Days 6-8

We had so much fun on Hilton Head!  What a great vacation!  To be very clear, we did not leave early-- we got to the beach a day early and decided to head home after 5 days on the beach (our original plan) on Wednesday to avoid a line of severe storms we did not want to drive through.

Harry and Jack were generally great, but Cooper?  Cooper was a whole other story.

The whole trip, we had been saying things like man Cooper was a little too young for vacation and can you believe what a pain in the ass babies are on vacation?  The kid screamed nonstop-- at every restaurant and indoor space we entered, in the room at night, on the beach if someone looked at his favorite orange shovel, in the Ergo as I walked the beach for exercise after breakfast.  He was a 20-pound scream machine, and we blamed his age or his disposition.

Then, on Tuesday, he spiked a 103-degree fever and broke out all over his body in a red rash composed of tiny dots of magenta.  His whole body-- top of the head, top of the ears, entire trunk, each tiny toe, even the bottoms of his feet.  When his fever was still 101.7, we called our doctors office, expecting a nurse to call us back.  Instead, our doctor called us back, but he was really reassuring, said we could enjoy the beach with Cooper if he wanted to and that he likely had a virus.  He said we didn't have to be concerned unless his fever went above 103.  An hour later, Cooper woke up whimpering from a nap, and sure enough, the ear thermometer read 103.5.

We started freaking out at this point because we planned to start our drive home Wednesday instead of Thursday sine we got there a day early and since  there were horrible storms forecast for SC/TN/KY/IN on Thursday.  (We were really flexible on both ends of the trip because we knew we would have to adjust for weather.  If Cooper were not sick, we might have stayed until Friday, but leaving on Thursday was never an option as the weather picture came into focus.)

We called the island urgent care, but they said we should go to the ER with a fever that high.  That sounded freaking horrible, so we gave Cooper some Motrin, and when his fever went back down a little, I took Harry and Jack back out to the beach, and Ben and Cooper headed to urgent care.

In addition to our rashy baby, the afternoon's patients were a woman our moms' age who had a giant lump on her forehead from where her grandson hit her with a golf club (accidentally) and a man who fell off his bike and ripped his ear halfway off his head.  The ear guy refused pain medicine, claiming it did not "sit well" with him.  Ben could hear the doctor arguing with him in the next room, telling him that sewing his ear back on would be painful (!), and the guy asked for something to bite on or maybe some ice.  The doctor finally convinced the guy to have some novocaine, and the guy said "I want you to know you are putting this on for you, not for me."  Ben also said the guy was sitting calmly in the waiting room with a T-shirt wrapped around his ear.  WTH?  And also, the doc in the box can sew an ear back on, but a fever is too much?  Anyway, he agreed with Just a Virus and ruled out strep and scarlet fever.  We rotated Tylenol and Motrin every 4 hours, and by today, both the rash and the fever are gone.  Cooper's lack of appetite also made the drive home pretty convenient.  But he has not slept more than 2 hours in a row since SUNDAY NIGHT.  So that sucks pretty hard.

Such a tiny torso

trunk

Face rash

Celebrating their last night with room service dessert

Jack made a stuffed animal during kid activity time

Last lunch at their favorite resort cafe

Playing horse in the waves.