Back to the NC Mountains

I am so incredibly lucky to be able to make it on girls' weekends with my dear friends each year. I think it is becoming a most lovely habit that I spend one weekend with my closest high school friends, Valerie and Kate, and then another with my fabulous friends from right here in Decatur. My weekend with Val and Kate was earlier this year, at the end of January, and this past weekend marked my annual girls' weekends with the others up at Kate and Tim's house in Lansing, North Carolina (where Jarrett, Elsa, and I spent The Fourth a couple of weeks ago).

Last year we spent a rather warm, sunny weekend on the Eastern Shore. This year was spent in much cooler temperatures than we have been experiencing in the Atlanta area, amongst the beautiful North Carolina mountains. And it was fairly overcast and rainy most of the time we were there. We even had to end up canceling plans to go tubing down the New River. That, however, did not hinder us from having some good, quality girl time. We chatted, read, did yoga, knitted (or Kate and I did anyway), ate and drank well, walked around Kate's property, visited the local Saturday farmer's market, made it into Boone for lunch and some shop hopping, canned pickled beets, and even asked each other some of our thought-provoking questions of each other (though were sad that Adria was not around this time to really keep that going). We even lucked out on Sunday with relatively nice weather through lunch, so we got a good four-mile-plus hike in up at Grayson Highlands, where we ate our lunch and enjoyed a fabulous view halfway through.

Looking down on Kate and Tim's house

Kate and Shelly ventured off much further, braving walking through some poison ivy that Alison and I were not willing to risk

Yoga!

We were lucky enough to come across wild ponies again -- a baby and its mama

Cows on the property surrounding Tim and Kate's

All in all, it was a really nice weekend. It was nice to relax and not have to worry about taking care of a child 24/7. Elsa had a fantastic time again with her Grandad and Grandma Susan, this time at their house. From what I have heard, they went to the park, played in the sprinkler, colored with sidewalk chalk, went on walks, met the neighbors' horses and goats, and had a lovely picnic at the Goat Lady Dairy (where they saw more goats; Dad and Susan are members of their CSA).

I think all of us girls had doses of the real world thrown into our magical mountain atmosphere, a lot of it being rather stressful and emotional. For me, it was Jarrett. To make a long story very short, he started not feeling well on Friday. He was supposed to leave for Asheville with Tim on Friday afternoon to go on a weekend fishing trip, and was even contemplating canceling at the last minute. I, over the phone, maybe mistakenly somewhat coerced him into going, thinking it might do him some good to get away for a couple of nights and breathe some mountain air himself. He made it to the doctor before heading out of town, getting some good advice, and I think we both thought he might be alright in going. However, after a long day of fishing on Saturday, wading in rather chilly water, Jarrett was exhausted and feeling pretty terrible, shivering, achy, and in bed back at the motel. By Sunday morning and on Tim and Jarrett's drive back home, he was apparently really feeling quite ill. He made it home, and then the intestinal sickness (let's just say it was coming from both ends) set in. By Sunday afternoon he was in the emergency room with a 104-degree-plus temperature. By Sunday evening he was admitted, and very early Monday morning was enduring a CAT scan -- all while I was still up in North Carolina. Thankfully our friends are good ones, and Tim endured a lot with Jarrett until my return Monday night when Dear Shelly volunteered to come over and stay with Elsa while I went to the hospital to visit Jarrett. He looked awful, and I felt so bad for him in that small, depressing hospital room. The worst was that he had started feeling slightly better, but then had to start drinking a diarrhea-causing solution to clean him out before the next day's scheduled colonoscopy. He was not happy. To try to continue to make this story as abbreviated as possible, the colonoscopy showed an inflamed and ulcerated colon, so the gastroenterologists immediately labeled it irritable bowel disease (IBD). Elsa and I spent a good part of Tuesday afternoon in the hospital with Jarrett. Despite a slight fear of contracting germs, I think it was good for Jarrett to see her, and her him, and she really did a good job with how long we were there -- in great thanks to the iPad. Several doctors and nurses came in while we were there, and the best news came later in the afternoon when the gastroenterologists said that a somewhat rare bacteria was found in Jarrett's system. One that causes very similar symptoms to IBD. There is still the possibility that some form of IBD lurks in his system and the bacteria just made it all terribly worse, but they are running some more tests to try to get a better idea of all of that. With very little instruction, Jarrett was released from the hospital within the following hour or so, and we were so glad to get him back home. He has been recovering over this past week, and has only really started feeling more like himself in the past day or so. The boy has been sick, and I have been trying to take care of him as well as I possibly can with being as pregnant as I am and with the demands of our little nearly three-year-old. Jarrett saw the nurse practitioner at our family doctor's office yesterday, who gave some interesting advice/knowledge. It is obvious now that the coming weeks will bring much comparison of typical western medicine versus a more holistic approach to health, something I feel like we are only becoming more and more familiar with as the years trek on. He sees the gastroenterologist again in another week or so, and I am sure will be back in to see Dr. Owen, our family doctor, as well.

Tim and Jarrett caught a couple of big ones!

So we have been through it this week. I am glad we each did get a little (me more than him) bit of a break before being thrown into the trenches, and now I am looking forward to trying to heal and mend before we bring this new little one into our home.