Monday: North Shore and a trip to the Emergency Room

This morning we got decided to take a drive up to North Shore in hopes to find turtle beach. The first place we stumbled upon was Sunset beach. Not really knowing we asked a life guard where we were and how to get to turtle beach. We stayed a watched the surfers catch the waves and got to see a resting monk seal, an endangered species.

Sunset beach






Going more north we found where the Honu turtles come to rest on the beach. There was one lonely turtle basking in the sun when we got there. I'm thankful there was one for us to see.




We couldn't leave North Shore without having some good old famous Hawaiin Shaved Ice @ Matsumoto's. It was awesome. They were so tall that some of the ice would drop to the floor before we could eat it.




Afterwards we headed out to the Dole Plantation in Central Oahu where we took the Pineapple express around the pineapple fields and learned a little history of the pineapple. We had some fresh pineapple and ice cream and headed back to our condo.





On our way back to the condo we stopped by Pupukea Beach Park, we call it "rock beach" because of all the rock & reef formation. We were just wading in the water and saw hermit crabs, all sorts of fish and spiny sea anenomes. The kids had so much fun here.





We also stopped by a fruit stand on the side of the road and I bought a pineapple, a coconut, and a papaya. I totally got ripped off. The fruit was good, but I've learned my lesson. I just have to remember the experience and not to do that again.

When we get back home my stress begins....I thought I was suppose to be on vacation!
Stephen asked me to massage his leg because this whole time since before leaving on this trip he said he had leg cramps and muscle soreness. No biggy. I didn't worry about it. But when I went to go massage his leg, his leg was swollen down to his ankle and his skin tight from the swelling. *sigh* I have a disclaimer-I'm a pediatric nurse, not an adult nurse. My first and only thoughts were DVT (deep vein thrombosis) aka clot in his leg and PE (pulmonary embolism) where the clot could travel up his leg to his lungs or worse, his heart causing---the worse ever. I call nurse connection in SD and she advised us to go to ER. Finding an ER on this side of the island was interesting. We figured there was one on the north shore since we passed a hospital sign and remembered it. Usually before vacation I look up and find out where the nearest hospital is located, but since this was a last minute decision I didn't have the time to look it up. So @ 10pm we packed up the the sleeping cherubs and head out. You ask why are we taking the kids? Well, we have one car and stephen mentioned if he has to stay then the kids and I would be stranded at the condo. True. We get to this ER and Stephen mentioned there's no one there as we stayed behind in the car. He's diagnosed with DVT clinically and was given a shot of Lovenox and told to go to another hospital to get a venous doppler tomorrow AM. So our journey continues...