Last week, my mom had a conference at this awesome resort in the Wisconsin Dells. She had been to the conference twice before and insisted we come with to enjoy the resort. Well, we were in for quite the weekend and not a whole lot of it had anything to do with the resort.
It all started in the snow last Wednesday. My mom, Aria, and I left in the morning and drove through the snowstorm, which only got worse as we got into Wisconsin. We actually stopped for an extended lunch because I just needed a break from the 40 mph snow driving. We also stopped at a unique shoe store for another break. The trip was a lot longer than expected, but it was exceptionally pretty. The roads were curvy, hilly, and two lane with beautiful wooded countryside covered in snow. I thought driving through the snow would be the funny memory of the trip.
When we finally got to the hotel and checked in, Aria was long overdue for a nap and my mom was late for her first session. So, I stayed in the room with Aria while she slept and my mom caught the last part of her conference for that day. After that, we got some supper at one of the restaurants and put on our swimwear.
Let me just take a moment to describe how humongous this place is. We never did, but if you walked from one end to the other, I think it would take at least 30 minutes, if not longer. On one end was an amusement park with a Ferris wheel, arcade games, a bowling alley, go-karts, a cool toddler play area, and more. As you pass through one section of rooms you'll find the first of four restaurants. The main lobby is pretty cool with a great water fountain containing their many African-themed animals. If you go one direction off the lobby you go through the convention center area, where my mom had her conference and at least two other conferences were going on at the same time. If you pass on through the convention center, you find the second set of rooms. The other direction from the lobby was the water park and another game room. There was also an outdoor water park. It is so hard to put into words how big it is. And really awesome, too.
Back to our time Wednesday night. Inside the water park, all kids under 48" had to wear a life jacket, which I thought was a nice rule. It was helpful because Aria was so excited about the water. Inside the water park there was a wave pool, a lazy river, a huge kiddie area where all the slides had a 100 pound weight limit, six or seven adult slides, a pool with basketball hoops, several hot tubs, and this surfing simulator thing. It was massive. Aria wasn't quite ready to go down the kiddie slides all by herself and I couldn't go with her because of the weight limit, but she did a couple. The best part of the night was taking Aria on the "family raft ride" where all three of us could ride in a raft down a big water slide. It was gentle enough I felt Aria was safe sitting in front of me with my legs wrapped around her, yet exciting enough that I enjoyed it, too. Every time we got to the bottom, Aria would say, "more please!" She loved it! That was probably the best part of the trip!
My dad and Justin came up after work Wednesday evening. They arrived just before 9:00 pm. We just hung out in the room when they arrived because Aria went to bed. Then, at about 3:30 am, Justin woke up with what appeared to be the stomach flu. He was up several times the rest of the early morning, sick. My mom left early for her meetings and my dad and I took Aria down for breakfast. Justin stayed in bed and we hoped this bug would pass quickly. We checked out the theme park, played in the toddler area, and rode the carousel and the swings. Then, Aria and I took my dad to the water park and took him down the fun water slide. All the while, Justin just didn't feel good. Around lunch time, we checked on Justin to see if he wanted to try eating. He actually felt bad enough we decided to have my dad take him to an urgent care place while I stayed with Aria, who was taking a nap.
At the urgent care place, they told Justin he just had the flu. They prescribed an anti-nausea medicine and sent him back to the hotel. Well, the pain just never got better. He continued to vomit and have a burning pain in his abdomen. After Aria went to bed, I looked up appendix information on the Internet and I was positive that was Justin's affliction. So, Justin, my dad, and I headed for the hospital. The doctors in the ER were pretty confident it was his appendix, as well. Something I never really considered, they said it is a lot easier to diagnose in men because they don't have much else in their lower abdomen, where women have ovaries, fallopian tubes, a uterus, etc. So, they called in the surgeon to do the appendectomy. When the surgeon came and examined him, he was leery of doing the surgery because he thought Justin's pain was too low. So, he ordered a CT scan. Long story, short, Justin's appendix just was a lot lower in his abdomen then normal. So, it was his appendix and they prepped him for surgery. The took him in around 4:00 am Friday morning. It felt like I had been awake for 24 hours, even though I had slept some here and there since the first puking episode.
Everything went well with the surgery. The surgeon actually brought the appendix out to show me when he was done. It was cool, but gross. It was actually about twice the size it should be and about ready to fall apart, according to the surgeon. Thankfully, they did the surgery when they did and it was successful. I got to see Justin about 5:30 am and we actually left the hospital by about 12:30 pm. The staff there was so good to us. They knew we were on vacation and felt bad. They said as soon as Justin could walk and pee, we could head home when we were ready. We just wanted to get home.
I am so thankful we were there with my parents because Aria stayed with my mom at the resort and didn't have to be at the hospital with us. I am also thankful we were close to a hospital and the staff was all so friendly. It was quite nice that neither of us had to drive home, too. It wasn't exactly the ideal vacation. Justin didn't seen any of the ginormous hotel, except for our room. On the way home, I almost forgot that it was snowing on our way there. The snow was all gone in Iowa and it felt like we'd been gone for weeks. We will have to try the trip again because it was sure an awesome place. I would have enjoyed it more had I not been worrying about and feeling bad for my sick husband. At least we can be sure we won't have the exact same experience again!
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