From Ocean to Spring with a BIG Interruption

Tuesday December 25 to Sunday December 30, 2018                                       Most Recent Posts:         
Gamble Rogers State Park, Flagler Beach                                                            Our Holiday Fun
and Blue Spring State Park, Orange City, Florida                     Finally Meeting Long Time Friends for the First Time

We arrive back from Maryland from our Holiday Fun on Monday to this view. Ahhhhh. . . .

 

I’m up the next day at dawn.  I only have 4 more possible sunrises over the ocean so I don’t want to miss anything.

The best color in the sky is usually just after dawn, before the sun rises and just after the sun sets in the evening.

Looking back west from the bottom of the boarwalk steps I see the moon.

I remember as a child listening to my mother sing Moon over Miami.  Too bad there isn’t a song Moon over Winnona.

Back to the east, the birds are beginning to fly.  The clouds at the horizon look mighty dark.

I zoom in to catch the pelicans and see that the clouds look like mountains.  The sun is lighting up their edges.

Well here we are at exact sunrise time.  The birds have all shown up but the sun can’t make it through the thick clouds.

And then  I see a tiny golden spot at the horizon line.

It soon disappears though I can see its light in the spaces between the higher clouds.

The golden speck moves to the top of the mountain clouds.

Finally it goes above the mountains which were too thick for it to burn through

Six minutes after official sunrise, it’s taking command.

Looking to the north I see a flotilla of pelicans coming my way. Over the campground and the beach they soar.  I love them against the colors of the sky.

I follow them as they go right over my head and then further south.

Too soon, they are out of sight.   What a blessing on Christmas Day.

It’s a beautiful day with a  high of 68 at about 3pm.    We are on the beach.  David is in long pants and a flannel shirt.  We watch the few people beach walking go by.  They are dressed quite differently.  Perhaps they are snowbirds from Canada to whom this feels  like summer

I guess I should have titled this post the last of the ocean front sunrises.  I’m up at dawn again the next day and of course things look totally different.   The moon is in the west brightening the cotton ball clouds covering the sky.

With the dawn color to the southeast, those same cotton balls look pretty gray and dirty.

The puff balls are overhead as I walk the boardwalk down to the water.

I wonder if they will fill the sky and prevent the view  at the horizon.  Sunrise is more than 20 minutes away..

To the south, the pinks are starting, a nice back drop for the town water tower.

Color to the north as well.

This view is from the main campground bathhouse handicapped boardwalk to the beach about midway in the campground.

From here I can just see the top of Winnona with pink skies behind her.  By the time most folks come out for sunrise this color will be gone and the skies will have darkened.  It almost seems that the rising sun sucks all the color into itself.

Just like yesterday, I don’t actually see the sun until 10 minutes after official sunrise when it climbs up over the low horizon clouds.  But today the sky is filled with clouds so things will be different.

In the afternoon I take up a spot in my chair on the sand to watch the waves and birds.

The waves are great.  I guess they are too close to shore for the surfers.  I’m surprised someone isn’t out here with a boogie board and wet suit.

At this point, I can see the gray moving up from the water.  It eventually takes over the whole sky.

Gray skies or not, I can’t get enough of those waves.  Only 3 more days.

But then on Friday when the skies clear and the temperatures warm, I take David in at 9:00 for his infusion.  I intend to stay until they have drawn his blood to check and make sure he’s stable enough to take the chemo.  When it’s thumbs up, I’ll go back to the beach for the 3+ hour infusion time and come back for him.

But when the results come back at 10:00, he isn’t stable enough.  His hemoglobin is down to 6.7 and they send him to the ER for a transfusion.  So no beach for either of us today. 

We arrive at the ER at 10:30 and wait for an hour to get in.  The delay is due to an incompetent at the desk who knows why we are here  but when after an hour and seeing everyone else who comes in after David go back, he goes and asks what’s up and she tells him they don’t do transfusions.  WHAT?   Obviously he’s not happy with this since the folks in the cancer clinic had called to say he was coming.  Ms Incompetent sends a nurse out to deal with him.  She apologizes profusely and takes him right back.  By this time it’s 1:00 in tha afternoon.  So here he is shoes, hat and two blankets, freezing in the ER.   Looks pretty happy doesn’t he?

Since we’ve done this before, I get out all the information about how difficult his blood is to type since he’s been on this particular chemo drug infusion.   Still it’s about 5pm when they finally decide they can’t do it in house and will have to send to Orlando to a Transfusion Center to have it typed and matched.  We knew this hours ago but . . . . .

They decide to admit him and eventually take him up to a hospital room to spend the night while a courier drives the blood to Orlando.  (Shades of driving to Gainesville from Fernandina Beach 6 weeks ago if you were reading then).

Saturday is another beautiful beach day and the last day of our stay at Gamble Rogers.
I’m at the hospital at 8:30 am.  No beach for me.  No beach for David.  But they do bring him breakfast which he’s happy about.
 

Since they took his blood to Orlando yesterday, we were thinking they would have it back by this morning.  No one seems to have given him any status updates and because the blood is so difficult to type I’m starting to become concerned that they may not be able to do it.  Or it may take longer than we have since we do have to give up our site by 1 PM tomorrow afternoon.

I start putting some “what’s the status pressure on” and finally find out that 26 hours after they received it, they have had to irradiate it.  Wonder if that’s what Gainesville did?

The blood finally arrives at 1pm and the nurses get the transfusion started.

Since it takes 3+ hours per unit, he’ll stay yet another night.  I head home and catch the last color of the sunset as I come in the door.

Sunday I wait for David to call me and tell me they are discharging him because his hemoglobin is up to 9.1.  How  long will it stay that high which is actually 5 points below the bottom of the normal range?  who knows.

I take this picture of the gray morning as I leave to pick him up from the hospital.  The skies brighten up and Sunday is another beautiful day on the beach.  That’s 3 in a row we’ve missed.
Oh well, such is life.

I do all the pack up, close down, water, electric, dumping tanks and by 3pm we’ve arrived at Blue Springs State Park where we hope to see some Manatee although the temperatures are likely to be too warm for the manatee to need to come in from the St. John’s River to warm up.  They are predicted to be in the 80’s for most of the one week we’ll be here on our slow boat to Tampa and the Moffitt Cancer Center.