Sun-N-Fun 2003

Theresa and I headed down to Sun-N-Fun 2003 on Tuesday morning early in the morning. We had a good trip down, explored a few "short cuts" ... some of which were actually shorter! We got into Lakeland a little earlier than planned (11.5 hours on the road) which was nice. After paying for our campsite we found Marilyn (who had flown commercial into Tampa earlier) and set up in short order. This year we were at Camp Palm Terrace, a nice spot not far from where we camped the year before.

That night we did a run to do some shopping and ate the pre-prepared chili back at the camp site. After a good night's rest (sorta!) we were up bright and early the next morning. Breakfast a la Marilyn and then off to the show.

We hit the high priority spots first with a focus on Marilyn's priorities given she was going to be at the show only three days. After a good bit of walking, looking at vendors, looking at airplanes, and then lunch ... we were off to a good start.

After lunch Theresa started to feel a little under the weather. She decided to go back to the camp to rest while I did some more looking around. A little later she called me saying she felt a little better ... but not perfect. We assumed it was something she ate but she didn't get better into the evening. In time she called it an early night and we hoped a good nights rest would do the trick.

In the morning it seemed like it had done the trick, and she felt better. We ate breakfast and since there was no Diet Coke on site we did a quick run to a convienence store to get me my morning cold caffene. Since eating Theresa felt gradually worse ... and by the time we were at the store she felt really quite ill. This was starting to worry us quite a bit and in the end we decided the only solution was to hit the emergency room. This was a hard decision to make since we knew it would consume most of the day and would likely turn out to be nothing significant. We were half right.

We got there fairly early and they had a bed. This was lucky for us as in short order the trauma center at Lakeland Regional Medical Center was hopping. They had a hell of a day, and ended up treating some patients out in the halls of the trauma center!

Eventually we saw a Dr. Foppie who confirmed our worst fears .. and that was that Theresa's appendix was acting up. Eventually we got her in for X-rays and a CAT scan which confirmed the appendix was the culprit! A consultation with the surgeon's nurse occured, and Theresa was scheduled for surgery. On our vacation!!

She was into surgery around 7:00pm and ended up in her room around 9:30pm. The surgery itself (a laproscopic procedure) took only 20 minutes or so. All through the day I was in contact with folks back home as we had decisions that had to be made. Thank goodness for cellphones!

I could not stay the night 'cause there were no private rooms, so I went and spent a fairly restful night back at the camp. The next day (Friday) Theresa was up and walking and we had hoped they would "liberate" her that day ... but due to a slightly elevated white count that wasn't in the cards. She was finally released mid-day on Saturday and we went and bought some clothes with no waistbands!

Along the way Theresa insisted that I go to the show and not just sit in the hospital while she slept. I did that a bit ... but kept feeling like I needed to come back to the hopspital. My heart was just not in it since all our plans centered on us going to the show together. Doing it without her was just vaguely depressing. The only up-side is that I could grab a Sun-N-Fun Today paper to bring back to her. :)

On Sunday we were both back at the show. I talked her in to riding in a wheelchair at least to cover the distances between things of interest. It was a piece of cake pushing her around and was the right choice. All in all we spent seven hours at the show that day. By Monday she was up for doing all the walking herself however. Just as well 'cause we went to look at the ultralights and that would have been a bumpy ride in the wheelchair! Monday saw us spending five hours non-stop at the show. Not bad for just a few days out of surgery!

Tuesday was the day we were to drive back home and we decided to hit the Fantasy of Flight museum. We thought it would be good, but had not clue just how good it was! We intended to stay just a few hours and then get on the road, and when we left we realized that we had been there over four hours! We hated to leave, as there was another tour we wanted to take but just had no time to do it.

The drive home was uneventful, thank goodness! We did a little over half the drive on Tuesday stopping in South Carolina. The next day we finished the drive and with our new-found "short cuts" we finished the trip in only 10.5 hours on the road.

The 2003 Sun-N-Fun was quite an adventure for us. We didn't get to do all that we had planned, and ended up doing some things that were totally not in the plans at all. Still, being the stubborn people we are we did carve a non-trivial amount of fun out of the whole event and intend to go back again next year! For the curious, I've included some pictures below.  

 

See my Sun-N-Fun 2003 Picture Gallery