At this point, everyone in the class was probably like, where the fuck is Haley? Now you see her, now you don’t. Well, my friends, you know what happened.
When I woke up on Sunday, I at least knew that things would be getting better soon, but I still had very, very bad shingles. The rest of the class had gone to Saguaro National Park to hike, but I, obviously, was not capable.
Honestly, this was pretty hard for me. If you know me, I love the outdoors, and I also have a hard time taking any capacity of a break, even with shingles. In my mind, I hoped that somehow I could get better in a day, but my body denied me that, and I had to adjust not only what I expected from each day but what I expected and wished for from the trip in general. I’d have to rest. And so it would have to be.
So, instead of going on a hike at Saguaro National Park, Eric, Harvey and I went to the Desert Museum together since we had missed it the afternoon before. Honestly, this was one of the highlights of my trip – despite the pain, it wasn’t too bad to get wheeled around a beautiful botanical garden.
We had originally planned to head to the park behind the rest of the group, but Tanner had the keys, so instead, we got an Uber to the museum, and let me tell you, Mr. Uber dri-vér probably made the whole thing worth it. His name was Steven. Great guy, honestly.
At the museum, Eric wheeled me around and I sat half engulfed in pain enjoying the scenery. We spent some time in the hummingbird pit, as well as some time in the bird cave. I have a special and loving connection to my aviary friends, and I felt comforted with their presence in my pain.
The three of us spent a good chunk of time at the Stingray touch exhibit, which was my personal favorite part of the entire excursion. Imagine this: crippled me, Harvey, and Eric just pettin stingrays for like 20 minutes. It was pretty wholesome and wonderful, although Harvey’s watch stopped working because he put it in the water. I think that was the universe’s way of metaphorically saying that the experience was so incredible it could make time stop.
When we were done at the Desert Museum, I was in a lot of pain and got kind of sad because I had shingles and that sucked. Luckily, I had called the Health Center (shout out) to get advice about how to manage the pain, and the nice nurse told me to down ibu and Tylenol til I felt better. So I did, roughly 15 of them. And from that afternoon knitting at the pool on, I was on the road to recovery.
You gotta love those stingrays, especially the ones that offer you their bellies to pet. Worth the price of a Timex watch to experience it again. Glad I got the chance to visit the D.M this time around. The company was great.