We took my husband along in 1997, visited my son in West Palm Beach, included as well Orlando, where my grandmother lived (and father as a child) and where she and my parents are buried.
From there on our way back we headed for Daytona Beach; to the absolutely beautiful Bulow Creek State Park (where John James Audoban spent 2 years sketching along its savannahs); and then to St. Augustine to stay.
The morning we left, there was the obligatory restocking at the French Bakery, and Bernie and I went all the way through The Fort.
Anne was not feeling well, and stayed in the car while we moseyed.
Things got horrifying from that point on.
She laid down on the back seat, and we hurried from then on, flying up I-95 as best we could.
Her temperature elevated rapidly and she was throwing up in a large paper cup, and at Savannah, we stopped at a Holiday Inn so we could use the (clean) rest rooms.
She could barely walk with my assistance, and we tried to get her to let us take her to the ER there, but she insisted she wanted to go on toward home.
That seemed the best thing to do, a hospitalization there making her distant from our home, and those of her children in South Catrolina - hard to be with and help her so far away.
We then sped toward Barnwell, asking in every town on the way if we needed to stop at their Emergency Room, but she declined. Reaching Barnwell in the early evenng, finally, we went straight to the hospital here and she was seen and assessed, and a gastroenterology consultant called in.
I was informed she had a VERY serious gall bladder infection, possibly stemming from cancer. I called her daughter in Sumter, who conferred with her siblings, and we all agreed she should be transported to Sumter (the hospital here is limited).
Jessie, a Psychologist, lives in a section where most of the physicians and dentists reside, and is not far from the hospital.
There was a wait here for an ambulance, with the ones available already out on long calls - one was sent from Columbia to haul her screaming through every town on the way.
The outcome was treating the infection - cancer ruled out - and surgery and eventual recovery, with me going to stay with her at her lake house for a while when she was finally released.