Feel Good
... before heading to Ohio to visit Alex - one of my good friends from St Andrews (who I later lived with in Tahoe for almost a year) - and her fam on the farm.
Sadly those precious two days did not actually end up being off, as I spent most of them scurrying around doing who knows what in an attempt to tie up loose ends in between travel adventures. On Tuesday night after piano, we hit the road for a three-and-a-half hour drive through part of the West Virginia mountains and then spent the night in a hotel in some town on 77 before getting up and driving the remaining four hours through Ohio to reach the farm.
I did this trip last year, except it was February and icy and cold, and I still have mild PTSD from crawling up the mountain highway and going through the tunnels amidst the trucks roaring by in the pitch black with no idea what was on the other side of the right lane... and I am happy to report that doing it in April at dusk was 1 million times better, both for my heart rate and for the views.
It was great to be there - Rivercrest Farm, which doubles as a wedding venue, is stunning, and Alex and her mom and husband are some of the kindest, effusively welcoming people to be around, and the kids and I (again) had an amazing time transporting ourselves into dirt-life.
I think a lot about the alternate version of my life where I have a lifestyle job instead of a corporate 9-5 one, and while maybe someday I'll get to that, but it feels so intangible at the moment.
Do Good
Alas all good things are (sometimes) tinged with reality... and the 'dark side' (I say that slightly in jest) of the trip was the several hours spent in the ER on Thursday night with Miss Hailey, whose right pinky toe somehow ended up in the way of a glass tabletop leaned up on its side falling down and shattering. We were sat outside by the fire cooking hotdogs and roasting marshmallows with a glass of wine, and all of a sudden there was a huge crash and a scream like I have never heard Hailey scream.
At first she looked fine, and I thought she was maybe just scared... but alas, her sock (not quite sure where her shoes were, but #farmlife) started turning red, and when I managed to get it off, her pinky toe was a hot mess.
I am extremely grateful that 1) it was just her tiny little pinky toe that got hit and not her tiny little body, 2) that Alex's mom was able to drive us to the hospital and be some extra calming company while we sorted this out, and 3) that it wasn't broken and therefore didn't require us being transported to another hospital.
tl;dr - the (very kind) ER doctor ultimately phoned a (podiatrist) friend ("I usually see strokes and heart attacks, not mangled little kid pinky toes") and decided to hold off on stitches until someone else could look at it, and then we headed off to said doctor in the morning for that second opinion. He ultimately decided that while he wanted to numb it and shave off the now-dangling large piece of skin (apparently some of tip is already missing and likely in her bloody sock, barf), that would traumatize her (yes, yes it would) and that we could instead just slather it in antimicrobial burn ointment and hope for the best (ie that that piece of skin just sloughs itself right off).
Anyway - she's fine; poor girl is doomed to having to paint the skin of her toe for future pedicures because she will likely never have a nail there again, but she's excited that she now has a little boot to wear so she can run around again and that she's getting hot pink self-adhesive dressing and can put Elsa bandaids on top.
And I'm fine, other than that I'm mourning what I think might finally be the end of my med school dreams given I almost passed out three (THREE) times while dealing with this, and that actually healthcare tech is my home. Le sigh.
I'll spare y'all an actual view of her princess toe - it is GNARLY now that the blood is gone and you can see the skin starting to die and how messed up it actually is.
Fingers crossed it heals ok though and this can just be content for a future 'two truths and a lie' game for her.
We did make it back on Saturday after doing the full ride back in one go, and it's gorgeous and green and sunny in North Carolina now, so I had a productive day doing ALL THE THINGS around the house to reset a bit before I go back to my normal, non-lifestyle-or-medical job grind (le sigh, again).
Look Good
#farmlife meant that I actually didn't take photos, soooo nothing fun this week!