The past month and a half has been a whirlwind, hence my absence from the blogosphere. At the end of the July, I developed an ascending paresthesia (tingling/numbness). I was then diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome. The culprit? Fish tacos! It’s a long story that I’ll address in a later blog post. After a week in the hospital, recovery at home, and then returning to work for a short time, I got the go-ahead from my neurologist to travel for the family vacation that had been planned for months. So we started packing our bags in preparation for a vacation to the Wild West. Despite the medical issues that were out of my control, mother nature was another story. For months, we had planned to travel to Glacier National Park. Glacier has been on my bucket list of places to travel for several years. I’m a mountain girl at heart, and the photos I have seen from others who have traveled there are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. My mother has also always wanted to travel there. Several months ago, while discussing my longing for Glacier with my mom, she had the idea that we should all travel there. My love for the mountains was ingrained as a young child when we would vacation to Colorado to hike almost every year. It had been a long time since all of us had been to the mountains together. So my mom found a cabin in West Glacier. My brother likes long road trips, so she would ride up there with him. I decided that I would NOT do a 20-hour drive with a toddler, so I scheduled flights for my husband, son, and I. This would be our first flight with the toddler. A couple of weeks before we left, I started seeing headlines about wildfires in Glacier. As the fires engulfed more and more of West Glacier and reading about complaints of air quality, we decided as a group that we would have a better time in a different location. I brought up Chico Hot Springs as an alternative to my mom. My husband and I stayed there for the last couple of nights during our big Yellowstone vacation five years ago. It was a cute little spa with awesome mineral hot springs located just 30 miles north of Yellowstone in an area of Montana known as Paradise Valley. Paradise Valley is the valley surrounding the Yellowstone River extending from the north end of Yellowstone National Park and up to Livingston, Montana, and it’s aptly named. While I was disappointed that I would not yet cross Glacier National Park off my bucket list, I was excited to revisit Chico Hot Springs, even though I knew the trip with my entire family and my toddler would be vastly different from the trip my husband and I had as a couple five years ago. My mom found a wonderful cabin in Pray, Montana, near the hot springs resort. After multiple family meetings via text message (because let’s face it, other than vacation, it’s almost impossible to get all of us together), we settled on a cabin near Pray. After we changed locations, I discovered my airline would not let me change my final destination from Kalispell near Glacier to Bozeman. As is the trend with great customer service and airlines, they would not let me change destinations but offered to book me all new tickets to Bozeman! Ha! Jokes on me, but oh well! I decided we would keep our flight plans and would make the 5.5 hour drive down the state of Montana. While I have traveled with my son once before (we traveled to the Smoky Mountains last summer), it would be the first time I had flown with my son. Lots of things went through my mind. I asked myself questions I’d never asked myself before like, “If I put baby formula in a Ziploc bag, will security think it’s cocaine?” The anxiety of forgetting something while traveling with a young one was high, but my husband reminded me that there would be Target and other stores nearby. Bags were packed, and item after item was crossed off the packing list. We woke up at 2:30 A.M. for our early flight. The little one picked up on the excitement and woke up at 3:30 A.M. He was walking around the local airport like he owned the place in his striped footies and sneakers. He even made a friend with another toddler, and they bonded over their love or toy vehicles (lightning McQueen and a toy school bus). We survived a delay out of our airport with a short layover. After his early morning, he slept for nearly all of the second flight. We don’t promote a lot of screen time with our little one, but all I can say is thank God for Thomas the Train videos. They were a lifesaver for traveling with a toddler. We arrived into Kalispell mid-morning with a smoky haze surrounding the mountains. Our drive down to the cabin was a beautiful one, and it gave us the opportunity to visit my husband’s uncle at the halfway point. My son was quite impressed with Montana from the beginning because the large number of trains roaring through the mountains. We arrived at our cabin a day before the rest of the family, allowing us to regroup and stock the kitchen...and get first pick on the best bedroom. The rest of our family arrived a day or so later. Our first family outing would be white water rafting on the Yellowstone River with my brother and his wife. Grandma offered to babysit our son during the rafting trip. It would be an 18-mile trip down the river, with lunch on a “sandbar” at some point. We met our guide. We shared a raft with a family from the UK (a father and two college-aged kids) and a family from the East Coast (a mother with a middle schooler and a very mouthy high schooler). We started out our rafting trip with a series of rapids. Our guide informed us that any of us could “ride the bull” at any time, meaning you could sit at the very front of the raft with both legs over the front and holding on to the handle. Since we were in Montana, you have to hold on with one hand like a bull rider. Of course, my husband was the first to volunteer. He did not last eight seconds, but he stayed in the boat, which is probably more than what I would have accomplished. We saw beautiful mountain scenery, bison, and elk. After listening to the mouthy teenage boy for a majority of the five hour trip, I also made a mental note to give my son an extra spanking or two for good measure out of pure parental fear of losing the never ending battle of “Will my child turn out to be a little shit?” I guess I could try but he’s super cute right now. Overall, it was a fun day trip on the river, but I was happy to get back to the cabin to my little boy. The next day, we decided we would hike in the mountains. Based on recommendations of the locals, we decided to go on a hike called Passage Falls. It would be a hike that is five miles round trip. We packed all the baby things: the bottles, the snacks, the backpack, diapers, etc. We checked the weather, and it was expected to be a dry afternoon. We arrived at the trailhead, and we walked a gentle incline through a valley. The area had a fire from 2008 so the burnt dead trees above with the colorful wildflowers below created a surprisingly beautiful view. For the last half mile or so, the incline increased, and the wind started to change. Once we got over the mountain, there were pretty steep downhill switchbacks to the falls. The path consisted of slippery shale, making the downhill switchbacks a bit hectic. My husband, thankfully the one carrying the baby in the backpack, was the only one not stressing on this part of the trail. I suddenly had visions of myself falling down the side of the hill and into the falls, which prompted me to slide down the trail on my butt. My mom and sister-in-law then followed suit. We made it to the falls, and they were beautiful. It also became clear that a storm was coming. It then occurred to me that we had forgotten one thing: raincoats (including one for the baby). The rain started, the wind blew, and then the thunder and lightning came. A feeling of panic came over me. I realized my son was in a metal framed pack. We were on top of the mountain in the thunderstorm with no rain coats (at least my son’s backpack had a canopy, which provided some shelter. I also remembered the words my infectious disease doctor told me when I ran into her during my most recent hospital stay: “If lightning is striking, I don’t want to stand next to you.” I have to admit, I panicked. I had an overwhelming desire to get down the mountain as fast as possible. I told my husband, who was carrying the baby in the backpack, to run. Then I realized a minute or so later that I had all the bottles and snacks for the baby in my backpack, so I started running too. As I started down the mountain, my brother said, “Wait! Do you want the bear spray?” It then occurred to me that running down a mountain by myself in grizzly country might not be the best idea. I agreed to take the bear spray, and my brother tossed it to me. I’m sure I was just being a touron (a new term I learned on the trip), but it was very eery as I ran down the mountain by myself in the storm. My imagination got a little carried away, and I kept envisioning a bear smelling the goldfish and peanut butter crackers in my backpack and stalking me from a distance. I worried about how my boys were doing ahead of me, and wondered if I could possibly catch them as my water-soaked jeans shortened my stride. I then tripped over a root and turned my already bruised and swollen ankle (long story, injury from a playground jungle gym). As I limped and hobbled along the valley of dead trees in the rain, I was certain that the bear who had been stalking me down the mountain would come out of nowhere and attack now that I was wounded. I gripped the bear spray even tighter. That fear grew stronger every time I would detect a musty smell along the trail. I was able to walk off the soreness in my ankle and continue running after a short bit. Alas, I made it to the end of the trail without being mauled by a bear or struck by lightning, and my adorable boys were waiting for me in the car. It was a great feeling. The rest of my family made it to the bottom of the mountain about twenty minutes later. I knew they would be annoyed that we split up and decided to run down the mountain, which breaks the age-old advice that you should travel in groups in the mountains. However, at that point, I was more worried about the storm than the bears. I also think that deep down, I knew a grizzly was no match for this mamma bear. Just kidding! Bears will eat you. I promised my mom that I would never run off by myself while in the mountains (with my fingers crossed behind my back). The next day was cold and rainy, so chilling out at the cabin seemed like a good option, especially after yesterday’s excitement. The rest of the trip was great. From horseback riding, relaxing at the cabin, trips to the mineral hot springs, and ventures into Yellowstone National Park, it was just what we needed. A lot had happened since our last family vacation to the Smoky Mountains a little over a year ago: cancer diagnosis, a post-op infection and hospitalization, treatment, recovery, and then another hospitalization with a completely unrelated and weird diagnosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, with lots of working and developing/growing my practice in between. After all of that, it was great to have time with family to decompress, relax, and reflect on our many blessings. Yes, it’s been a challenging year or so. But after having time to think about things, I realized that I am absolutely stronger and changed for the better. The flight home with the toddler was also a success. We arrived home with a few days of the holiday weekend to decompress before work/the grind would start again. Even though I came back to a clinic that is still being renovated and a neverending list of projects, I’m thankful for the life we have here at home and looking forward to the future (including future vacations). I mean, I love my job, but I work hard, so I need to play hard. I hope everyone remembers that. Everyone faces challenges, and everyone needs a break once in a while. Take it! I beg of you. Treat yourself to at least a 24 hour period of fun and relaxation because, otherwise, you’re wasting some precious time with your loved ones that they may also dearly need.
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Jessica Stroupe, DVM
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August 2017
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