Jules’ Journal:
By: Julianne Lillie, 5/11/23 – 5/13/23
We had 40 hours in South Lake Tahoe, California and not really any of it went as planned. Especially the ER visit last night! We were all bummed, but this gives us a reason to come back to this beautiful area and try again later!
5/11/23: After a long 11-hour travel day (longest travel day of our trip!) we pulled into Tahoe Valley Campground to set up.
It all started with trying to park our long 40 ft. Fifth wheel in a short (but wide) pull through site. Since we arrived at 7pm the office was already closed, so there was no asking for another site. We had to make this one work. And the way the snow-packed piles were in adjacent sites and across the street didn’t allow us enough space to unhook by pulling in straight. So, after some thinking and evaluating, we decided to loop back around and angle our trailer at a major angle.
This seemed to work and the next day the park staff didn’t complain, which we were thankful for! We were just glad to be off the road and settled in! We packed our cold weather gear for the Hot Air Balloon tour the next day and went to bed as early as we could knowing we had to get up at 4:00am for the balloon ride!
5/12/23: Alarm went off at 4:00am. We started getting up and around and later received a text from our pilot saying that he and our captain, “have carefully gone over the weather this morning and have found it to be unsafe for a balloon ride today. We unfortunately are going to CANCEL this morning. The wind direction and speed especially at the mountaintops exceed our safe standards to fly. The mountaintops are over 30mph and increasing. We also like to see different wind directions and today they are all lined up at all altitudes.” This was a big, fat, bummer! Thankfully we hadn’t left the camper yet, so we all tried to go back to sleep.
Once we were officially up and around for the day, I called the balloon office and rescheduled for tomorrow morning. I then began searching online for things to do in the area to explore Lake Tahoe and found Emerald Bay State Park & Rubicon Point Light. So, we packed a lunch and set out to sightsee & explore!
Twenty minutes later we arrived at Emerald Bay State Park only to find the Visitor Center closed. (Grrr… their website did NOT state they were closed.) We did pull over at the overlook points to get a beautiful scenic view. The water is so blue… it almost just fades into the sky. Just gorgeous!
Photos from Emerald Bay lookout points:
We then traveled another 5 minutes to Rubicon Point Light only to be disappointed again. This road was also closed to the trailhead, and everything was snow packed still.
We decided to head back to the campground and realized all the beaches along the way also had road closures. I guess this area also got hammered this winter and the snow just hasn’t melted yet. Man, this year’s excessive snowfall sure has screwed up our plans on this second half of the trip!
We made it back to the campground and visited with the front desk lady to see if she had any advice for us to explore this area. She mentioned the mini golf course just 5 minutes away and Cave Rock. We thought those were fun ideas, well except for Jaycie. She’s not a mini golf fan. We decided to leave Jaycie at home (to work on her math homework) while Jason, Jett, and I all played mini golf. It was a fun and long course – 28-hole course to be exact! And the holes were very creative with moving parts.
Jason had a stellar game and ended up with 3 hole-in-ones! Jett got 1 hole-in-one, and I kept a clean game with lots of 2s and 3s. It was a fun time!
We then headed back to the camper to pick up Jaycie and we headed out to Cave Rock to see what that was all about. Turns out it is a long tunnel through the rock – 1 natural tunnel and 1 man made tunnel.
We went through it and then stopped to explore at Cave Rock State Park… which was small but had a beach and lots of fun boulders to climb on. And thankfully, all the snow had melted since it was lower in elevation.
We climbed around and enjoyed the views until we decided it was dinner time!
This is when the story takes a bad turn…
We had decided on a seafood restaurant on the water. Jason was dropping off Jett and I at the door to get our name on the list and somehow Jett slammed his right ring finger in the car door… and it shut all the way! I couldn’t see anything since I was on the passenger side of the truck, but his blood curdling scream told me something was definitely wrong! My adrenaline kicked in and I sprinted around the car. By that time Jett had opened the door and got his finger out and was screaming at it with blood everywhere. I saw his fingertip hanging off and I immediately grabbed it and applied pressure. We somehow got back in the car, and he rod between my legs laying on me while I held his finger together above his heart. Jason frantically gave me some napkins and mapped his GPS to nearest hospital, which was thankfully only 8 minutes away! (Thank you, Lord!)
Jett was in a lot of pain and so I had him do breathing exercises with me. I didn’t want him to pass out, and honestly, I didn’t want to pass out either. So why we were doing breathing exercises, poor Jaycie was crying (and praying!), and Jason called ahead at the ER to warn them what we were coming in with!
Jason whipped into the ER entrance, and I pulled Jett out while still holding his finger up. I had my left arm under his armpit and grabbing his chest and my right hand was still applying pressure to his fingertip holding it together and minimizing his blood loss. We walked in like that, and they asked me 3 questions: his birthday, name, & allergies. I quickly answered and they had a bracelet printed and on his arm within 2 minutes. Then a nurse came and took my hand off his finger and they immediately wrapped it with gauze and sticky blue wrap tape. Then we followed her into a trauma bay bed with curtain walls. Jett carefully climbed in the bed and both of our adrenaline started to subside. We made it… thank you Lord!
Meanwhile Jason had parked the truck, left Jaycie in the truck to text all our prayer warriors to start praying, and came in to join us for triage. Since my hand was still bloody, he took over the paperwork and worked to get all of that filled out with our insurance card, etc.
This is when the heavy pain set in…
Jett started moaning which turned into wailing. I kept doing the breathing exercises with him and told him to just breathe through the pain. He did so good! Jason had retrieved the doctor & nurse and they decided to do a nerve block. Within 5 minutes they had injected a nerve block at the base of his knuckle on both sides. And within 10 minutes his finger was numb. Jett could finally breathe and start to relax. He was so upset with himself… he was more upset about missing the Hot Air Balloon ride the next morning than anything. And he kept apologizing to us. I reassured him that fluke accidents like this happen and its okay. And told him how proud I was of his bravery and for keeping it together!
He decided to watch some Dude Perfect videos to take his mind off of it and pass the time.
The doctor came and checked on us 20 minutes after to confirm the nerve block had set in. Then he ordered an X-ray. The Xray tech wheeled in a mobile X-Ray machine over and took X-rays of his finger. He did great!
And at this point, Jason decided to take Jaycie back to our camper (just 5 minutes away) and start on dinner and finish grading her math homework.
After 30 minutes or so the doctor came back and confirmed his fingertip bone was fractured. Which means Jett will need to wear a finger splint for at least 4 weeks and take 7 days’ worth of antibiotics to ensure no infection reaches his bone. Bummer!
The doctor then was ready to assess his finger, at this point he still hadn’t seen it. He undressed the gauze and carefully inspected it. I will spare you the gory photos, don’t worry! (But if you do like to look at that stuff, text me… it’s gnarly looking!) The laceration was on the top side of the finger and went from one side, underneath the fingernail, all the way to the other side. Only the backside of tissue and skin was attached. The fingernail was dangling, and the bright white nail bed was sticking up. Like I said… gnarly! To my surprise, Jett wanted to see it, so he looked at it, too!
After his assessment, the doctor ordered the nurse to irrigate it with saline solution and set up a sewing kit for him which she promptly did. He then told us the plan and said it was a fairly straight forward fix. No surgery needed! (Thank you, Lord!). So, he started by cutting the few strands that the nail was hanging on by, removed the nail, and then poked a hole in the center of the nail using a needle. He then carefully stitched up the lacerations, I think 5 stitches total, using absorbable stitches. He then used the fingernail to carefully tuck back in his nail bed and proceeded to glue the base of the nail to his skin to hold it in place. He said the nail would fall off in about a week, but that for now the nail will help protect the nail bed and allow it to re-attach internally. Pretty cool! The hole he punctured in the top of the nail was to also aid in drainage and to keep him from developing a hematoma.
The nurse then bandaged it up and taped the finger splint on.
She then went over the medications with me and gave him his first dose of antibiotics. The rest was being called in at the local CVS pharmacy for us to pick up in the morning. And the crazy thing was, the nurse said we should be able to proceed with our hot air balloon ride tomorrow morning – no problem! Jett was absolutely THRILLED to hear this news and it brought a smile to his face! At this point Jason arrived back at the hospital to pick us up.
All in all, we were only in the ER for about 3 hours! And this was during shift change!!! Amazing!! The Barton Memorial Hospital staff was not only efficient, but kind, knowledgeable, and skilled! I cannot tell you how thankful I am that we were only 8 minutes from this amazing hospital. It’s kind of scary to think what if this happened in one of the small towns in Southern Utah, we’ve been in for the last 3 weeks!? Or at Death Valley NP or Great Basin NP where we are hours from the nearest small town. All I can say is, “Thank you, Lord!”
When we arrived back to the camper it was about 8pm. Jason got started on making Jett and I grilled cheese sandwiches while I helped Jett shower so he could keep his right hand dry. After dinner, I gave Jett the medications as instructed, and he brushed his teeth. We then tucked the kiddos in tight to dream about hot air ballooning. We were in bed by 10:30pm which is pretty good considering! And set that 4:00am alarm again.
5/13/23: Jason and I neither slept well. We were both worried about Jett and missing our early 4:00am alarm. But eventually our alarm went off and this time I woke up to a text from our pilot. He texted, “Unfortunately we are going to have to CANCEL our flight due to wind speed and direction during our flight time. We must always put safety first.” Bummer AGAIN! I still got out of bed knowing Jett needed another dose of medication at 4:00am. I went into the living room and flipped on a light. I hear a thud and Jett came out of his bunk room celebrating with his arms in the air. In that moment, I quickly realized that he was obviously not in pain and was celebrating… thinking we were going ballooning. I sadly had to break the news to him, and his face fell. He was SO looking forward to riding in a Hot Air Balloon! I told him it just wasn’t meant to be this time and we’ll find another time/place to do it. I gave him his medication and we all tried to go back to sleep for a couple more hours.
We had a typical travel day morning routine, except for helping Jett do just about everything. Being one handed is quite difficult, especially when it’s your dominant hand! We had one last fiasco with CVS pharmacy this morning trying to get his meds. Even though their answering service stated they open at 9am, they didn’t open until 10am on Saturdays. We picked up donuts while we waited, which brought Jett’s sprits up a little! (Everyone knows that donuts fix everything! J).
We then got the meds and left Lake Tahoe in our dust heading north to Redding, CA.
Even though Lake Tahoe didn’t go as planned, we still made some memories, enjoyed God’s beauty, and praised Him in our storm! God is so good… all the time!
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