By morning, my lymph glands were swollen to the size of a walnut and the hamburger bun seeds on my tonsils were contrasting my bright red throat. I finally called my mom to tell her all the horrid details. She, being a concerned parent, called a very experienced nurse that she trusts with her life: her sister. My aunt’s diagnosis was that I was in the mid stages of Mononucleosis (“Mono”). After all of these over-the-phone-diagnoses, I conveniently ignored my advised invitation to take it easy and decided to continue on my journey to California. I wasn’t about to make the whole car turn around and go back to Rexburg for our spring break. So we squeezed into the Honda once again and crammed any unfilled space with hot air from our glass-shattering sing-alongs.
Seven hours later we finally saw the ocean to our left and we didn’t even care that the sky was cluttered with clouds! All that mattered was that the water seemed to be reaching out to us every time it rolled back to the shoreline and we were reaching back as we closed the distance between us. I left the beach that day with a sunburn of a lifetime. The entire backside of my body was fried to a crisp. If I had stayed lying face-down in the sand one may have mistook me for a large lobster. I spent almost the entire five hours we were on the beach lying on my stomach, twitterpated about a boy I was chatting with on my cell phone. Because of the clouds and the breeze on the beach, I never felt the need to heed my roommate’s warnings about putting on sunscreen. The distractions of being smitten cost me my whole week in California. I was a hot mess and it was only the first day of my vacation. The next day we had planned on going to Six Flags Magic Mountain and I could barely walk. I looked like I had stilts for legs because I couldn’t bend my knees. However, I was determined not to let a silly burn hold me back from my love of roller coasters. Ironically, I get bad motion sickness, so I had a motion-sickness patch to put behind my ear that actually induced dizziness that time instead of keeping it from happening.
The first few rides were perfectly fine and I enjoyed myself for a while. The sun was directly overhead now though, and we all needed to take a breather. Once we all sat down and finally remembered that humans need water to survive, that’s when it hit me. The possible case of mono, burnt legs, dehydration, and mild case of heat stroke was all settling in. My body about had enough, so it was time for me to go home even though the rest of my adventurers kept at it. They all accompanied me back to Brittani’s house for a little break, then once I was settled they returned to the theme park.
The remainder of the week included sleepless nights, limping around Southern California, and tons of spray-on aloe Vera. I paid specific attention to follow the advice on the aloe Vera bottle that said to spray generously. When we got back from California at the end of that week, I was finally able to listen to my aunt and take the time to let my body rest. I had labeled the advice of the people around me “unimportant” for so long that my recovery lasted almost half of my summer.
