The Rocky Road to Boston 2014

Kevin and I got the opportunity to travel to Boston, Massachusetts for a work conference in June. We had originally planned on flying my mom up here to watch the boys while we were gone. That plan hit a snag when she told us her work would only give her four days off; we needed her for four day, not including her travel here and back. So, we settled for driving the boys down to Vernal, Utah and then driving to Salt Lake City to catch a flight the next night. Road trip!!

Wendy's pit stop!

Tucker's gas station snack.

 Stopped in Casper, WY the first night. The next morning was Father's Day. I felt bad we were traveling but it was still a fun day.

The boys filled out these cute little questionnaires about their daddy and we gave him a jar of Reese's Pieces.

Father's Day June 15, 2014

We drove the rest of the way into Vernal, chilled at Kevin's parents while the kids played with some cousins, then we all went to dinner at Golden Corral. We headed over to my mom's for the night. About an hour after we got there, I noticed Jaxon kept wiping his lips with his hand over and over and also coughing. His lips had swollen to about twice their normal size! This is called angioedema and generally occurs with allergies/anyphylaxis. He was having trouble talking with such fat lips. He doesn't have any allergies that we know of, had tried nothing new that day, or come in contact with something strange. I still don't know why this happened and should probably make an appointment with an allergist before this happens again...

 

After forcing as much liquid Benadryl into him as we could (he is notoriously AWFUL at taking meds...ya know, one of those non-compliant patients!) and applying some topical Benadryl as well, we tried to get some sleep. Well, Jax started coughing uncontrollably around midnight. I still hadn't slept because I was so worried about him. After a 15 minute coughing jag where he could barely

  catch his breath, I said enough. I threw him in the car and headed for the ER. He received an injection of Benadryl. They also ran an RSV test and a flu and a chest x-ray because his lungs didn't sound the best.

All the hazy black on the right side of the photo is the infiltrate in the lung.

 Lo and behold....pneumonia! Quite a decent case, too. The ER doc said he hadn't seen an infiltrate of this size on a kid of Jaxon's size. He gave me two options: we could admit him for IV antibiotics since he hates oral medication so much, which we both felt would be a bit extreme considering his oxygen saturation was still fairly high; or we could try oral antibiotics at home with daily follow-ups at a local pediatrician's. Mind you, I was supposed to be flying to Boston in less than 12 hours, so this was NOT the news I was hoping to get! We chose the oral meds, the nurse and I forced (most of) a dose down him, and went home. By this time, the IM Benadryl had worked, he was exhausted, and crashed. Of course, I did the mommy thing and worried too much to sleep.

 As soon as Walgreen's opened up, Kev and I headed to fill the scripts for Jax and load up on apple juice, Tylenol, etc. Jax finally woke up and the swelling in his lips had decreased dramatically, he still had no fever, and we had a follow-up scheduled with the pediatrician the next day. After discussing it with my mom, who felt she would be fine with the kids with the help of my brother, we decided I would still go to Boston and worry from afar! Really, though, I had complete trust in her abilities and knew I could always fly back if I needed to. Kev and I had a quick lunch at Cafe Rio and ran into one of my best and oldest friends of 15 years and had a quick chat, so that was fun!  We spent the rest of the day making sure everything we needed was packed, and that my mom had everything she would need. 6 pm rolled around and I still hadn't slept but it was time to hit the road for SLC. We were giving ourselves plenty of time to make it to the airport, grab something to eat, etc. We ran into some pretty crazy rain so we were glad we left early. We checked in, ran through security, browsed some shops, grabbed some snacks, and settled in to wait for our 12:59 am flight. We decided taking the red-eye would give us a decent amount of free time to explore Boston, plus we could sleep on the flight....well, one of us could, anyway!

Waiting at the airport was soooo fun...

Plane boarded a little later than scheduled, and of course, the entire plane was full. Kev and I ended up in a row with the cutest little baby, which made me miss the boys already! Kevin predictably passed out right after take-off, and I had stupidly assumed I would do the same having been awake now for nearing 42 hours...but no. I just couldn't relax! Sigh. It made the flight seem very long even though it was only about three hours to Atlanta where we had a short layover and changed planes.

Hello, Atlanta! 6 am.

 This was a familiar view of my travel partner on all four of our flights. :)

On the flight from Atlanta to Boston. I still couldn't sleep.

Descending into Boston!

We finally made it to Boston about 9:30 am local time. I was so ready to crawl into bed but seeing that we took the red-eye in order to give ourselves the maximum amount of time to explore, plus the fact hotel check in wasn't until 3 pm, meant I needed to caffeinate, suck it up, and EXPLORE! Deplaned, grabbed our luggage, and then Kev needed a bathroom break. This is where Boston got awesome for me. 

So here I am chilling, waiting for Kev, and there was this guy sitting next to me just snoozing away. Then these two TALL, muscular guys come around the corner, chatting away, and all of the sudden, the one closest to me lifts his shirt up, flashes a badge clipped to his belt, and says, in a PERFECT Boston accent, of course, "Boston PD. Whatcha doin there, guy?" So the sleeping guy tells the cop he's just waiting for the Silver Line bus(same bus we were going to catch). The cop tells him he's gotta go outside to catch the bus and can't stay sleeping in the airport. He gets up and sort of stumbles out the door. The cop says, "You ok, ma'am? Can I help you with anything?" Me: "Uh, no sir. I'm fine. Just waiting for my husband. He's in the rest room right over there." He smiles and says have a good day and gets on the escalator to go upstairs but then leans over and yells, "Hey, that guy there didn't bother you, did he??" I say no and he says, "Ok, good, cuz you're too nice a girl to be bothered." or something like that and says have a nice day. It was just too funny! Kevin FINALLY  comes out of the bathroom and we wait for the bus to take us to the correct subway station to make it to our hotel so we can drop off our luggage and start pounding the pavement!

You ready for us, Boston?!

To be continued!!!