A Post of its own: AXE-ident and emergency

This post is unique one, many of our posts have covered single weeks or longer, this one focuses on just a few days. This blog is about remembering all adventures, good, bad and ugly, so here goes…

Our story begins in a land of towering trees that have weathered fires, floods, and more…

After successfully crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, we arrived at a beautiful winery for a sunny afternoon of wine and games. Which was bought to a halt suddenly as Alice had her first migraine attack in years. She spent the afternoon, evening, and night recovering in the trailer. This has not just been added in to gain some sympathy for Alice….well maybe a little.

Upon reaching our campsite within the majestic redwoods, Alice was recovering well. We were all in awe of these incredible trees, we explored rows and rows of them, marveling at their size and resilience. That night, while chopping wood for a fire, Will accidentally cut a chunk off his thumb with an axe. With quick first aid and Marine mentality it was bandaged up and bleeding stopped in minutes.

Thats two… if your keeping track, they do say trouble comes in threes.

The next morning, as we packed up for Redwood National Park, Tilly, on her new bike, cycled straight into our stationary truck, Will catching her but she still managed to rip through the skin and fat on 2 of her fingers. We rushed to find an urgent care or an emergency room that was covered by our insurance (for those non-US folks a true bonus of the NHS system where you can simply call an ambulance and rush to the closet hospital, here in the US its not so simple), we managed to find care and jumped in the truck.

Forty-five minutes later, we found ourselves in urgent care, eventually redirected to the emergency room. Over the next seven hours, Will’s thumb required multiple attempts to stitch up with failed attempts at numbing, while Tilly bravely endured painful stitching whilst being pinned down by three doctors, screaming “mummy make it stop” and other heart wrenching phrases.

Despite the ordeal, both patients emerged triumphant with overly bandaged wounds and enjoyed popsicles.

As we now look back at that time we are glad we are through it. The fear of a medical emergency and are we going to be close enough to get help is a constant worry whilst being on the road. But this incident, although harrowing, has showed us that in these times we can get through it and even come out on the other side with cool scars and a exciting story to tell.

All our love, Alice, Will, Tilly and Maggie.