The Long and Winding Road to Hatteras

 To backtrack a bit, on Labour Day Weekend I had a mishap in the garden.  I was pulling out a big weed, the thing had enormous roots...so I put all my weight into it and when it finally let go, well you get the picture.  I was running backwards with the momentum, trying to get my feet to catch up with the rest of me.  I could see Adam's helmet in my peripheral vision, tripped over it backwards, and fell.  Ouch.  I also somehow got the sharp edge of the shovel in the back of my heel.  Real ouch.  

I have to add here, that this garden is huge.  I worked at it most of the summer with my friend Lori.  The one along the front of the house is about 50 feet long by 6 feet deep.  There's also another garden in the middle of the front lawn that's about 25 feet long by 8 feet wide.  There's another one by the mailbox as well.  All gardens are loaded with perennials.  It actually won the 'beautification award' earlier in the summer.  How that big weed came about I really don't know.  I'm not exactly sure I even like gardening.

Several of the kids saw me fall and came to me rescue.  *I have the sweetest kids on the planet*  The cut was pretty gruesome and I told the little kids not to look at it, and to get Dad.  PJ and Adam started picking flowers for me:)  Phil came out, we both knew it needed stitches, but the agonizingly long wait at emerg really doesn't fit my schedule.  It was Sunday night afterall, and we had friends coming over.  So I asked Phil to go to the store and find some super glue.  PJ called to him as he was driving away and said to get some chocolate for Mommy!

Phil arrived back from town, we cleaned and glued my foot together, and I sat with my foot propped up on some ice.  He brought me a yummy dark chocolate bar, which PJ enjoyed sharing with me.  Joe and Lori came over.  Lori said that it was for a noble cause.

It occurred to me that I might perhaps consider getting a tetanus shot.  They were quite happy to do that at the Health Unit.  Before receiving the shot I signed a paper that I skim read, something like I promise I won't sue you if this shot kills me, or something like that.

Within days of the shot I started not feeling too well.  I'm used to working out at the gym and being quite active, but I was sapped of my strength, felt dizzy, had headaches like never before.  I saw 3 doctors, including one night when I went to emerg after calling Telehealth, because I felt numb and tingly on the right side of my body.  All of the doctors said it was whiplash from the fall, and I was fine.  But I wasn't fine.  Randomly my body would go numb and my throat would feel like it was being constricted, and my face felt like it was in a vice.  We began to realize that this was damage from the vaccine.   Unfortunately true info is concealed by medical professionals, and the lay persons who have it will only share their experience.  We did a lot of research on the internet, and this is our conclusion.  If you want my opinion, I would urge you to research before receiving any vaccines, and make an informed choice.   

I improved somewhat, and wasn't going to let this stop me from heading to Hatteras.  We headed off to Cape Hatteras early morning on Sunday Sept 21, and arrived here late Sunday night.  Ahhhh...I love the sound, smell and feel of the wonderful ocean air. 

                here's some pics from the road trip:  

The weather has been a bit unsettled, but we've managed to get to the beach every day.  It was really windy on Wednesday, then there was quite a bit of rain that night.  Thursday we drove down to Frisco.  When we drove through Buxton (Buxton is the wider part of the island where the lighthouse is) there was surf coming between some cottages on the ocean side, and flooding part of the road.  The island is actually a thin spit of land way off the coast of North Carolina, so when you think about it, it's quite a delicate piece of nature.  Sometimes during hurricanes the island is breached.  They have to dig some sand out of the sound side of the island and pile it back up on the island, then they fix the road.  

Today (Friday) we spent the day at Frisco beach again.  It was hot and sunny all day.  Usually at one point in the day, Zac will decide to engineer some sort of large sand structure.  Today it was a 5 ft diameter igloo.  Later in the day, as the tide began to erode it, Zac perched his beach chair on top of the igloo.  As he napped up there, the kids wanted to see if they could get the b ack of it to cave in, causing poor ol Zac to topple backwards.  They finally pulled the chair over, and he rolled off backwards.  He's such a good sport, and I'm sure he was savvy about plot all along. 

here's a pic of us near Avon:

here's a pic of PJ heading to the beach: 

I just want to thank everyone who has been praying for me while I wasn't feeling the best.  Today was the best day yet, after a really good nights sleep.  

Tomorrow is looking like a fantastic beach day, nice and hot and sunny!  This is a great place, you eat when you want, sleep when you want and go to the beach.  There's no Walmart, no McDonalds, no noisy traffic, it's great. *A shoe store would be nice though*

I think we are going back to Frisco tomorrow.