Colorado Excitement

Greetings from Breckenridge! Matt and I escaped Dallas on Saturday to head this way. We took Matt's car this time and when he actually let me drive it for a couple hours in the middle of day 1, that was my 3rd time driving it ever! We spent the night in Trinidad, CO, a good 30 minutes across the New Mexico border. Then it was off again bright and early on Sunday to get to the rental house here in Breckenridge by lunchtime.

The house, wow, it's nice. It is actually a townhouse, but you'd hardly tell. It's the typical Colorado ski house-type place. Three stories: garage on the bottom with lots of hooks and benches for pulling off gear. Then on the main floor, the "Greatroom" with some comfy furniture, a 60-something inch TV, the kitchen and dining table, and 2 bedrooms. One is Luke's and leads to the hot tub, and the other will be used for guests - Susie has a friend coming later and Matt's aunt and uncle from Denver may spend a night or two later on in the trip. Upstairs is the master bedroom for John and Susie, and our bedroom. We have a lovely little balcony off of our room. :) Oh, and that garage I mentioned? It isn't actually a garage anymore. It has been converted to a media room. There is a giant projector that gives us a 90" screen, stadium seating - first row on couch (the one with subwoofers under the seats, incidentally), second row couch, and third row 2 leather lazyboy recliners. The owners have an Xbox (with 4 Logitech wireless controllers) and tons of games and 200+ DVDs, but they forgot to give us the key to unlock the cabinet yet, so we haven't seen our selection yet. And since it is a garage, it gets pitch black when you close the door. We're pretty excited.

So we arrived on Sunday and got unpacked and lounged around. That afternoon Aunt Trish and Uncle Neville came in from Denver to spend the evening with us. After chatting, we central time zone people were hungry so we picked a yummy Italian place for dinner. After that we walked a bit in town, losing Susie and Trish to the scrapbooking store, forcing us to peruse the Joy of Sox (I bought one pair of hiking socks). When we got back to the house we all got sucked into the Tour de France. Then Matt and I were sleepy, so we said goodnight and headed for bed.

Yesterday it was time to try and get used to the altitude so we planned an easy hike to McCullough Gulch. It was only 1.3 miles and 800 ft elevation gain (although we were starting at over 10k feet). It was a nice hike, though a bit more steep parts than Susie would have liked. Our destination was a lake and some high up falls behind, but along the way we saw lots of rushing waters and waterfalls coming down from the lake. We got to the lake, found a nice rock and ate lunch. We noticed some storm clouds in the distance and then heard some thunder...which made it seem like a good time to go down. About 1/3 of the way down, the rain starts, not too hard, but there. Then some lands on my shirt and when I look down I realize it isn't rain - it is sleet, almost like wet snow. That made it much more exciting, even though it made the trail pretty slick. It got a lot heavier before the end and all our pants were soaked. Luckily we all had rain jackets! So basically it was an awesome hike!

We got back, hot tubed, and decided to watch "Driving Miss Daisy" down in the media room. I claimed one of the leather recliners in the back. I watched maybe 2/3 of the movie and then awoke to Matt, Susie, and Luke all sort of clustered around me. I tried to get up and Matt wouldn't let me. I tried to assure him I was fine, I was just sleepy and I wanted to go upstairs. But he was really adamant and asked if I knew what had happened. Um, no? He said "Cameron you had a seizure, the ambulance is on its way." I guess I believe him because now I'm realizing I do feel rather funny and they wouldn't all be staring at me like this otherwise. The EMTs on the fire truck and the constable arrived barely a couple minutes before the paramedics. Mean while I'm getting asked fun questions like "what's today's date? what year? where are you? did you pee on yourself?" (7/17, 2006, Breckenridge, and no). They prick my finger for a quick blood sugar (that being one cause for a seizure), but it is normal. Then pretty soon Matt's gotten me some shoes and I'm getting walked very slowly and carefully to the ambulance. The two paramedics there were so incredibly Colorado-ish, which means for one they were very cool. Anyway, I got laid out on the stretcher, Matt was up front with the driver, and I got to have my first ambulance ride. Along the way they started an IV, drew blood, took my vitals, put an oxygen mask on me, all that good stuff. Oh, and word to the wise: If you feel a little nauseous riding in an ambulance and they offer you drugs to stop that, take them up on their offer. Don't wait until you're puking in the ambulance bay at the hospital! :)

We got to the (brand new) hospital in Frisco and I got wheeled into a room and transferred to a bed. It made me feel like I was on ER or House. Matt was there the whole time which definitely kept me from freaking out about the whole thing. The doctor came in and asked a billion questions, then told us what he probably thought was the cause. He thought (and all the tests later indicated) that it was just the altitude. No matter what your previous experiences have been, sometimes a person can just get hypoxic and, well, have a seizure. We did a CT scan to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor or something instead (my first CT was well!), but my brain looked lovely. So, after being there for a while and being lucid, stale, good vitals, I was able to go home. But, not without a prescription for oxygen! I had a mini tank I took with me back to the house, then when we got home this guy came and brought a "concentrator," which just concentrates the oxygen from the air, avoiding the need for tanks that keep running out. And now for the rest of my time here I'm supposed to use oxygen every night. I feel very special/dumb =P

So anyway, I told you there was excitement!