We are home. We got home about 3:00. James drove the entire way, starting from our hotel about 11:15.

Last night was a little piece of hell. My nose stuffed up again soon after we got into the motel room. James said he got stuffy, too, but not like mine—he was just blowing his nose a lot; maybe the filter in the room air conditioner needs changing.

Usually what I do when this happens is just leave a tissue where I can grab it, go to bed, and breathe through my mouth. But I had a sore spot on the back of my throat and the moment the air hit it, I would cough or gasp. I was desperate to sleep. I tried my saline spray. I tried drinking water to get rid of the throat itch. I took one of James' cough drops. I got up and down. In an effort not to wake James, I went in the bathroom and read for a while. Nothing worked.

When I did the cough drop thing, I must have swallowed a bunch of air, because every time I lay down, I had an air bubble in my throat. I would just get warm under the blanket—and this is now how I knew something weird was going on; I was cold!—and I'd have to sit up to get rid of this horrible bubble that was pressing on my throat.

About four o'clock as I struggled with yet another bubble, I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I could of course, as I was taking deep breaths, but I felt like I couldn't. I scrambled out of bed and got dressed, couldn't find the stupid door card, and woke up James. Once I found the card I went outside for a few minutes; it didn't really help, and I started to shake. James asked if I wanted to go to the emergency room, but I didn't want to go in a strange place. Besides, I could breathe, I was just now so scared that I was shaking and my mouth was all dry.

After I used the bathroom it all went away, and I was finally able to crawl into bed...I think it was five or five thirty...and sleep.

We got up at nine so we could have the free breakfast. Four hours sleep didn't seem like anywhere near enough and my nose was still almost completely clogged. All I had was a bowl of oatmeal, a piece of dry toast, and a glass of milk since my mouth felt so horrible and I couldn't really taste anything. Then we went to the Russell Stover store for the type of sugarless candy one can't find in the stores here, and to gas up the car and get it cool. We got back to the motel, loaded the stuff, loaded the critters, and drove home, no rest stops, no nothing.

That's it. No more summer trips, ever, unless they are emergencies. We've said this before, but I was lured by James finally getting out early and the chance to be away and do something different. I figured it would be about in the low 80s and we could handle it. Instead it was 95°F every day. Heck, it was still 80 when we finished playing golf last night, at 10:15! James said it reminded me of the night at my mom's when we played miniature golf on the new course near the prison: stiflingly hot with no breeze at all.

I've had the shaking thing, too, before, all other times after I've either eaten rotisserie chicken from a supermarket or wings from a wing place. It almost appears to be an allergic reaction, because the shaking vanishes the moment I physically get rid of the offending remains. I usually avoid both, but we did have a rotisserie last week and I had a couple of wings at Shoneys that they made me without hot sauce that I didn't finish because they were too greasy.

Labels: food, health, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:26:00 PM

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