Day 8: Sick, sick, sick

If you're going to be sick and have to lie around all day anyway, you might as well have to lie around by the beach and enjoy the view, right? On Tuesday, we didn't have many real plans for the day besides relaxing, meeting up with my sister Heidi and her family (who were living in Laie, which is why we came to Hawaii in the first place!) and visiting. It's a good thing, too, because I was really pretty useless between the constant crazy coughing fits and the constant running to the toilet. So the bad news was that I pretty much laid around and read my book all day. The good news was--I laid around and read my book in front of a phenomenal 7th floor balcony view of the ocean! (That photo up at the top there--yeah, that was what we saw from our bed!) With my parents and little brother, we had booked a 3 bedroom penthouse condo with two walls of each floor devoted to sliding glass doors that could open all the way up, leaving you very much one with the sea. It was beautiful! The furnishings were really amazing also. We scored the master bedroom (mostly because, ironically, the master bedroom had a shared bath and my dad wanted the bedroom with its own bathroom) which had the ocean view described above. My little brother got a room with an amazing mountain view and this little alcove looking out over it (the owner calls it the "zen den" but we called it "the Sultan bed.") His room was all decked out in rich Indian reds with exotic accents. My parents' room was decorated as the surfing room, with a surf board headboard, a grass skirt bedskirt, and a surfing mural on the wall (I guess that room was designed to be the kiddie room...) The whole place was super nice and had all these fun little touches like plates painted to look like fish. The price was very reasonable split 3 ways (Punaluu is a quiet small little place, and it's MUCH cheaper than Honolulu!) We LOVED it, and while I didn't enjoy being sick, at least I could enjoy the ambiance while I hacked up a lung. Speaking of hacking up a lung, at some time during this day, my tailbone started hurting. A LOT. I think that I coughed so hard that I sprained it or bruised it or cracked it...or something! Everyone laughed at me, saying it was impossible to crack your tailbone by coughing. I agree it sounds ridiculous...and yet, the fact was that my tailbone felt exactly like if I had broken it. It hurt to sit, especially on soft chairs, and it REALLY hurt whenever I coughed. Which was often. I still don't know exactly what caused that, but I actually still suffer a bit of the consequences. My tailbone is still a bit tender and starts to hurt if I sit for too long. Not nearly as much, of course, but still...

Anyways, Heidi brought her kids over, and everyone wanted to go swim in the ocean. I came out and just walked along the shore while everyone else swam for a few minutes. My mom went grocery shopping and we grilled some steaks for dinner, which we ate at the table overlooking the beach--awesome!