to my dr. well Julia should be fine b/c she got the shot, right? RIGHT?..he says to me, yeah, so did Matt. Funny guy. LOL
She never came down with it, thankfully and we had the best vacation of our lives that year!

 

[gopherit]

Not a medical deal, but definitely something to nearly put the kibash (if that's a word) on our trip.

1998, Christmas, a big family reunion planned for my side of the family, all 18 of us at OKW. But go back in time 2 weeks prior -- to a factory worker / McGyver wanna-be who goes postal and decides he wants to take it out on company management when he gets fired. Trouble is, he can't figure out which manager to hit -- the one at house "A" or the one at house "C"... (we live in house "B"). My DH was also in management, though not directly involved in any way with this man. So the man (like I said, think postal -- logic doesn't apply) decides to do all sorts of stuff to the A/B/C side-by-side houses. We took the brunt of it (took out our phones, did stuff to our xmas lighting, just lovely). We had been warned but figured that it was over. So on the 18th of Dec., DH and I leave work at noon to start our trip down south along with our 2 boys (ages 3 and 2). The van makes a funny lurch about 15 miles into the trip. DH and I look at each other ... hmm, says DH, maybe it's the gas, since he had just filled up. He puts some engine cleaner stuff into the gas tank to see if that will help. We proceed another 5 hrs down the road and mountains. Just past Charlotte NC, we stop for dinner. We get back in the van and hit AWFUL traffic and construction... and that's when it happens. It was very stop and go, so he brakes saw some use, and then.... Stuck in between concrete blockades on either side, our van FREEZES. Then a little lurch, then finally a freeze and NO budging. It's on, but it won't budge. Not an INCH. SOme poor guy tried to tow us, DH says, you don't understand -- it's like the BRAKES are on. We ended up calling my sister (some 60 miles away) to come get us, we had the van towed on a roll-back (ain't NO WAY we were leaving it in the towing guy's "shed" -- who knows when we would finally get our car back?) all the way to my sister's town. SO the next day, the mechanic calls me -- says it was our brakes, sure enough... but "when was the last time we had 'em serviced?" Apparently SOMEONE had switched our brake fluid with some "other" stuff... it didn't look "right" to him. Whatever it is, he said, it AIN'T brake fluid, and it totally seized the whole brake system. Turns out someone had siphoned out a substantial amount of brake fluid and put oil in our lines. It hits the seals and swells them inside the master cylinder, I guess. Talk about putting a whole new spin on your trip. We just felt incredibly blessed that it waited to finally seize on a flat stretch of road... ill-tempered drivers we can handle with a stuck van, mountain roads we cannot.

It took 2 days to fix the brakes, so sister and I and our 4 kids combined headed in her car down to WDW the next day; DH and BIL came down the next. But it wasn't over yet -- the brakes weren't wholly fixed and about 1/2 way down on the 8 hr trip, DH said the brakes just began to disappear -- you mashed on the brakes and felt nearly no response. By this time it was 1 am and they had nowhere to go. Scary. THey finally made it to WDW, and the next day we had to take it to a shop down there. We never did feel the same about that vehicle after that -- every little twitch or burp it gave, we figured was the "end" again!

We still drive to WDW, but thankfully nothing like THAT has ever happened again!

 

[crisi]

I was driving home from work Friday before getting on the plane Saturday at 7:00am. My cell phone rings. Its daycare. My 4 year old daughter has fallen, has vomited three times, and has eyes as big as saucers. Drive to the hospital instead of home. DD has a cat scan and it comes up clean. "Mild concussion, she can travel, but no big girl rides."

 

[Cruelladeville]

I'm glad to know that I am not the only one that these things happen to! My DH tells people that we haven't had a trip yet (after 28 years) where someone hasn't ended up in the emergency room either here or in Florida. We, too, have coped with a chlasion that swelled up 1/2 my face, and we didn't know what it was, either. We've also had kidney infection, allergic reactions (to food and fire ants) swimmer's ear, broken rib, and pneumonia(in June!). The worst, though, was the year that I accidently injected DD's epipen into my thumb with epinephrin the day before we were supposed to leave for Florida. The needle went completely through my thumb, and just gushed blood. I tried to find a doctor to let me know if this was something to worry about or not. Finally, DD drove me to the hospital to ask for info. A doctor sitting at a computer overheard my conversation with the nurse, and jumped up and started ordering everyone around while he pushed me down onto a gurney. It turns out that this was a very serious accident and I was in danger of losing my thumb. Who knew? They let me go after three hours, but I had to return to the emergency room at 4 am the following day for follow-up treatment while DH and kids packed up the car.

 

[arminnie]

I planned a trip for Dec. 2003 for over a year with a friend who had never been. I wanted to show her all of the Christmas stuff and made all sorts of reservations for MVMCP and CP. I was so excited to share it with a newbie. We had dinner the first night and then I had to go to ER the next morning. I had my appendix out at 10 pm that night and spent the rest of the trip in my room

So I plan a make-up trip for Jan. after I recover from the appendectomy. I went to visit a friend in W. Palm Beach for a couple of days first and the day before I leave for Orlando I fall and land on my CHIN on the tile floor. Blood everywhere and I felt like my brains were scrambled. Another trip to ER. Nothing was broken and I did get to go but I was very limited in what I could do - nothing that would jar me at all. I'm still a little sore.

 

[rocketriter]

We're the family that usually gets a visit from the 8th Dwarf ("Streppy") the night before we're supposed to get on the plane.

 

[Blondie]

We had so many last minute things come up before our trip in August last year that we are just glad we made it there at all!

 

[ducklite]

My washer died on a Sunday, two days before we were supposed to leave for a two week trip. I had about eight loads of laundry that needed to be done, plus I like to change all the sheets the morning that we are leaving so we come home to fresh sheets.

We ended up buying one at Lowes about two hours later, renting their truck for an hour to get it home, and I was back in business. But $500 for a washer wasn't what I had wanted to be spending money on at that moment

Anne

 

[Serena]

I don't remember what all it was, but the very last month there were three things that had to be replaced. It took all my savings and almost cancelled the trip.

 

[Kteacher]

Two years ago I slipped on a patch of ice at school a month before our trip to WDW. My hip was pushed up and out of place (still not completely back to normal 2 years later ) I was put on some serious pain medication, but in all our vacation pictures you can see I'm smiling through gritted teeth because I was in so much pain.

 

[Melora]

Our last trip was with the inlaws.

They came downa nd stayed with us for a week before we were supposed to leave. 3 days before we were supposed to leave my MIL starts having "female problems". She hasnt had any female issues to worry about in 20 years.

So here we are supposed to leave for a trip weve had planned for 7 months and shes bleeding. Well it got better in a day or so and we went ahead and went (after calling her docter in Vegas and him telling us it should be OK). But off and on throughout the trip she had this "problem". This was their first (and probably ONLY) time going to WDW so it was disappointing to have to be dealing with that.

She just had surgery last week to make sure everything was was OK, and it was, but boy...talk about timing!

 

[Pembo]

Wow, your stories are much worse than mine!

The night before our trip in November I went to paint my toenails. As I was shaking the bottle I hit the door knob, the bottle broke and I had pink nailpolish ALL over my brand new bathroom rug! I tried cleaning it out but nothing was working. My dear sweet mom, came and got it after we left and got it all cleaned up. And I had to paint my nails in the car on the way to the airport with a new bottle of polish I bought just hours before we left. Everyone knows how important it is to have painted toes in Disney.

 

[Cindy B]

The treansmission went on the car we were going to drive down to WDW on! $1000 plus car repair two days before we leave!

 

[monarchsfan16]

We leave in a week and it appears I've just come down with a stomach bug. And there are 3 of us kids in this house, so chances are good someone will still be sick by the time we leave

 

[Tuffcookie]

Right before our Summer 2002 trip the air conditioner in my car went out. I was taking my mom with us and we were going to be gone for 2 weeks so I had to have that taken care of. It was around $1,000!

TC

 

[crazyforgoofy]

In mid November 2002 Gary and I took custody of Isabella (her mom is Gary's daughter) who was not quite 4 1/2. On top of getting to know her (we hadn't been able to spend much time with her as her parents have addiction problems and kept moving around so we couldn't find them) we had to help her feel secure, fix up a room for her and get her acclimated and into therapy.

On top of everything we had non-refundable airline tickets and ressies at POFQ for my birthday trip for less than three weeks after she arrived.

Luckily Isabella's therapist encouraged us to go - Southwest came up with a fairly cheap airfare for her - and we went to WDW. No, I didn't have the grown-up birthday trip I'd imagined but we had a wonderful time introducing Isabella to Disney World and all its magic. She still talks about all the fun she had when she "met Mickey and Cinderella and Belle".

This was one emergency with a happy ending....... or really a beginning....

 

[Talking Hands]

Shattered my leg ( both lower bones) a week and a half before my June trip in 2002. Broke it Sunday, had surgery Wednesday, got out of the hospital Saturday and went to WDW on Wednesday for a week. Was wheelchair bound for 3 months. Took two other trips while I was stuck in the wheelchair

 

[lvs_eeyore]

Our Christmas trip we actually made it to Disney but I became very very ill and was having trouble breathing. Thanks to the fine people at the Polynesian Concierge they managed to get a doctor to the room for us at 1 AM. He gave me a shot of steroids and gave dh an RX for an inhaler. It was the ONLY way I got back home the next day. I ended up in ER that night, went from ER to CCU for seven days and IMCU for four days before getting out of the hospital. I was nearly intubated the first night I was so bad. I really credit the Poly Concierge with things not getting worse than they did. If It hadnt been for the doctor coming in things could have gotten much worse and we would have been stuck up in Orlando.

We have also had a couple of last minute runs to the doctors for the kidlets and have actually left for the world from the doctors office LOL.