Vacation Insanity

Family vacation time! For many of us, it is time to get away and unwind before the hustle and bustle of kids getting back to school in in full swing. The same for us. With a trip planned for both business and fun, we were on our way east from Texas to North Carolina to deliver a Firefit Kids machine to our friends with West Carteret Fire & Rescue. These guys purchased a Firefit trainer in January, and I thought “a Firefit Kids will be a great complement to their trainer”. Off we went on Monday. East coast here we come!

Day 1-Memphis TN bound…but we didn’t leave until noon. We arrived in Memphis about 1 am-a little tough to get a place to stay, we discovered. Night 1 is spent in the pickup in a rest area. Ok, so rough start…no big deal. We’ve stayed in worse places.

Day 2-We decide to stay the night in Gatlinburg, TN. It was early enough that we were able to get there, get checked in to the hotel and run around town most of the day. We found a cool little pizza place, with an awesome ice cream shop just across the street. The trip is looking up!

Day 3-New Bern NC bound. We decided that New Bern looked like a neat little town to stay in before heading to Moorehead City to deliver this Firefit trainer on Thursday morning. The run from Gatlinburg to New Bern was a little longer than we had calculated, so I ate a slice of leftover pizza in the early afternoon to get me by until dinner. We find a little seafood place in downtown New Bern and had dinner. Awesome food, but the pizza from earlier may have given me a little indigestion…or so I thought. Food poisoning maybe? Spent most of the night tossing and turning between trips to the bathroom. By early morning, I am in just about the most pain I’ve felt for quite some time.

Day 4; 6am-ER bound. Not exactly in the itinerary. A CT scan confirmed my thoughts-appendicitis. Within a couple of hours I’m in the operating room having this nasty appendix removed. I think we out-did Day 1 at this point.

Days 4 through 7-Hospital room becomes the most expensive air bnb I’ve ever stayed in. Due to infection from the perforated appendix, the surgeon wants to keep me a couple of days. A couple turns into 4. IV antibiotics. Liquid diet (as if I even felt like eating). Laps around the nurses station. I don’t sit still easily, so even not feeling myself, I’m still going stir crazy!

Scott, a brother firefighter who is a fire investigator in West Carteret came to New Bern to pick up the Kids Firefit that we were planning to deliver. Thank you, Scott! My wife also got phone calls from a New Bern Chief and from brothers back home in Texas, just to make sure she was ok and if she needed anything. Enough phone calls that she was a bit overwhelmed. Maybe even a little perturbed at me “because she isn’t helpless”.  I’m in a hospital bed and still getting myself in trouble with the wife! I get released on Sunday. Head to Myrtle beach. Travel was pretty rough, but I’m determined to not let this appendix ruin all of the vacation. We lost 2 of our 3 reservation days at a Myrtle Beach beachside resort. Oh well, 1 night is better than nothing. Most of one night anyway…the fire alarm goes off at the resort at promptly 5am. We are on the 4th floor. The stairs sucked 5 days post-op. First due truck disregards the 2nd with a wave off, so I know this is something they deal with regularly.

We head to Charleston, SC after we check out of Myrtle Beach. We have family there, so I can use a few days to recover. Every day is better. We visit the typical Charleston tourist traps, eat some great food and enjoy the family each day we are there. Enroute to Florida we meet up with a fire brother, Jeff Anderson, who was a fire marshal in our hometown before moving to South Carolina. We finish the trip through Florida, and learn all the places where we want to spend more time. We run the Gulf Coast as far as we can until we need to go northwest back home.

17 days on the road. 4200 miles. 257 gallons of diesel. 102 hours in either the driver seat or passenger. Thank God for my awesome family, my awesome fire family(even the ones I don’t know), and for good health insurance! The upside is that I won’t have to worry about that pesky appendix next time.

Oh, and the brotherhood still brings tears to my eyes even after 18 years. Occasionally tears of anger around the station, but in this case tears of humility. Love this job!

Stay safe, brothers and sisters.

Randy