The Roaming Two

 

I’m not normally willing to share being ill will family and friends, let alone on the world wide web, but this little story is too good not to share …

For the sake of this post: ‘upchuck’ will refer to vomiting.

Oh boy, I bet you can’t wait to read this post?

… I can see their smiles and I can hear the chuckles from our friends Sandy and Marty.  It was 2006, we were all in Peru and it was just hours before starting the 3.5 day trek on the Inca Trail into magical Machu Picchu.  Sleeping ON the bed IN my mummy sleeping bag, it was in the wee hours in a tiny little hotel room that I became violently ill from food poisoning.  The sleeping bag stayed intact (you try getting out of a mummy bag in one heck of a hurry and see how you do ;)) and Mark became known by Marty as the “Black Cloud”.

Fast forward to January 11, 2016 … the “Black Cloud” makes a return.

I am not sure if it was the farewell wine, Grand Marnier, and chocolate combination.  Or if it was cleaning the bathroom at 11:30pm (all good guests should clean their own bathroom after staying in someone else’s home for 10 days ;)) but this version of the new and improved “Black Cloud 10.9.6” rebooted at 4:45am with a vengeance.

The day before we picked up a rental car to drive from Escondido, California to Los Angeles airport – a 2-hour drive.  The car is filthy and there are stains on the driver’s seat, I am not impressed, but who cares, it is a 2-hour drive and we are off to Malaysia.  If I only I saw the foreshadowing, I wouldn’t even had bothered documenting the stained seat before driving off from the car rental company – or – I wouldn’t have combined white wine, Grand Marnier and chocolate with a side of toxic cleaning chemicals.

The flight to Malaysia is at 11:30am, 3 hours early for check-in, and 2 hour drive from Escondido, California to Los Angeles Airport.  So 4:45am was the perfect time for Black Cloud to return… and the story goes something like this …

4:45am – OMG (oh my Goodness), I jump out of bed and run to the restroom.

Repeat 3 times.

Load the car, pretend nothing has happened, big hugs goodbye to Joan (Chrisitne’s mom) and off we go on the Interstate 15 to Los Angeles.  I feel like garbage and I am starting to wonder how I will endure a 20-hour flight.  Without a cell phone or navigation, Christine is navigating our way to the airport using Google Map screen shots we took before leaving.

I made it roughly one hour.  We are on a 20 lane freeway and suddenly Black Cloud 10.9.6 had an update!  Driving 70mph on the third lane of a 10 lane freeway is not the best time for an update!  The first wave of upchuck surfaces, but I am pleased and pat myself on the back that I can contain it in my mouth while planning my exit plan off the freeway.  2^nd wave comes and there is no more room for the upchuck – I can see the boulevard and I am trying quickly to get there.  Upchuck is now leaking from my mouth and the pants I just pulled out of the washing machine are no longer clean (sorry Joan for wasting that detergent).  Christine grabs a plastic grocery bag to come to my rescue, only, as we all know, those bags are garbage and full of holes – but it was the thought that counts and that is why we are married 23 years.  I pull over to the boulevard and leap out of the vehicle.  As I run around to the back of the car, I see California Highway Patrol vehicle coming up fast behind us – he clearly was not impressed with my driving skills.

As I am standing on the side of the highway upchucking, the police officer comes out of his vehicle …

“what’s wrong”

Well, I am just throwing up … no big deal

“have you been drinking”

Well …no

“get your hands out of your pocket”

Sorry, never thought to take my hands out of my pocket while I am here throwing up all over your boulevard officer

“so what’s wrong”

Not sure, we are on our way to LAX, have a 20 hour flight I am not looking forward to

“hmmm, ok”

Gets in his vehicle, sits there for 5 minutes while I am curled over …. Likely ran the plates, figured out I was a decent fellow and moved on.  A friendly chap, he waved nicely as he drove away in the comfort of his upchuck-free vehicle.

Christine takes over driving … great news, we still have lots of time to make it.

Arrive at LAX and we are checked in…  Thank goodness.  (We did not have any onward travel booked out of Malaysia and heard conflicting stories that we may be prevented from entering Malaysia. Consulate said if we have copies of bank statements showing net worth, we should be fine to enter the country.  We have to sign a document releasing the airline from any responsibility.)

We are in the security area.  There are easily 10 cattle-like rows of people extending for as far as the eye can see.  We are slowly making our way to the x-ray area.  20 minutes go by and we are just about to make it to the area where you take off your bags, shoes, put them in the containers and roll them through the security screening machines.  I feel another “Black Cloud” update approaching.  I tell myself, this cannot happen, not here, not now.

We take off our backpacks, I am feeling very warm.

I take off my shoes, hmmm, this doesn’t feel so good.

Christine goes through the body scan machine – another person goes between us.

My turn now …. And literally as I am being called to come through the body scanner, I feel another brutal update to the ‘Black Cloud”, I rush over for an empty bin behind me and start upchucking into the bin standing in front of the body scanner and standing in front of at least 500 people!!!  It was like you could hear a pin drop … I can see Christine on the other side of security looking at me helplessly.

They stopped the security line behind me, the security folks were looking at me from a distance like I had the plague and no one wanted to come near me.  On the other side of security, Christine is getting whisked to the side with our bags and she is having to provide our Passports to make sure we hadn’t travelled anywhere questionable.  I am dripping wet from sweat and I am responsible for cleaning up my own bin (no problem, I am a Registered Nurse after all) and they eventually let me through the body scanner.

We are allowed to board the plane.

We are in economy class – boy those First Class beds at the front of the plane look like they are worth 3 times the price of my economy ticket.

I have the window seat, Christine the middle and a pleasant and very cute older Japanese lady sits next to her.  (Mental note – when booking a 20-hour flight, think about what side the sun is going to be on, because when you do not feel well, the last thing you want is the intense heat of the sun hitting you for 20 hours – even with the sun shade closed).

We take off – yeah our 1-year adventure throughout South East Asia begins J

My body is aching like crazy, even my toes are sore and dreading the compression stockings I chose to wear for the 20-hour flight.  An hour goes by, my body is aching, I am fidgeting and I do not have any interest in the amazing movie selections (The Martian, Man from UNCLE, The Walk, Star Wars 1,2,3 etc. etc).

Suddenly the stewardess comes to us and says that the lady next to us is very concerned about me and they wanted to know if I was ok.  She asked to move seats.  I am now able to lay out “comfortably” over 2 seats (another benefit of Yoga).

When I packed my backpack, I was cursing my First Aid kit thinking to myself, do we really need all this “stuff” and there I was opening it for the Thermometer, Tylenol to bring down my temperature and rehydration salts – all within the first 4 hours of our trip!

Mental note – You can never be over prepared.

My temperature spikes at 38.7, I am popping Tylenol and I do not eat for the entire duration of the flight.  Sips of an electrolyte drink has become my meal of choice.   The stewardess continually comes by to check my temperature and notify me that they have to advise the pilot that they have a passenger with a high temperature.  I have gone through 3 cooling gel pads and 2 ice packs (all were supposed to last 8 hours each).

We wonder if we will be spending a night in Japan in quarantine.  Thankfully, my temp comes down to 37.7 by the time we land.  We have 50 minutes to catch the connecting flight and we made it.  The final 8 hour journey from Japan to Malaysia was uneventful and we have never been so happy to spend $220 Canadian dollars on a hotel room to get a few hours sleep and lay horizontal.

We stayed at a former Pan Pacific Hotel, so I figured it would be safe to have some water from the tap in the a.m. when I woke up and was totally parched. I am later told, “do not drink tap water!, you may get very ill”… oh boy, what’s a trip to a foreign country without a little upchuck here and there??

Currently just waiting for updated “Black Cloud Version 10.9.7” … but when it IS released, you won’t be hearing about it from me J

Life is an Adventure … and this is just the beginning of this one.

Mark

P.S.  I finished the Inca Trail no problem and the plus was I never had to use the wonderfully maintained and exceptionally clean – NOT – toilets on the Inca trail.  There is a light at the end of every tunnel J