The last you heard from me, just about 2 weeks ago, I was leaving on a weeks cruise to Alaska. Well lets start way at the beginning. About 6 or 8 weeks ago Cindy had problems with a 5 year old root canal. The dentist had to redrill it and gave her some antibiotics. A week later she went back because she had some pain and got different antibiotics. Two and a half weeks before the cruise she started having diarrhea. After several days she went to the doctor who said that there was a virus going around and if she wasn't better after 2 weeks she should come back. RED ALERT! 2 Weeks??? After a few days I told her to get back to the doctor and find out what was wrong. After all we were only a week from cruise time. She ordered some tests on Friday. Test results were supposedly done on Tuesday but not sent to the doctor until Wednesday who of course if off on Wednesdays. So on Thursday we find out that all of the antibiotics had killed all of the good bacteria in Cindys stomach and Clostridum (the worst bad bacteria) took over. She was given another antibiotic and after a few days started to feel better. We got on the boat on Saturday looking forward to a nice cruise after so much illness.

After two days on the boat she lost her appetite again and really crashed early Tuesday morning. We got the ships doctor involved and he stopped the antibiotics. On Wednesday she was worse, had to get morphine and an IV for the pain. We were escorted off the ship in Sitka AK and she was sent to the hospital. They put her on the only other antibiotic that was effective for Clostridum and was the last resort. She was very sick for 3 more days but then her white cell count spiked up again. We had originally hoped to head home on Saturday or Sunday but that never happened. Cindy just wasn't getting much better.

Meanwhile I am stuck in a town of 8000 with no way to get out and all I can do is try to plan our escape. Of course the problem is that since I don't know when Cindy is going to be able to travel I have no idea how to make reservations. I finally figured out that if you make a reservation you have 24 hours or so to pay for it. So every day I made plans to leave. Normally you can fly RT to Seattle from Nashville for $200. Well my plans were for $500-$1100 One Way! Per person! I even went to he airport one day to try to get some mercy and the first price they quoted was $2500 per person. ULP! Between cancelled plans because Cindy couldn't travel and full flights on some connections I had a heck of a time.

Cindy finally started to feel better by Tuesday, finally got the IV out and the doctor agreed that she may be released on Wednesday. When release time came he revealed that he just got the results of one of the tests they did when she arrived and that not only did she now have Clostridum but also the Norovirus. Norovirus is one of those bugs you get on curise ships. I guess that explains why I hadn't been feeling very good for the last few days! My stomach had been rolling around and grumbling for 3 days. I had just thought it was nerves. Before we check out I had to get a refill of the prescription. The only pharmacy in town had only 10 of the pills so they won't last long at 4 per day. Oh yeah - they cost over $20 EACH!! AARRRGGHH!

Cindy was finally released Wednesday afternoon and we were scheduled to leave very early Thursday morning. Final set of tickets "only" cost $650 each. The worst part about leaving Thursday was that the trip was going to be 15 hours long. We had to pick up our luggage in Seattle and recheck it on Southwest. They had 2 earlier flights than our 3PM arrangements. The 1:30 flight was full. The 12:15 flight was probably impossible - we were not getting in until 11:18 and remember we had to get our luggage first since Southwest doesn't have agreements with other airlines. To top it off the dang plane gets in 10 minutes late despite assurances from the pilot that we would dock on time. Cindy gets the wheelchair guy to take her to the Southwest counter while I go for the luggage. After an incredibly long 30 minute wait our luggage comes out first! I rush up to Southwest where the chick at the counter wants to charge us another $250 to change planes. We get her supervisor involved and get ticketed for the 12:15 flight. Now all we have to do is try to get thru the mile long line of security. Fortunately wheelchair passengers have their own line and we get thru 5 minutes before flight time. Then of course as I am trying to push the wheelchair at 10 MPH one of the wheels locks up and it will barely move. I run ahead to the gate (at the far end of the concourse, of course) and they think the door may already be closed. Cindy comes hobbling down and we get on the plane at the last second. We managed to cut 6 hours off our flight time and Cindy said that she doesn't know if she would have made it other wise.

We did survive (so far at least) and Cindy is slowly getting better but had to get more tests done today and it will probably be several weeks more before she is fully recovered.

So far it looks like my $549 cruise to Alaska will end up costing about $35,000, most of which should be covered by insurance. Guess we don't have to worry about meeting the deductible this year. And Cindy is now wondering if we should take that cruise to Hawaii for our 35th anniversary in January. GAWD what a trip we had! Only good news is that for the 3 nites we were on the boat I managed to take a few hundred from the pigeons in the poker room. Sorry for the long rant but you had to be there to believe all that happened.