The "I Got To Get This Off My Chest" Story

It was an ordinary day. Final full day on the ship. A day at sea. A wasted day. I am going nuts looking at the walls in the room. My illness, whatever it may be, has gotten the best of me. Don't feel like eating, talking, watching TV (so sick of the same couple of channels trying to sell jewelry), or worst of all, packing to go home. All I can do is cough, and then cough again. Oh yeah, did I mention cough. My chest, lungs, stomach and everything else hurts. Carol went to lunch with Jerry and Just Sue. She said she would bring me some fruit back for lunch. Carol has finally recovered from her bout with the same illness. She missed three days of vacation in bed. She did manage to get out of bed and prop herself up against the stateroom balcony wall so she could see the Panama Canal locks. Wasn't much in the mood to do that, but that was the purpose of the trip so she didn't want to miss it. There are so many spots on this ship that everyone touches and can pass disease on to the next person. No matter how much hand sanitizer they shoot on your hands, you still touch areas touched by someone else. And ..... we touched the wrong areas this vacation!! In the mid-1990s we took a cruise and afterward decided that it may be our last. We enjoy the beach and the only beach time you usually get on a cruise may be a few hours one day or another, and the rest of the time is spent in transportation and on the ship. OK if you enjoy riding and living on a ship and if you like gambling and eating your life away, but we don't enjoy that lifestyle. Last year we discussed with our traveling companions Jerry and Just Sue what we should do for this year and we all agreed on a Panama Canal crossing. And about the only way we could do it was on a cruise ship. A small cruise ship, since the large mega-size ships can't go through the canal. At least not until it is made wider. So, we decided we would take another cruise. Well, here I am, laying in bed wondering if I have Legionnaire's Disease or some other deadly sickness. Sure feels like it. Ah, Carol has returned with my fruit. We sit as I try to get something in my stomach. We both have decided that this probably will be the last cruise we take. At least in this lifetime! Too many days await us when we can be sitting in a beach chair under an umbrella, white sand between our toes, sipping a cool drink, listening to the waves break, reading a good book, and chillin'. Don't need to be penned up in a tiny room on a floating city with 3,000 other people chancing that one of them will give us some hideous sickness and ruin our vacation. So there!!! Guess you can see how much I enjoyed my latest vacation. GLAD IT'S OVER!! But, to top that off, as we flew into Philadelphia there was a bad storm with lightning that lit up the inside of the plane. "Can lightning strike the plane?" someone asked. Gee, I hope not. And, after we did land, we had to sit in the plane until the storm was over since the ground crew is not allowed to be outside in a lightning storm. Fitting ending to our cruise trip!! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - Its been over two weeks since we returned and I just visited my family doctor for the second time. Put me on a nasal spray and a special prescription cough drop to try and stop my coughing that is making my chest cavity extremely sore. Also had to go and have a chest X-ray to make sure I don't have pneumonia. This is after I took antibiotics for a week and used a codeine cough syrup. Got to get better soon!!