An Aborted Trip to the Zoo

I have a client in Omaha that I visit monthly. Hillary had been wanting to coordinate a visit to the Henry Dorley Zoo with one of my visits. I had a visit last Thursday so used some Holiday Inn points and made reservations at a Holiday Inn for Thursday night with plans to go to the zoo on Friday. She drove up Thursday evening with the grandchildren to meet me.

It worked great. We had two connecting rooms. The hotel was nice and the pool was wonderful. We had a good meal at Red Lobster and spend the rest of the evening at the pool. We all settled down for a good nights sleep so we would be well rested for the next day.

In the morning I ordered everything from room service I thought Mira might possibly eat. Hillary went to down to exercise and I maintained the fort. We went back to the pool for a while, then cleaned up and started packing the room to check out. Hillary was packing and Griffin was playing on the floor. When she went to pick him up he was surrounded by pills and a white plastic pill box. We had no idea what kind of pills or if he had actually consumed any of them. The pill box had apparently been under a chair in the room. Obviously room service had not moved the furniture when they vacuumed. After much deliberation, including calling Children’s Mercy, she decided she had no choice but to take him to the Emergency Room. She spoke with the management at the hotel. They agreed to refund my rewards points and pay for the medical expenses.

She went to Omaha Children’s Hospital. I followed. When I arrived, she was checking in at the ER desk. She then told me she did not have her debit card and guessed she must have left it at the Red Lobster the night before. SOOOO I took Mira and went back to the Red Lobster. The good news was that they did, indeed, have her debit card. The bad news is that they would not give it to me as I did not have any identification. (Which is actually a good thing.) Her debit card has her picture on it and I told them to look at Mira and the picture and they could tell the picture was obviously her mother, but that didn’t work either. So back to the hospital I went.

The doctor was checking Griffin when I arrived. The plan was to do some lab, and EKG and then charcoal to absorb whatever he might have consumed. The pills we had included an antibiotic, lisinopril, potassium, allopurinol, and something else. Given that group of medication, who knows what else might have been in the mix. They planned to keep them 4-6 hours to observe.

We were all hungry by then so I volunteered to go get food and take identification back to the Red Lobster to retrieve the debit card. That time they gave it to me.

Mira was pretty good throughout the ordeal but kept asking when we were going to go to the zoo. I suggested we might be able to go to a park, but that we would need to wait until Griffin was better to go to the zoo. She was fine with that. I went ahead back to Kansas City with her about 3 and she slept from just outside of Omaha until almost to St. Joe. When she awakened, she wanted to know when we were going to the park. I stopped at East Hills in St. Joe and let her play on the toys and stuff outside of Dillard’s. I spent $5 on coin operated rides, but she had a great time and quit worrying about the park.

I took her to Grandma Lana’s while I took my rental car back to the airport and then picked her back up and took her home. We arrived at the house within minutes of Hillary and Griffin.

So the next time we try the Henry Dorley Zoo we will remember to look under all the furniture as soon as we check into the hotel.