I wasn't out of it for more than a minute or two, as far as I know. Someone put some smelling salts under my nose, and... I came out of it.

It still took a few minutes for me to really be aware of what was going on around me, I guess that shocked me more than I had expected.

I leaned against mom, listening to Dr. Sandridge as she explained in more detail while a nurse lurked nearby watching me. Maybe the doctor just wanted to play it safe and prevent any repeats. Either that, or have a nurse immediately available if something did happen again.

Dr. Sandridge actually showed us Dr. Brandt's notes about my projected development of my reproductive organs, etc. The notes were pretty clear, she had expected the development to take anywhere from nine to twelve months, perhaps longer, not finish in less than five!

I know I had eaten some food just a little while earlier, but now, I was rather queasy, queasy enough that I had to get up suddenly, asking where to find a washroom. Rather than give me directions, the nurse led me out of the room and down a couple of halls, then pointed at a door.

I ran into the washroom, barely taking the time to close and lock the door behind me before I was over the toilet, spewing up my meal.

Gak! That taste is soooo not nice. I had to use a paper cup from a dispenser to rinse out my mouth several times. Ick!

A quick wash of my hands and lower face, and a brief run under one of those automatic dryers places have instead of paper towel were needed before I felt able to open the door and step out into the hallway. Of course, that same nurse was standing there waiting for me.

They must be worried about me if they want me to have a nurse stay that close. The visit will be over soon, then I will be free of this weird stuff.

Well, maybe not free of ALL the weird stuff. Like what's happening to my body, that is weird to me, I'm just glad it wasn't cancer.

Speaking of cancer, I've been keeping in contact with little Shelly DeAngelo. She had another chemo treatment last Friday afternoon. As usual after one of those treatments, she was sick off and on for the next thirty-six hours or so. Her mom keeps me up to date on her.

After returning to the doctor's office and a few more minutes of chat, we were finally on out way out of the medical center building. As we settled into the RV, buckling ourselves in for the ride back to the fairgrounds, I sent little Shelly a text with lots of love and huggles.

We were halfway back to the fairgrounds when her mom sent a text back, thanking me for brightening her little girl's day.

The rest of that Tuesday while the fair was closed, we spent relaxing in lawn chairs as the two guys fired up the grills again.

Yep, as usual when they get going, I stuff myself. Hey, what can you expect a growing and very active girl to do when there's good food!

Three big sausages, plus a venison steak on a bun, four cobs of corn, two potatoes with sour cream and a 20 oz. paper cup of orange juice. They still had some of the kit needed for the ice cream, so I couldn't resist two bowls of strawberry ice cream once it was being served.

To say that I was stuffed would be rather polite. I lazed in the lawn chairs for nearly two hours before waddling back to our RV for the night.

Wednesday morning, after a quick meal of breakfast sausages, eggs over hard and hash browns, we headed into San Bernardino. We had decided while chatting with other folks from our site that we would go to the San Bernardino County Museum, take a break at some point for lunch and to relax, then spend a fair bit of the afternoon in a public swimming pool before returning to the fairgrounds.

We reached the county museum just after 9:30 AM, then spent nearly three hours wandering around in there, checking out all the exhibits, looking at the animals, including almost an hour spent looking at all the birds on the upper level of the building. It was quite fun.

We exited the museum just before 12:15 PM, then headed for Alfredo's Pizza and Pasta, a recommendation from one of the fairgrounds' guys.

The restaurant was nice, we nearly filled the place as we filed in just after 12:30 PM. A few folks had to wait for seating to become available. Mom, dad, Allison and I split an extra large pizza with deluxe on one side, the other side deluxe plus anchovies and hot peppers.

Mom and dad shared the basic deluxe half while Allison and I scarfed down the deluxe plus half of the big pizza.

A quick run to the washroom afterward turned into a twenty minute wait as everyone decided they needed to take care of that right then.

We ended up wandering into a nice park not far away, then found a spot with a few picnic tables and just relaxed for about an hour.

Dad had set a little alarm on his cell, so we were warned that we needed to get up and moving if we wanted to get to the pool on time. We had been thinking about going to the CSUSB facility, but decided instead to go to the Jerry Lewis Family Swim Center.

We arrived a few minutes early, which gave us time to get what we needed from the vehicles, then we joined the line-up and waited. The wait wasn't too long, perhaps five or ten minutes. I noticed several of our folks fiddling around with cell phones, games, who knows?

Then we were allowed to enter, and the people swarmed into the facility like bees defending a hive. Ow! I grimaced as a girl a bit older than me, in her rush to get in to change, bumped me into the wall about ten feet from the changing room doors, while also knocking another girl down.

Several people gave the girl who did the bumping and knocking down a brief tongue lashing, not that I think it made any difference. That bitch had managed to be one of the first into the changing rooms and was openly staring at herself in a fairly big hand mirror.

We all piled into the showers, it's fairly standard practice nowadays to shower before you enter a pool and again after you leave it.

Once we were all ready, we padded out to the pool side, then several of us found a spot near one end and slipped into the pool.

I swear, I have no idea how the time flew by so fast, but we all heard the main lifeguard's order to clear the pool when the session ended.

As I said, we had quick showers again, this time to rinse out the chlorine and other chemicals, then towelled off and headed outside.

A nice quiet evening relaxing by the big grills and stuffing ourselves was the perfect complement to our wandering around the city that day. In the distance, we could hear the monster trucks doing a round or two on their track, they're one of the popular attractions here.

Thursday morning, it was back to the grind of putting on the shows. I guess the two day break was good, we were all raring to go!

As I've said before, the lions and elephants were doing three shows a day each, those of us sharing the second big tent two shows a day.

Allison and I usually had our first show in the late morning, shortly before what would be many people's normal lunch hour.

We had the acrobats plus the jugglers doing their act before us, with Jackson Pelt's bike stunts usually following us.

The thrill of being up on the top, doing the various stunts, was always high, but never more so than when we heard the applause. Oh, yeah, the act has changed a fair bit since Allison came along, but being able to do the jump-overs and the dancing is worth all the extra effort.

Things proceeded quite well for us for the next few days, but that changed in a heartbeat during our Sunday afternoon performance.

Everything about that particular performance was perfect until just after I did the jump over Allison and turned to face her again. She did a cartwheel, then twisted into a back flip and that is where everything turned hairier than a mountain gorilla's body! Oh, geez, was I scared!

Allison seemed to land normally, then slipped and for the briefest of moments, as I stretched my hand out to grasp hers, I thought she would fall. She latched onto my hand like a life preserver appearing in a major gale out of nowhere, and wobbled for a few seconds before stabilizing.

Both of us heard the gasps as she wobbled back and forth on that narrow rope, then the sighs of relief as she regained her balance.

We continued with the act as if things like that were everyday events, and in some ways, they are to those of us up on the tightropes. Falls are a common enough occurrence that the safety net was always in place whenever we were up there, just in case we DID fall off the rope.

Even more so when you consider that Allison and I are both minors, our parents would prefer that we be injured as little as possible.

We smiled out at the audience as we accepted the applause at the end of the performance, then briefly curtseyed and descended the ladders.

The fair ended on Monday evening with no further incidents, and the task of dismantling everything that belongs to us started.

We would be going most of the way across the country again, this time to the Carroll County Fair in Kentucky, which starts on Friday.