Okay! Back to the Oregon saga... When we last left off, there was a cliffhanger of sorts...a trip to the emergency room at St. Charles Hospital.
After lunch, Skye went off to do her own thing and Erich and I traveled to see nearby Tumalo Falls. Zowie! It was gorgeous!
Even in Bend, Oregon I can NOT escape from FRESNO! ARGH!!!!
We stopped off at our little market again for a little snack (our internal meal clocks were goofed up. Lunch was more like breakfast to us and we needed a snack before dinner).
I bought/tried Kickapoo Joy Juice. It was okay...kind of like a more flavorful Fresca.
We went in to Bend to find breakfast. We stopped at a little place called Bluebird. While the coffee was very good, the food was less than thrilling--all microwaved and reheated. Oh well.
The early start enabled us to have time to quickly visit Smith Rock on our way out. Oh my stars! I'm so glad we did. It was breathtaking (literally. You should have heard me panting on the way back up out of the canyon. Zowie!) I'm so glad we stopped and went in to it...if only for an hour or so.
The visitor center was right by the bathrooms. So while Erich visited the bathroom, I checked it out (in search of postcards...of which they had NONE. Grr).
Not long after leaving Smith Rock, we stopped for lunch in Prineville at a funky, vintage burger joint called Tastee Treet. I was enamored with the sign, but the burgers were okay and it was clearly a place the locals supported.
Several hours into our trek, we turned off the 26 and onto the 7. It was a mountainous route and before long we passed a sign advising us that a "prescribed burn" was underway. EEEK! A planned forest fire? Scary (and smokey)!
After another super grueling long drive, we finally reached Baker City and got our room.
Not long after we arrived, Ricki and her friend Laura arrived at the hotel. As we were settling in, we heard this commotion outside of our door. Someone was trying to get into our room. I went and looked through the peep hole to see what was going on. Yikes! There was a scary monster out there and... Oh wait, that was just Ricki. What was she doing? I opened the door and she and Laura barged in.
Ricki said, "You assholes. What are you doing in our room?"
Uh, Ricki, sorry to tell you this, but your room was across the hall from ours! Ha!
Laura went off to go help with preparations for the wedding, which was to be the next day. Ricki, Erich and I went for a well-deserved post-drive cocktail at the hotel bar.
Following that, the three of us went into town to dinner. We found a place on Yelp, a Mexican restaurant called Delicioso...and it WAS delicioso. Mmm.
I started off with an A.M.F., a cocktail that I first had the day we finished nursing school and everyone in the class retired to an Applebee's not far from campus. Erich had one too, but neither of us were taken with it.
But with dinner I resorted to a marvelous margarita. It capped off a plate of very scrumptious food wonderfully.
Here is what happened... I had been feeling a little "off" all day, something a little out of whack with my heart, but nothing I really focused on. Anyway, about midnight I went to bed. I was laying with my head on my pillow and it amplified my heart beat. I was hearing "beat, beat, beat.... BEAT. Beat, beat, beat.... BEAT." I thought, of course, that it was just a momentary PVC (premature ventricular contraction). But it kept continuing. "Beat, beat, beat... BEAT. Beat, beat, beat... BEAT." I sat up and felt my pulse. I could feel it. "Beat, beat, beat... BEAT. Beat, beat, beat... BEAT." I kept listening and feeling it for about 15 minutes. It didn't change. Because I have gotten so heavy lately (I've been so inactive thanks to my peripheral vascular disease. I'm having a procedure done on my right leg on Tuesday, July 11th. Hopefully it works, I can get my other leg done, and I can get back to my beloved walks which I have not done in YEARS!), I have medical issues already, I'm 52 and my family history isn't so rosy when it comes to cardiac issues. (My grandfather and his father both died at age 55 from heart attacks.) So, taking that into consideration, I went to Erich's room and reluctantly woke him up and had him take me to the hospital in the middle of the night.
Amazingly there was virtually no one in the waiting room really. There were two guys sitting in there---but they eventually left. Another woman with her daughter showed up after us. Incredible. I got seen fairly quickly.
They did an EKG first, then had me sit in the lobby again.
I was out in the lobby a while...before a nurse came out and found me. Apparently they thought they had put me in a bed...and couldn't find me. They put me in a room and on a monitor. They allowed Erich to come back with me. I'm sure he was bored (and tired, as he had taken a part of a sleeping pill before he went to bed), but he wasn't bored alone in the lobby.
My nurse was nice and the doctor (Dr. Kelly?) was wonderful. They stuck an IV in me, drew some blood for lab work, and sent me off for a chest X-ray. On the way to/from the X-ray, I could see several of the ER "rooms"/beds. Most were empty. Yet, I heard some of the ER staff saying things like "It's so busy tonight." Ha!? This was BUSY? If we were anywhere else, I'd probably STILL be sitting in the waiting room. I did, however, hear about one patient throwing water at another patient somewhere (!?!). I don't know what that was all about.
After all of the tests were looked at, it was determined that I was just having PVCs, but that they were caused by low potassium. Normal potassium levels are 3.5 to 4.5. Mine was 3.1. Potassium imbalances (high or low) can wreck havoc on you muscles. I had not been home for about a week (having gone up to Erich's house the Thursday before the trip) and was not having my usual diet that I have at home. Erich doesn't care for bananas---and I eat them frequently--so I had had none since leaving home. My blood pressure medication also contains a diuretic, so I frequently pee out my potassium, which contributed to the problem. But, the doctor gave me 4 big potassium pills and I agreed to be better about controlling my levels with diet. We got out of there and home about 4:30 A.M.
Because of our late-night adventure, we had to cancel our groovy-sounding breakfast plans with Robin and Skye and postpone our plans to visit a place called Smith Rock so we could sleep. Skye came over later and took us to lunch at this place with dueling businesses within. One side is a butcher shop/deli called Primal Cuts. The other half is a beer bar called Growler Phil's.
After lunch, Skye went off to do her own thing and Erich and I traveled to see nearby Tumalo Falls. Zowie! It was gorgeous!
Even in Bend, Oregon I can NOT escape from FRESNO! ARGH!!!!
We stopped off at our little market again for a little snack (our internal meal clocks were goofed up. Lunch was more like breakfast to us and we needed a snack before dinner).
I bought/tried Kickapoo Joy Juice. It was okay...kind of like a more flavorful Fresca.
The label was fun. Read this if you can. Swig some swag! Ha!
For our last night in Bend, Robin and Skye brought us dinner. Soooooo super nice of them. But, of course, they are super nice people. LOVE 'em!
The next morning we were amazingly up super early and were out of the house by just after 8 A.M., to head to the wedding up in Baker City another 4 1/2 hours away. As I was leaving, I noticed the cable box was showing "666" on the display. A bad omen? After getting our keys locked in the car the day before we left, all of the road work and the unexpected bonus trip to the hospital I HOPED it was not a portent of things to come.
We went in to Bend to find breakfast. We stopped at a little place called Bluebird. While the coffee was very good, the food was less than thrilling--all microwaved and reheated. Oh well.
The early start enabled us to have time to quickly visit Smith Rock on our way out. Oh my stars! I'm so glad we did. It was breathtaking (literally. You should have heard me panting on the way back up out of the canyon. Zowie!) I'm so glad we stopped and went in to it...if only for an hour or so.
The visitor center was right by the bathrooms. So while Erich visited the bathroom, I checked it out (in search of postcards...of which they had NONE. Grr).
Not long after leaving Smith Rock, we stopped for lunch in Prineville at a funky, vintage burger joint called Tastee Treet. I was enamored with the sign, but the burgers were okay and it was clearly a place the locals supported.
Several hours into our trek, we turned off the 26 and onto the 7. It was a mountainous route and before long we passed a sign advising us that a "prescribed burn" was underway. EEEK! A planned forest fire? Scary (and smokey)!
After another super grueling long drive, we finally reached Baker City and got our room.
Not long after we arrived, Ricki and her friend Laura arrived at the hotel. As we were settling in, we heard this commotion outside of our door. Someone was trying to get into our room. I went and looked through the peep hole to see what was going on. Yikes! There was a scary monster out there and... Oh wait, that was just Ricki. What was she doing? I opened the door and she and Laura barged in.
Ricki said, "You assholes. What are you doing in our room?"
Uh, Ricki, sorry to tell you this, but your room was across the hall from ours! Ha!
Laura went off to go help with preparations for the wedding, which was to be the next day. Ricki, Erich and I went for a well-deserved post-drive cocktail at the hotel bar.
Following that, the three of us went into town to dinner. We found a place on Yelp, a Mexican restaurant called Delicioso...and it WAS delicioso. Mmm.
I started off with an A.M.F., a cocktail that I first had the day we finished nursing school and everyone in the class retired to an Applebee's not far from campus. Erich had one too, but neither of us were taken with it.
But with dinner I resorted to a marvelous margarita. It capped off a plate of very scrumptious food wonderfully.
That's it for now. The next chapter will be the wedding. Stay tuned.
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