Florida Sun

I had one of the best weekends of my lifetime in Florida. I was with my Mom and sisters and my darling nieces. It was a very relaxing time --time spent at the beach and pool. Mom loved the beach. We ate and talked and we ate (Mom liked feeding us).

Courtney and Brittany, my nieces, were quite young and though I had been away from home all of their life, they knew me. My sister did a wonderful job talking about me often, showing them pictures, etc. So I was not a stranger to them and for that, I was very grateful. Brittany was about a year old and for whatever reason it was, she instantly became my buddy. That baby girl was glued to me the entire weekend and as you know, that thrilled me.

Sam made me a maternity top with a matching hair bow. It ended up too small to be a maternity top but since I was barely showing; I was able to proudly wear it that weekend.

One afternoon while at the beach my sisters and I took our floats and headed out for the ocean. As we floated along in the water, like giddy little teenaged girls, my sisters grilled me about Jerry. They wanted to know what he looked like, what he was like, etc. They were anxious to meet this man that was soon to be part of our family too.

Getting lost in our conversation, laughter and fun, my sisters and I were out on the water for quite some time. We headed back to shore where Mom was keeping the little ones. We ate a huge lunch, of course, and soon headed back to Mom's condo because you know, we needed to get ready for dinner. Like I said, Mom liked to feed us.

When we got home, we all noticed how red I was. My face and chest was bright red from sunburn. It did not seem to hurt so I was not very concerned. That evening my sisters and I decided to go to the movies while Mom and Bob, my step-Dad, stayed home with the girls.

On the way to the movies, I was not feeling well but since I was still struggling with some pregnancy illness, I did not think much of it. As soon as we got to our seats at the theater, I knew this was not a pregnancy related illness and I left immediately. I went back to the car with the intention of just lying down for a few minutes and going back inside. After a short while when I did not return, my sister came out to check on me. I told her I just needed to rest and as soon as I was feeling better I would be back in. She asked me if I wanted to go home but I really did not want to ruin our evening out and since we all already paid for our tickets (and buckets of popcorn), I did not want to leave.

I was so nauseous but not like my "morning sickness" nausea. I felt like I was on fire and yet, I had the chills. My head felt like it was going to explode from the worst headache I ever had experienced. I just was a miserable mess. My sunburned skin stung and throbbed. I remember lying in the back of the car just groaning and being very miserable. Thankfully, I finally fell asleep.  My sister came to check on me again and wanted to take me home but I kept insisting I would be okay and that I would be back in shortly.  It was not long before the movie was over and my sisters came back.

Later we summized that I probably had a case of sun poisoning and then we began to think how foolish it was for us to be out in the hot tropic sun for so long.  The next day we went down to the pool and this time I stayed in the shade as much as possible and I avoided going into the water.

Though this was one of the best weekends of my lifetime, in the back or our minds we knew we soon would have to face what we all had been fearing . .  .what was going on with Mom.  That was part of the reason we were all here; Val was going to take Mom to the doctor.  I had to be back to Ft. Riley by Tuesday so my flight back was on Monday.  It was hard for me to leave especially since my sisters got to stay a few days longer.  When we were saying our good-byes Val assured me she would call me and let me know what the doctor said.

And thus the month of May 1988 came to an end.