Florida pt. II: A perfect sunny day...and an ER visit.

(To see post I of our Florida trip, go here)

***
The day after Thanksgiving, we had an amazing day...until the end, when it took a crazy turn.
But let me back up.

We woke up early in the morning, went on a walk, and then headed straight for the beach. We spent hours playing in the sand, and then went to the pool to swim for a while. It was so much fun, and the weather was just PERFECT. It really was a dream.

Here are some photos from our day! (Enjoy these, and in a minute I'll fill you in on the scary stuff that happened later on.)

^Cutest brothers on our morning walk^

Then when it warmed up, we went straight for our spot on the beach!
The white sand, the blue water....man. It was just perfect.

^Love this man!!^

^Brights and I loved hanging out in the tent together while the boys built sandcastles^

^Happy baby in his tent!^

^Paradise^

^Cutest squishy beach boy.^

Then, onto the pool!!
I swear the boys would live there if we let them. They love to swim!

^I love this kid. He thinks he's sixteen.^

^Heaven.^

^"One, two, three, JUMP!!"^

And now, story time.

When we got back to the condo after an amazing day of play, we were hanging out-- just snacking and getting ready while the kiddos watched some cartoons. Suddenly, we noticed that Brighton was becoming feverish. He started to get lethargic, and he started breathing very rapidly. We were extremely worried. With everything we had just been through with his botulism, I immediately contacted his pediatrician to get her opinion on what we should do. (Later I found out that she left the theater in the middle of the movie with her family when she saw my number on her caller ID, because she wanted to answer asap to make sure he was okay. She is the BEST! Literally an angel.)

With his symptoms, she told us to take him to the pediatric ER in Destin, Florida, which was just a few minutes away from us. Jordan gave him a priesthood blessing, and then we loaded up as fast as we could and drove to the hospital.

I had so much post-traumatic stress and anxiety from his recent three-week hospital stay, and I had every worse-case scenario running through my head. It was not a fun car ride to the ER. I cried and prayed the whole way.

When we got there, they got Brighton back very quickly (such a miracle), and hooked him up to the oxygen monitor while I gave them a run down of his recent history with botulism. They were incredible to work with. They took his temperature and found that his fever was still very high, even though I had just given him medicine an hour earlier. A nurse asked me about how he was acting, and explained that sometimes when a fever spikes so high in a little one, they show symptoms of respiratory distress, lethargy, and basically all of the things Brighton was doing. It made complete sense.

They did an X-ray and ran a few more tests to make sure he was okay (especially because he'd just had so much respiratory junk with botulism), but finally gave us the clear to go home after his fever settled down. Basically, he had just caught a cold and flu bug, and we would need to control it with infant Tylenol and make sure his breathing stayed in check. We felt so, so lucky to be able to take him back to the condo after only spending a few hours in the ER.

It was not a fun few hours, but it was the best possible outcome for our situation. We felt so grateful!!

^Sweetest boy.^

Such an eventful end to our day!! Haha. We never anticipated another hospital visit so soon (especially on vacation), but such is life. We were just so grateful that Brighton was okay, and that we could treat him with Tylenol.

We got home to the condo that night, ate some Chick-fil-A, and got some sleep so we could soak up our last little bits of vacation before heading home.

The last post with photos is coming up next!