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Fun in the Sun

Sarah was excited and nervous about her first trip on an airplane. She was 19 years old and like the sister I never had, despite an eight year difference in age. My brother Andrew and his wife Felicia moved their family to Arizona about a year before, so we were all excited about visiting them. It was a girls trip to Phoenix: my mother, my cousin, my first born (Em) and me.

Felicia met us at baggage claim. We moved our luggage to a seating area and left Em with my mother and the bags as Felicia, Sarah, and I went to secure the rental car, for which we had a reservation. We get to the counter and give them our reservation number, we are told to wait a few minutes while they bring the car around. After about ten minutes, we ask about the car. The woman behind the counter tells us that it just came back that morning and they are cleaning it, they will be bringing it any minute.

Fifteen minutes later, there is still no car. We try calling my mother on her cell phone to let her know about the delay, but we keep getting her voice mail. It turns out she couldn’t get a signal in the airport. At this point, we are tired, hot, hungry and irritated that things are not moving smoothly. Felicia (who can be our own personal pit bull in situations where customer service is lacking) starts in on the woman at the counter, “What part of ‘reservation’ means that we should be sitting here for over half an hour waiting for a car that should have our name on it!”. We are getting nowhere. She offers us another car, but no, we need a minivan, that is what we reserved, that is what we are going to leave with. At this point, my brother shows up, wondering what happened to us. We decide to let Felicia work it out while we go help my mom.

We get back to the seating area where my mom is bouncing around with year old Em, who is in tears because she is starving. Because my mom was by herself with the luggage of three people, she was stuck. As soon as we get there, she runs off to get some french fries for the poor girl. We continue to wait another half hour for Felicia to return with the car (this was after a 15 minute drive back to the terminal). We head off to a restaurant for lunch and finally arrive at the home of my brother and his family. From there we go to his mother-in-law’s house, where we are going to spend the night (there isn’t enough room for all of us in his apartment). We need to rest up, because we are heading for Sedona in the morning.

We go to Sedona in two cars, because Felicia and I are going to take the two little ones back home while my brother takes Mom, Sarah, and his three year old, Alexandra, to the Grand Canyon. After lunch at Pizza Hut in Sedona, we walk around, take a jeep ride, shop and in the evening we go our separate ways. I offer to drive home which soon turns out to be serendipitous. It is nighttime and we make good time on the way home. The little ones (Matthew and Em, 3 months apart in age), fall asleep watching a movie in the van. We are about 20 minutes from home when Felicia closes her eyes and leans her head back. After we pull into the apartment complex and park the car, Felicia bolts from the car into her unit, and goes straight into the bathroom. She comes out looking pale and green and announces that she is going to bed early. Our night passes without further trips to the bathroom.

In the meantime brother, mom, cousin, and niece arrived at the hotel outside the Grand Canyon late at night and hit the sack. In the middle of the night, my niece sits bolt upright in bed and relieves herself of the chocolate milk she had earlier. After a quick clean-up, and blanket change, all is quiet.

The morning is sunny and beautiful, Felicia is feeling much better, and we decide to go out to lunch. Emily is fussy and not all that interested in her macaroni and cheese, but I figure her schedule is off and don’t worry about it further. We decide to drive through Scottsdale and look at all the estate houses. In the middle of a golf course neighborhood, Emily starts crying, then suddenly vomits her mac and cheese all over herself, the car seat, and the rental car. I freak. She has never been sick like that before and the smell in the heat of midday is starting to make me feel queasy. We rush home and get everyone in the house, where she throws up on the kitchen floor (thank goodness it wasn’t the carpet). I hose down the car seat, take off the cover and throw it in the wash, and do my best at cleaning and deodorizing the rental car. Steve calls and as I talk to him, I burst into tears. I miss him and need a sympathetic ear. Emily is sleeping on the couch, but every hour or so, starts to stir and vomit. There is nothing left in her stomach, but she continues to bring up bile about once an hour. I fall asleep with her on the couch, a towel under her head. I’m still half awake when the door opens and in walks, nay shuffles, Sarah, looking greener than I have ever seen her. I ask her what happened. She tells me she managed to christen the Grand Canyon in a way she never imagined.

Apparently, when we were in the midst of our crisis, she started feeling a bit off. That feeling quickly turned to nausea, and then panic as they were on the shuttle back to the parking lot. The Grand Canyon gets cold at night, and people were yelling at her to shut the window on the shuttle, until my mom pointed out that Sarah was hanging her head out of it to puke. They didn’t complain any further. It was reported to me that on the way home, my brother had to pull over to the shoulder every half hour for her to be sick on the side of the road. Sarah’s first visit to Arizona was not going well. By the time they got home, she was feeling slightly less nauseated and crashed on the couch.

We got a few hours of restless sleep when I hear my brother make a mad dash for the bathroom. I hear the telltale sounds of the stomach flu and realize that it has taken yet another victim. We are only a few days into our trip and so far five of the eight of us has succumbed to the dreaded virus. Needless to say, we don’t do anything but lie around and watch TV the next day.

We finally get a day when we are all feeling well enough to go swimming. Still, those who are recovering are taking it easy and babying their stomachs. The following day, we plan on going downtown to PF Changs. My brother takes me to his mother’s house so I can collect the stuff we left there. I am in the midst of bringing our bags out to the car when a wave a nausea hits me and I stumble to the bathroom to enjoy the dry heaves. I lay down on the cool tile floor for a few minutes before my brother comes in to see what has become of me. We get the car loaded, but halfway home I make him pull over. I was feeling ill and needed the car to stop moving. By the time we got to their apartment, it was obvious I wouldn’t be joining them for lunch. So Andrew takes Emily and meets everyone at the restaurant, while I collapse, fully dressed, into their bed with a glass of water. The bed was spinning, but I never really got sick like the others. I was feeling a bit better when they came back, and we started to load up the van for our trip to the airport in the morning. I was carrying Emily in my arms and I walked out the door. Felicia asked me if I wanted her to take Em, and I handed her over. I took two steps, and the next thing I knew I woke up with my brother cradling my head. He reported that I went down, took a header into the lava rock, came to, and vomited up bile (I hadn’t eaten at all that day, so it hurt like hell). They asked if I would be able to make it to the ER with them, and I honestly told them I didn’t think so. Nothing like a 911 call from a daughter of a firefighter to have them arrive within minutes. My chest was killing me from esophageal cramps, but at the time, they were concerned that I could be having heart problems, so they hooked me up to the portable EKG and gave me an aspirin. I was loaded on a gurney and into the ambulance. My cousin opted to ride with the firemen. I got the cuter guys, but wasn’t really in the frame of mind to appreciate that fact. At the hospital, I was still having chest pains, so they hooked me up for monitoring while I got two (count ‘em TWO) bags of fluids. Between the lack of food and minimal intake of water, I got myself rather dehydrated. Feeling much better, I was released and we went back home. During all of this, I thought my mother escaped, but she said her symptoms were not of the regurgitation variety.

On the way to the airport, we stopped to get fresh tortillas from Carolina’s restaurant and checked in. We boarded the plane and we taxied onto the tarmac. And sat. For an hour. With Emily screaming on my lap with the indignity of it all. I got flop sweat trying to calm her, but she would have none of it. I was sure the other passengers were staring daggers at us. We finally took off and as soon as the plane was up in the air she fell asleep, as did the rest of us. Upon our arrival back home, we collapsed on the couch and didn’t move for a few hours.

We did not go back to Arizona for about a year after that. Six years later, it remains the single worst trip/vacation we have ever had to endure.

(Somewhere in all of this, I remember going with Felicia to take Matthew to the emergency room for fluids, although I can’t figure out where it fits in. He wasn’t feeling well the day we arrived, and was listless later that night. I’m not sure where everyone else was though.)

‹ shut up already

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Even better - I realized I have school tomorrow evening. If I don't look like something dragged from under a rock, I will consider myself blessed.

*collapses*
‹ shut up already