A Rude Return Home

This week's blog was supposed to be about our recent cruise to the Caribbean (Suddenly, I've become a Travel Blogger?) But something happened when we returned home that I feel is more important. The flu.

We hear about the flu all the time, it's in the news every fall. And we usually just shrug and go about our business; it's something we all have to live with, apparently. It's just a fact of life.

But the flu is nothing to sneeze about.

It put my husband in the hospital for 2 days.

It all started on Friday, Nov 18th. The end of our cruise to the Caribbean. As soon as my hubby stepped off the ship, he started coughing. We thought it was his hay fever, which means his post-nasal drip was causing his coughing. By the time we got home about noon, he was coughing pretty non-stop, so we called the doctor.

They assumed it was his post-nasal drip, for which they had treated him all during October, and ordered a stronger nasal spray and a stronger decongestant.

Hubby coughed all night long, didn't get any sleep. In the morning (Saturday), he complained that the meds weren't working. He needed my help getting off the sofa to go to the bathroom. This was concerning, so I called the doctor's answering service to ask what we should do.

The next I knew, he had fallen onto the sofa, with his head on the seat and his knees on the floor. He wasn't hurt, but he couldn't get up. I couldn't get him up. So I called for an ambulance. The fire truck arrived first, of course, and the 2 men who came helped him get seated on the sofa while I answered questions for the woman who had come. Then the ambulance arrived, and the paramedics evaluated him.

Suddenly, "Okay, we're going to take him in now", and they were wheeling him out the door. I had to ask where they were taking him, hoping it was South Lake Hospital, because I knew where that was. That was the place. I took a deep breath, trying to settle my nerves, gathered what I needed, and headed out.

What I learned in short order when I got to the Emergency Room was that he had a fever of 104, his pulse was rapid, his breathing was rapid, he was dehydrated, his blood oxygen was low and he was low on potassium. I watched as they attached his IV port (which they had put in before I got there) to 2-3 bags of saline, a bag of tylenol and one of potassium. They swabbed his nasals to test for a variety of viruses. They x-rayed his chest. They hooked him up to a bi-pac (similar to but different from a c-pac) to help his breathing. They sent him for a catscan and sent him upstairs to be admitted.

All because of the flu.

Little did I know at the time, but I was fighting the flu, too. When I got up on Sunday, I was feverish, headachy, and coughing. I didn't want to wind up as sick as he was, so I needed to get on that tamiflu you hear about, and do it fast. How to do that? I drove myself to the only urgent care location I knew, and they weren't open on Sundays (which deserves its own rant, but not today). So I drove to the South Lake Emergency Room. They swabbed my nose and took my temperature, gave me some tylenol and confirmed I had the flu. I got prescriptions for tamiflu and a strong decongestant and was sent home. I took my first dosages and climbed into bed, with an alarm set to wake me up when it was time to take more pills.

Thankfully, we are both getting better. Hubby is home, still feeling weak and foggy-headed. I occasionally cough and can't exert myself much, but I've lost the headache and the fever. I ordered Thanksgiving dinner and went to pick it up yesterday, and that was almost too much for me. But at least I won't have to cook.

We are thankful we are managing to get through this illness.

But please, flu is not just a fact of life; it's a dangerous fact of life. Take care of yourselves.

Monday, 8/15 - Getting Home, Part 2

I don't think either of us got any sleep. The benches were made of cold, hard rock, and every time I started to doze off, somebody would walk by, and either their heels clattered on the floor, or the wheels on their suitcases were insanely loud. 

Sometime around 4, we got up and went to find the Canadian TSA place, which opened about 5, so we spent some time standing in line in order to stand in line. We got through that, and found our new gate. Hubby said he would go and try to find something for us to eat. I noticed a restaurant right across the hall was opening, and I asked if they accepted food vouchers, and they said yes. So we got a decent breakfast, although it took more than the $40 in vouchers.

Our first flight of the day was to Boston. I think it was pretty uneventful, but I was trying to doze, so a dozen screaming monkeys probably would have struck me as uneventful.

I don't remember much about the airport in Boston, except we were changing airlines. We had to walk all the way out of one terminal, through another long terminal, and into a 3rd terminal to get to our gate. I felt like we were doing a marathon, except we didn't have to run. Walk fast, yes, but not run.

We finally got on the plane to take us to Orlando. Here, too, I was trying to sleep, or at least relax, so I really don't remember much about it except that it seemed long.

Once we got back to Orlando, and got our luggage, then we had to wait for the shuttle to our parking lot. All this time, I was worried they would try to charge us for another day of parking, because I had said we would pick up our car at 1 am that day, and here it was, late afternoon. But nobody said a word about it, so we got in our car and drove home, picking up some burgers on our way home.

It took me 2 days to recover from this last 'adventure' of this particular cruise. Now, as you read this blog, I am finishing up another cruise. No long-distance flying required this time! The ship starts and ends in Port Canaveral, about 1 1/2 hours from home. Wish us luck.

Sunday, 8/14 - The Long Way Home

It was only a hop across the pond. How exhausting could it be? Unfortunately, it got complicated.

We got up and had a quick breakfast, then went down to claim our luggage and get on the bus to take us to the airport. It was not the slickest conversion from ship to bus that we've ever had; the people herding the passengers onto the buses had to ask us twice what airline we were taking so as to get us on the right bus. Then I think it was a 2 1/2 hr drive from Southampton to Heathrow. The airport is nearly as confusing as the one at Barcelona, and their version of TSA nearly came to loggerheads with hubby, but eventually we got through that and found our gate. For some reason, even though we were sitting next to each other on the plane, hubby and I were in different groups for boarding. So we both had to wait until the latter group was called, because I can't lift my overnight bag into the overhead bins. I'm just too short, and my shoulders no longer will lift that high.

The flight from Heathrow to Montreal was pretty uneventful. I was looking forward to actually getting home that night, even though that meant being up and awake for about 24 hours. Once we got to Montreal, we had to take our overnight bags and go through US customs before we could find our gate for the flight to Orlando. Part of that involved riding up an escalator. Here I was, juggling 3 bottles of water, a cpac case and an overnight bag, and when I lost my balance on the escalator, I just kept tumbling down to the bottom. A nice man in a uniform (not a security uniform) came over and helped me up, made sure I was okay. I had lost a shoe, which had ridden up the escalator without me. Hubby went up the escalator to claim my shoe. The uniformed man showed me where the elevator was, and then rode up with me to make sure I was okay. I was shaken a bit, but not too badly stirred.

Shortly after that, we arrived at the US TSA outpost, and I had to throw out all 3 bottles of water, because you can't take food or drink past that point. Then came US Customs, and that was even more of a madhouse. Everybody had to get in one big line, but as flight times started approaching, the crowd handlers would call out for people with that destination, and they were rushed to the front of the line so they could make their plane. If they had just had 1 or 2 more customs officers working the booths, that probably wouldn't have been such a big problem.

Eventually, we got through that, and then we found our gate for our flight to Orlando. We were just trying to decide if we had any time to grab something—chips or a drink or something—when they announced our flight was cancelled. We were lead down a couple hallways, and told to go downstairs and claim our luggage. No word on which carousel our luggage would be on, so hubby was wandering around this huge stadium-sized room, trying to figure out where our luggage was. I got to sit on a bench with our 2 overnight cases and 2 cpacs.

People were getting notices on their smart phones of what flight they had been shifted to, but our phones don't work outside the US, so we had to find the counter than handled such things. We happened to stumble on the counter we needed and got in line just before they started hollering at people to go upstairs to the ticket booths. An hour or more later, we were given our tickets for the 2 flights it would take on Monday to get us back to Orlando. We were also given $40 in vouchers for food, and a voucher for a hotel, and they told us what door to go out of to find the shuttle.

We stood outside that door for at least another hour, but the shuttle from our hotel never showed up. We noticed a sign that gave telephone numbers of hotels with shuttles, but a) our phones don't work outside the US, and b) there was no telephone number for the hotel we were assigned.

We went back inside. The airport was shutting down. So we found 2 benches next to other, shoved our luggage between them and tried to get some sleep. It was 11 o'clock or later, and we figured we had to be back by 4 am to catch our first flight. Good night, all.

Saturday, 8/13 - 2nd English Shore Excursion

The Roman Bath at Bath

The next morning, we were set to go see the Roman baths in the town of Bath. There were a lot of groups for this particular excursion. The theater, which was the place where everybody was gathered to get organized for their excursions, was pretty nearly full when we got there. When they started announcing the Bath excursions, I think half the people in the theater got up to go, but since we were part of that big group, and I don't like crowds, I may be a bit biased about that. Hubby and I had to make sure we got the same # pasted to our shirts so we'd be on the same bus.

And then came a long bus ride. I'm thinking about an hour and a half to get from the port to the center of Bath, where the bus dropped us off in a quarter circle 'bus stop' that took up at least half a block and was wide enough for 3 buses side by side.

After we all got off the bus, we were quickly marched down a narrow street of shops to a corner of a large square with benches, hurried diagonally across the square, and around the corner to the door of the Baths. The doorway was packed with people waiting to go in, and our guide had to make sure he handed out the tickets to people who were on his bus. We were given 3 hours to go through the whole thing, and were told that afterwards, the gift shop would let us out 'down the street by those columns'. I couldn't see any doorway down by the columns, but the guide had gotten away before I could ask any more questions.

Once we got in the building, we were given head phones with a keypad to type in the number of the area sign we were standing in front of, and a recorded voice would talk about that particular area of the building. Unfortunately, Hubby decided he couldn't listen to the head phones and take pictures at the same time.

We found ourselves on a balcony that surrounded and overlooked 2 large pools of water, kind of like fountains, but with no splashing displays. Unfortunately, it looked like these pools had not been cleaned out in a long time, the water was a sick green, and had bird feathers and other trash in it. It was not an appealing sight. There were 2 other rooms off this balcony, I think they were called the East Bath and the West Bath, but we didn't go to those. We had a limited time to get through this, and no idea just how big it was.

We walked around the balcony, taking pictures and listening to numbers, then we went downstairs to a museum-like area. Mostly, the museum was about the Romans who used the local hot springs to create the bath house.

Then we went outside again, and found ourselves under the balcony, on the same level as the bath pools. There was a Roman character there, in full costume, and Hubby got my picture standing next to her. I was surprised that the sick green water of the baths did not smell bad. Hot springs often carry dissolved minerals in the water, and that can lead to a 'yucky' smell in the air. It sure does in Yellowstone, when we visited there when I was a kid.

The day was hot; the air in the bath particularly humid. Happily, they had a small refreshment stand in the shade opposite the 2 pools, and they were able to take our credit cards. Hooray! We each got a small container of ice cream and ate it down. It helped cool us down a little, and took the edge off the hunger we were beginning to feel. Then we set off, sure we were nearly at the end of this adventure.

We took a wrong turn, and found ourselves in what looked like a dead-end cavern, while the earphones talked about the Romans using this area as a workout space. After that, I found somebody who worked there and asked, "How do we get out of here?" She put us on the correct path once again. That path took us through more caverns, some with hot water streaming through them, some where the path was elevated above the cavern floor, and you found yourself walking across glass. Or clear plastic. Made me nervous and very happy that the path had walls, though those were clear, too.

Finally, we found a wall full of cubbies, which was where we were suppose to deposit our headphones. Then up a few steps and into the gift shop. We looked around, but we don't buy a lot of souvenirs anymore, so before long, we stepped outside into the street.

I looked for the front door and the bath building. And didn't see it anywhere. Before I could start to panic, or wonder what to do next, someone started yelling in the street, saying things like the country is going to h*ll and I don't remember what all. I do remember thinking, "He sounds like a Trumper." Which didn't make sense, because we were in England, not the US. Hubby moved away from me, and I followed him to the corner, where he started talking to the dustman, who had stopped his work to listen to the yelling.

None of us had any clue what the Yelling Man was on about, but since we had this nice gentleman's attention, I asked how I could get to the front door of the bath house. If I could get there, I could find our way back to the bus stop. Once the dustman realized we were actually looking for a tour bus, he said, just go up this street. Three blocks and we'd be right at the bus stop. So we said thank you and started up the street.

Sure enough, after one block, we came to the square with the benches. We apparently had 15 or 20 minutes before our bus was due back, so we sat on one of the benches, even though it was in the direct, hot sunlight. At least, I sat down, Hubby kept wandering around, trying to give me a heart attack whenever I looked around and couldn't find him right away. But eventually, he came back and we decided to go look for our bus.

When we got to the bus stop, all half a block long and 3 buses wide, it was crowded with people looking for their bus. Happily, as soon as a bus got all its people aboard, it somehow inched its way out of the mess and onto the street and started back for the port. Eventually, our bus was able to jockey its way into the bus stop area, and we started climbing aboard. One couple was a little late getting back, and the tour guide raced down the street to try to find them, but found them at about the square with the benches, so we were able to head out as soon as those 3 got aboard.

Now for the race to get back to the port, and it really felt like we were racing, that we had gotten a late start back for the port. I don't know if the driver was taking a more direct route or what, but buildings I had noted on the way to Bath, I didn't see on the way back to port.

When we got to the port, there was a frenzy of buses all trying to get close enough to the ship to let their passengers off. For its part, the ship had 2 gangways open and were taking people in as fast as they could at both doors, but still there was a long long line for each of them. I had a terrible thought that the ship would suddenly stop letting people get on, and would shut up the gangways and leave us stranded there while it went on its merry way. Luckily, they didn't do that until Hubby and I were aboard. I assume they waited for everybody who was in line to get on.

I'm pretty sure we went in search of food after that, but I'm not sure where we went.