Anniversary Trip and Hail Storm

Hang on to your hats folks - this is a long one.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago how it was our third anniversary. Usually we take a trip of some sort. For our first we went to San Antonio. Our second we went to Bartlesville/Tulsa and did some fun local stuff. This year, not wanting to get too far from home (and with me not being able to sit in the car for extended periods of time) we decided to just go to do Tulsa again.

Let me back up - my baby sister and her husband graduated from optometry school in Tahleqhah a couple of weekends ago. I am so proud of them! So, we packed up and headed for Tahlequah and went to their graduation a couple of Friday nights ago. Our plan was to stay there Friday night, head for Tulsa sometime on Saturday and do some shopping, have dinner, etc., and then stay at Hotel Ambassador Saturday night, and take our time getting home on Sunday. Everything went according to plan for the first part of the weekend. Graduation was great (and not too long!), we got a little shopping done, had dinner in Tulsa, and went to see the Backup Plan. We headed back to the hotel, decided what we wanted to have for our in room breakfast the next morning, and headed for bed.

Then the fun started. (And for those of you that just went "there" - get your mind out of the gutter.) About 4 a.m. I woke up with some cramps. I tried all the things you're supposed to try - drinking lots of water, lying on my left side, etc. Nothing worked. After an about hour, and a lot of trips to the bathroom, I decided it was time to call the dr. I woke Nathan up (sort of) and called the on-call dr. at my doctor's office. She said it was probably nothing serious BUT as sure as she told me to come back home and let them check me out, something would happen on the way and there is NOTHING between here and Tulsa. So, she suggested we head to the ER.

We cleared out of our hotel room at 5:15 a.m. and headed for St. Francis (because that's where my sister had all three of the girls and I knew they'd been pretty pleased with the care they got there). We arrived and of course the ER was BUSY. I thought to myself, "um, we are NOT going to sit in this waiting room with all of these coughing, sick people". We sat down to register and as soon as the girl figured out I was pregnant she sent me (via wheelchair of course) straight on up to L&D. After quite a while (20-30 minutes) they FINALLY got me to a room and hooked up to the monitors and sure enough, I was having contractions (which I hadn't thought I was because my belly wasn't getting tight like it does w/the Braxton Hicks).


Don't I look thrilled to be there? This was AFTER they'd determined that the problem was a bladder infection (turns out not drinking enough = not going to the bathroom enough = bladder infection = contractions) and that they were NOT going to have to take action to stop the contractions because they had stopped on their own. I didn't have to have an IV thank goodness, but they were pushing the fluids...see those cups on the tray? I had 2 more before I left. All the fluids and no food made me feel nauseous and so they brought me that little pink thing sitting on the tray...and let me tell you, they would have been in for an unpleasant surprise if I'd had to use that. When I get sick, I do it like I mean it!

They released me with an antibiotic and instructions to drink a LOT of water. We headed home, took naps, and just as we were getting ready to go pick up Kona from the vet, this happened:



That is hail. Looks like boatloads of Sonic ice raining out of the sky. We got LUCKY. People just a few blocks north of us got hail the size of softballs. People had car windows and even house windows and skylights broken out. Even now, two weeks later, you can still see damage everywhere.