HydroGuy
A Pirate's Life For Me
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2005
I have had a number of PMs from folks interested in my trip to DLR last week and I have finally got some time to get something written.
Maybe I should have known something weird was brewing on this trip as we drove through Las Vegas on the way to California in mid-July. It is common to see mirages out on the flat desert landscape which appears to be large bodies of water. But as you get closer they disappear. Not so this time. It was water, and we drove through some driving monsoon rain. There was real standing water everywhere. In July. I have never seen anything like it near Las Vegas.
Our first stop was for some R&R in Oceanside - about 60 miles south of DLR. Oceanside did its trick, but DW got a bad sinus infection about halfway through the week. We were hoping we would not get her sickness as we traveled to DLR.
On Saturday the 21st we arrived at the GCH and had some lunch at the Rainforest Cafe - a family favorite. My four sons were jazzed about seeing the new Batman movie in DTD and wanted me to join them. But I was starting to feel a bit sick myself. A one-hour nap did the trick and I was able to join them for an evening movie.
Early Sunday morning I awoke with a fever. I am a healthy person and rarely get sick. I did not sleep well because of the fever. But it was DLR and I got up with DS16 at 6AM and we showered and headed off to EMH at DL. I took a lot of Tylenol and felt maybe 70%. The rest of the crew joined us at 8AM and we did DL. But the magic was not really there for me that day.
We had lunch at the BB and got a coveted waterside table. And we had Fantasmic dessert seating for the first show. That went well except the dragon did not show.
After F! we did two more rides and then headed back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep before an early rise for DCA EMH on Monday. I was confident a good nights sleep would do the trick for me and the fever would be gone by morning.
That night my fever got worse and some abdominal pain started and got worse and eventually at 3:30AM my DW - still with sinus infection - drove me to the ER at UC Irvine Medical Center - a few miles from DLR. They kept me for 3 hours and there was debate among the physicians on whether they should keep me longer or let me go. Ultimately they let me go and gave me a prescription.
We got back to the GCH around 6:30AM and the fever got worse still and I was back to the ER by 3:00 in the afternoon. This time they kept me. Without getting into details of my private medical situation, the fever was caused by a kidney infection and I had several systems not working together properly. They figured this out after an abdominal CT scan.
I can confirm that one can hear the Magical fireworks finale from the UCI Medical Center Emergency Room at 9:45PM. And the doctors there comment on the fireworks - "Hey the fireworks are going off!".
So by Tuesday they had the infection/fever under control and were set to let me go Wednesday. But a blood test came up showing something potentially more and they kept me to Thursday. Which was our checkout day from the GCH. So my family packed up and checked out of the GCH and then swung by to get me on the way to visiting family elsewhere in SoCal.
Bottom line? I never got to set foot into DCA on this trip. I only had one day at DL and it just was not very magical because of how I was feeling.
As I said, I am a healthy person and had never come close to being admitted to a hospital. Now I have. I am doing better now but need to pursue some specialists here at home to make sure I avoid this happening again in the future.
To complicate matters further for my family, two of my four sons picked up something from my wife's sickness and one spent a DLR day in bed and the other spent two. And a young lady friend of the family who came with us got her own fever and spent two of her four DLR days in bed.
Altogether it was not the greatest experience. As I travel internationally frequently and sometimes to remote places, I was bummed to miss DLR but mostly I was glad this sickness did not hit me while I was abroad as it would definitely have been life threatening.
With BlackJack's string of bad health luck associated with DLR the last three years , I am wondering how his luck has impacted mine. I think I know the connection. It is called "getting old".
On Tuesday evening I was planning to hook up with Stephen aka DLR29, but I had to cancel for obvious reasons. So that was a bummer too. Next time Stephen!
My kids trudged on and did the four DLR days but their comment was that without me "it was like being patriots without George Washington". So rather than buy me a get well card, they cooked up a special gift.
They got some Splash Mtn FPs for the final evening and had one opportunity to get a special photo and get it right. If they flubbed the photo then their backup plan was to use some ToT FPs to get a special photo there. They got some heavy card stock, designed some signs, and got the layout down. They took along my nephew (14) and the young lady friend (18). The young lady was running a fever of 102 F that day and they literally borrowed a wheelchair from the GCH and wheeled her over to Splash Mtn so she could help with the photo. The faithful CMs at the turnstiles tried to stop them from bringing their slightly oversized signs into DL but they negotiated their way through and got this awesome photo on the first try.
The first three are my sons, the fourth is my nephew, the fifth is my youngest son, and at the top was the young lady who came in a wheelchair. They got a large framed photo of this and brought it to me at the hospital which made me very happy. My kids are awesome.
Maybe I should have known something weird was brewing on this trip as we drove through Las Vegas on the way to California in mid-July. It is common to see mirages out on the flat desert landscape which appears to be large bodies of water. But as you get closer they disappear. Not so this time. It was water, and we drove through some driving monsoon rain. There was real standing water everywhere. In July. I have never seen anything like it near Las Vegas.
Our first stop was for some R&R in Oceanside - about 60 miles south of DLR. Oceanside did its trick, but DW got a bad sinus infection about halfway through the week. We were hoping we would not get her sickness as we traveled to DLR.
On Saturday the 21st we arrived at the GCH and had some lunch at the Rainforest Cafe - a family favorite. My four sons were jazzed about seeing the new Batman movie in DTD and wanted me to join them. But I was starting to feel a bit sick myself. A one-hour nap did the trick and I was able to join them for an evening movie.
Early Sunday morning I awoke with a fever. I am a healthy person and rarely get sick. I did not sleep well because of the fever. But it was DLR and I got up with DS16 at 6AM and we showered and headed off to EMH at DL. I took a lot of Tylenol and felt maybe 70%. The rest of the crew joined us at 8AM and we did DL. But the magic was not really there for me that day.
We had lunch at the BB and got a coveted waterside table. And we had Fantasmic dessert seating for the first show. That went well except the dragon did not show.
After F! we did two more rides and then headed back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep before an early rise for DCA EMH on Monday. I was confident a good nights sleep would do the trick for me and the fever would be gone by morning.
That night my fever got worse and some abdominal pain started and got worse and eventually at 3:30AM my DW - still with sinus infection - drove me to the ER at UC Irvine Medical Center - a few miles from DLR. They kept me for 3 hours and there was debate among the physicians on whether they should keep me longer or let me go. Ultimately they let me go and gave me a prescription.
We got back to the GCH around 6:30AM and the fever got worse still and I was back to the ER by 3:00 in the afternoon. This time they kept me. Without getting into details of my private medical situation, the fever was caused by a kidney infection and I had several systems not working together properly. They figured this out after an abdominal CT scan.
I can confirm that one can hear the Magical fireworks finale from the UCI Medical Center Emergency Room at 9:45PM. And the doctors there comment on the fireworks - "Hey the fireworks are going off!".
So by Tuesday they had the infection/fever under control and were set to let me go Wednesday. But a blood test came up showing something potentially more and they kept me to Thursday. Which was our checkout day from the GCH. So my family packed up and checked out of the GCH and then swung by to get me on the way to visiting family elsewhere in SoCal.
Bottom line? I never got to set foot into DCA on this trip. I only had one day at DL and it just was not very magical because of how I was feeling.
As I said, I am a healthy person and had never come close to being admitted to a hospital. Now I have. I am doing better now but need to pursue some specialists here at home to make sure I avoid this happening again in the future.
To complicate matters further for my family, two of my four sons picked up something from my wife's sickness and one spent a DLR day in bed and the other spent two. And a young lady friend of the family who came with us got her own fever and spent two of her four DLR days in bed.
Altogether it was not the greatest experience. As I travel internationally frequently and sometimes to remote places, I was bummed to miss DLR but mostly I was glad this sickness did not hit me while I was abroad as it would definitely have been life threatening.
With BlackJack's string of bad health luck associated with DLR the last three years , I am wondering how his luck has impacted mine. I think I know the connection. It is called "getting old".
On Tuesday evening I was planning to hook up with Stephen aka DLR29, but I had to cancel for obvious reasons. So that was a bummer too. Next time Stephen!
My kids trudged on and did the four DLR days but their comment was that without me "it was like being patriots without George Washington". So rather than buy me a get well card, they cooked up a special gift.
They got some Splash Mtn FPs for the final evening and had one opportunity to get a special photo and get it right. If they flubbed the photo then their backup plan was to use some ToT FPs to get a special photo there. They got some heavy card stock, designed some signs, and got the layout down. They took along my nephew (14) and the young lady friend (18). The young lady was running a fever of 102 F that day and they literally borrowed a wheelchair from the GCH and wheeled her over to Splash Mtn so she could help with the photo. The faithful CMs at the turnstiles tried to stop them from bringing their slightly oversized signs into DL but they negotiated their way through and got this awesome photo on the first try.
The first three are my sons, the fourth is my nephew, the fifth is my youngest son, and at the top was the young lady who came in a wheelchair. They got a large framed photo of this and brought it to me at the hospital which made me very happy. My kids are awesome.
So sorry that you missed out on Carsland and other festivities of DL.
