Greetings from Land

Lots to update since it's been 18 days -

Remainder of cruise was good.  J. and I enjoyed a nice 'beach day' excursion after I'd had those couple more days of rest referred to in the last post.  Shortly after that, my body broke out in a hive-like rash - pretty much head to toe but the itchiest parts were my back.  Could have been sun-exposure related - Mom always got sun poisoning so perhaps I'm in that realm now?  Could have been a reaction to Tamiflu, though 'limit sun exposure' was certainly not mentioned.

Who knows - but it resulted in me being super concerned about going out in the sun much - so we agreed to have me cancel my excursions.  You had to cancel 48 hours in advance or pay full price and I honestly couldn't bring myself to let all those expenses 'ride' and feel horribly badly about it if I ended up not feeling up to going.

J. was super worried this would be the vacation from hell in my memory - but it wasn't.  Lovely days of reading a lot, sitting on the balcony watching the port action and/or the expansive ocean.  I enjoyed silly movies I would have otherwise never watched and chilled in our cabin our on Deck 8 most of the time.  J. took all the planned excursions and did a fantastic job posting in detail about each one.

We made it home - first off the ship, actually - offered that option for some strange reason - we think it might have been because of an issue we had with the colored tags for disembarkation.  Told we could get the 'yellows' to be first off only when J. got up early to trek down for the tags at 6AM, he was told 'no, you can't have those - you aren't platinum plus level'.  He made an issue of what he was told vs. reality so they gave him the precious yellow tags.  But then called the day before and offered an option of taking our own bags down to 'Q' (restaurant) at 6:30AM on Sunday morning and we'd get off the ship.

We did that - and quickly realized that the other folks doing the same had all been quarantined within the past recent days for stomach flu - turns out Immigration requires passengers who have been quarantined to disembark separately from all other cruise ship guests.  So we had thus been exposed to the stomach flu.  Great.

We managed our bags ourselves - no small feat given the distance and rambling route we took off the ship.  Immigration folks greeted us warmly and we quickly made it through.  Then trekked all the way back to where we would have been had we been able to disembark from a different part of the ship - got a cab.  Told the driver "Long Beach Airport".  Ever-connected J. realized about 20 minutes into the ride that we weren't headed to Long Beach - he asked the driver 'Sir, where are you taking us?'.  "LAX".  Um, no.  So $150 cab ride later (no, we didn't pay that and the driver made it very clear we should 'ignore the meter'.  Yep, we sure are) we were at Long Beach.  Could have made a much earlier flight but the wrong airport issue resulted in us being able to make the flight with no guarantee our bags would do the same.  So we opted to just stick with our original flight which was shortly after noon.

I lived in So. Cal a long time - and I had never, ever flown out of Long Beach.  LAX, Orange, Ontario?  All yes. But Long Beach?  Never even really knew it existed - but it is a lovely airport.  We found a cafe, plugged in our devices, connected to free WiFi and spent the morning catching up on stuff we'd missed.  My phone hadn't worked or been connected to WiFi in 14+ days so it had a lot of emails to ping about for 3 hours.

We arrived in Tracy (including picking up Chloe) just after 3PM.  Always lovely to be home.  H. did a great job - house was reasonably tidy and we feel confident there were no shenanigans.  No neighbors have complained.  That's a good sign.

Neighbors

Even confined to my cabin, there's always things to see.  The port is a bustling business with lots of cranes moving lots of huge crates on and off ships.  And shortly after one container ship left and another pulled in, we were joined by another cruise ship - which is not a line I've ever heard of and I think it might be from Europe?  TUI Cruises.  Just went to their website - Germany.  Definitely from Germany.

I feel a wee bit better this morning.  I ordered room service breakfast only wasn't sure what I wanted.  Over ordered and haven't eaten much.  My skin still hurts but is improved and as long as I dose myself with Tylenol every four hours, I stay fever free for the most part.  (I have no thermometer so no idea how hot I'm getting - but I know it's hot.  I have had chills only a few times in my life and this has been a super 'chills' illness, so far).

J. headed into port to do a Hop On/Hop Off bus tour.  He started the morning with his 'usual' 1.25 mile walk around the walking deck - he amazes me!

Our cabin steward hasn't been here yet but as soon as he arrives and makes up the room, I'm going to go back to bed.  Sleep is the best medicine at this point.

Tomorrow, we go through the Panama Canal and the next day is an at sea day - so I will have two additional days to just rest and take it easy.  Hopefully I'll be good as new by Friday and still have a full week of cruising.

I think we've agreed to cancel the September Alaska cruise.  We don't want to give up the 'free cruise' certificate I got on my trip to Atlantis Reno in January - BUT we will be in our brand new house in a new city for only a month or two at that point - and I'm not sure I want to pack up and cruise again.  I'd like to get settled in the house, get the pets into their new location and new routine - and enjoy just being retired and getting organized.

We haven't cancelled yet and we have time....so we'll see.

I am pretty sure I will earn another cruise certificate this year and we can plan to cruise in Fall, 2020.

Type A Flu

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck - my skin hurt.  Every joint hurt.  Huge headache.  Cough continuing with the added muscle pain from 24+ hours of coughing.  It was a horribly long night and I didn't sleep much.

After careful consideration, I went to the infirmary this evening.  It's expensive - but we will receive itemized bills that we can submit to our insurance carrier with our credit card statement confirming we paid out of pocket.  I have no idea how much it will be - I know the 'consult' with a doctor was $149 and meds are on top of that.  They did a nose swab to test for flu - the nurse gave me two tissues and warned 'your brain won't know how to handle it.  You'll feel like you want to sneeze, cough and cry all at the same time.'  I did a little of all three.  It was uncomfortable but also very quick, thank goodness.  5 minutes later, the doctor came in with the 'gauge' and said 'very positive for Influenza Type A'.  Great.

I am quarantined to my cabin for at least the next 24 hours - and the great news about that is I will get free room service - 24 hours they will bring me anything I want with no service charges!

(I don't feel much like eating so...I will order lightly - but it will be nice because J. is going on an excursion in the morning and he won't be around to help me.  I will be miserable all alone.  But I don't want him to miss the excursion we paid for).

I felt like crap most of last week - but willed myself to 'just get to the ship.  Just get there'.  I think it was sort of 'pre-flu' - and once we were onboard, BOOM!  I succumbed.

Here's hoping Tamiflu does the trick - I hope to wake up feeling a little better tomorrow and will be super glad.  There is no worse feeling than the aches that come with flu.  My skin hurts.  I'm hot/cold constantly.

They put J. on a prophylactic dose of Tamiflu as well - because we are in 'close quarters'.  He's had a flu shot - I have not.  I won't ever skip a flu shot again.  I pinky swear.