MONTEZUMA'S (OR MAYBE MUSSOLINI'S, FRANCO'S?) REVENGE
Actually I travel a lot, don't get me wrong. And it's been a couple years since I was sick on vacation, even if said "vacation" consisted of a religious holiday spent with relatives, which IMO is not really a vacation. Here is a list of holiday maladies:
1) Age four: Wildwood, NJ. I end up with a high fever and all the fun stuff associated with it, probably the result of multiple jellyfish stings. Rather than take me to the nearest emergency room, my mother, the registered nurse, spends the night giving me aspirin, chicken soup and sponge baths until the local pediatrician's office opens the next morning.
2) Probably about the same age, Aunt Irene's house. I throw up after having eaten ravioli. This time Mom actually takes me to a doctor, who happens to be her old boss. It is a long time before I can eat ravioli again.
3) Age five: Warren, MI. Again I develop a high fever and related fun stuff, probably as the result of walking through a local mosquito-infested swamp with my older cousin, who should have known better. Spraying both of our bodies with Raid definitely didn't help. By the time we get to the Upper Peninsula things are really cooking. Great-Aunt Martha offers us some baby aspirin, but Mom generously tells her to save them for her grandchildren. Aunt Mary says "Off" is a remarkable insecticide. Unfortunately it's a couple days too late for that. This is my first remembrance of Benadryl cream, which served well when I got chicken pox two years later.
4) Age six: I develop viral meningitis as the result of swimming in contaminated water at a local day camp. My pediatrician, who had treated me for an ear infection about a week before, is on vacation. I set a personal recored for fevers, 106 degrees, and end up in the isolation ward.
5) Fast-forward to age 18, freshman year in college. I manage to make it through my first semester and part of the second without a single cold, then catch a lovely one from my ten-month-old cousin Margie.
6) Two years later, junior year in college. I get through a weekend trip to Italy perfectly well, but end up with a cold that lasts about a month, or at least seems like it.
7) About six months later: Almuñecar, Spain. I end up with another cold, this time after having visited a ski resort. Evidently this cold is making its way around the Iberian peninsula and is treated through soup, juice and ginger ale.
8) Senior year in college: My uncle dies Thanksgiving weekend, a couple weeks before finals. I drive home from Pennsylvania with my cousin, Lenny and back to college a couple days later with a horrible cold, barely able to hold my head up.
9) First year of graduate school: I contact a nasty cold/allergy shortly after arriving in Germany, then some kind of nasty intestinal bug which follows me for weeks, if not months. The doctors I go to make me feel like a nut case, so I avoid seeking further treatment other than considering a psychiatrist. One of my dorm mates suggests I am too wrapped up in myself, and that instead maybe I should do some volunteer work or sing in the church choir. Bad idea. I lose much faith in most medicine and organized religion.
10) Four months later, Quarteira, Portugal: after eating ameijoas Alentejano, a local specialty consisting of pork and clams. You can see where this is going. I end up with one of the most horrible stomach upsets ever. Unfortunately all I have to drink is peach nectar. VERY BAD IDEA. At the time I am reading about autogenous training, so I lie on the pension bed in horrible agony telling myself "my stomach is comfortably warm and free of pain."
11) About a year and a half later, Sarasota, FL. I come to my parents' house for Christmas vacation recovering from a tonsillectomy and a nasty keratitis. I am on some kind of ocular antibiotic which looks like blood until it hits the whites of your eyes, then turns yellow. The girl next to me on the plane comments "those are some funky eyedrops." I think it was on the return trip that I developed the most horrible nosebleed of my life. It was in the middle of the night on a trans-Atlantic flight and I ended up spitting blood into a kleenex, a napkin and one of those paper things they put on the back of your seat. I ring and ring for a flight attendant. The woman next to me thinks I'm throwing up. Charming.
12) About two years later. Back at my parents' house, I come down with one of the worst colds of my graduate school career. I am not in terrible pain, but my nose will not stop running. I get snot all over my clothes, my mother's clothes, the couch and the cat. The cat dies about four months later.
13) About six months later, Arlington, VA: I strain my back, either as the result of lifting a video kit, suitcase or both. Fortunately the woman who replaced my mom's former boss is available, as is a good physical therapist.
14) Christmas, 2003, Sarasota, FL. After graduation, I have few real vacations, other than Delaware, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Trips to Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, and New Jersey remain healthy. In December, 2003, my father is diagnosed with acute congestive heart failure. It is to be our last Christmas together. Right before my departure, unbeknownst to me, I am sweating noticeablly. My "baby" pig cannot stop kissing me. I am too much in denial to realize I am running a fever and that the salt all over my body is driving him crazy. Now I get really nervous when he gets affectionate. I somehow make it home to my parents' with a raging headache from the changes in air pressure. There is a yin-yang thing to this: I am excused from dinner at Helen's.This is a good thing. Unfortunately, she sends leftovers home with my parents. And I am too miserable to hit the day-after-Christmas sales until about 7PM, probably a first for me. Lillian invites us to dinner provided I don't have a fever. I feel like typhoid Mary. It takes days for my return-flight headache to abate. On the advice of my eye doctor I know take a decongestant before boarding a plane and on the advice of my general practicioner I take a baby aspirin to avoid blood clots.
15) May, 2007, San Juan, PR. You have already read about this. Except for the part about the woman who sat behind me coughing for most of the return flight. As the old Mike and Ike's TV spot went, "the fun keeps comin' and comin' and comin.'" In less than three months I am headed to the Jersey Shore for a week.
1) Age four: Wildwood, NJ. I end up with a high fever and all the fun stuff associated with it, probably the result of multiple jellyfish stings. Rather than take me to the nearest emergency room, my mother, the registered nurse, spends the night giving me aspirin, chicken soup and sponge baths until the local pediatrician's office opens the next morning.
2) Probably about the same age, Aunt Irene's house. I throw up after having eaten ravioli. This time Mom actually takes me to a doctor, who happens to be her old boss. It is a long time before I can eat ravioli again.
3) Age five: Warren, MI. Again I develop a high fever and related fun stuff, probably as the result of walking through a local mosquito-infested swamp with my older cousin, who should have known better. Spraying both of our bodies with Raid definitely didn't help. By the time we get to the Upper Peninsula things are really cooking. Great-Aunt Martha offers us some baby aspirin, but Mom generously tells her to save them for her grandchildren. Aunt Mary says "Off" is a remarkable insecticide. Unfortunately it's a couple days too late for that. This is my first remembrance of Benadryl cream, which served well when I got chicken pox two years later.
4) Age six: I develop viral meningitis as the result of swimming in contaminated water at a local day camp. My pediatrician, who had treated me for an ear infection about a week before, is on vacation. I set a personal recored for fevers, 106 degrees, and end up in the isolation ward.
5) Fast-forward to age 18, freshman year in college. I manage to make it through my first semester and part of the second without a single cold, then catch a lovely one from my ten-month-old cousin Margie.
6) Two years later, junior year in college. I get through a weekend trip to Italy perfectly well, but end up with a cold that lasts about a month, or at least seems like it.
7) About six months later: Almuñecar, Spain. I end up with another cold, this time after having visited a ski resort. Evidently this cold is making its way around the Iberian peninsula and is treated through soup, juice and ginger ale.
8) Senior year in college: My uncle dies Thanksgiving weekend, a couple weeks before finals. I drive home from Pennsylvania with my cousin, Lenny and back to college a couple days later with a horrible cold, barely able to hold my head up.
9) First year of graduate school: I contact a nasty cold/allergy shortly after arriving in Germany, then some kind of nasty intestinal bug which follows me for weeks, if not months. The doctors I go to make me feel like a nut case, so I avoid seeking further treatment other than considering a psychiatrist. One of my dorm mates suggests I am too wrapped up in myself, and that instead maybe I should do some volunteer work or sing in the church choir. Bad idea. I lose much faith in most medicine and organized religion.
10) Four months later, Quarteira, Portugal: after eating ameijoas Alentejano, a local specialty consisting of pork and clams. You can see where this is going. I end up with one of the most horrible stomach upsets ever. Unfortunately all I have to drink is peach nectar. VERY BAD IDEA. At the time I am reading about autogenous training, so I lie on the pension bed in horrible agony telling myself "my stomach is comfortably warm and free of pain."
11) About a year and a half later, Sarasota, FL. I come to my parents' house for Christmas vacation recovering from a tonsillectomy and a nasty keratitis. I am on some kind of ocular antibiotic which looks like blood until it hits the whites of your eyes, then turns yellow. The girl next to me on the plane comments "those are some funky eyedrops." I think it was on the return trip that I developed the most horrible nosebleed of my life. It was in the middle of the night on a trans-Atlantic flight and I ended up spitting blood into a kleenex, a napkin and one of those paper things they put on the back of your seat. I ring and ring for a flight attendant. The woman next to me thinks I'm throwing up. Charming.
12) About two years later. Back at my parents' house, I come down with one of the worst colds of my graduate school career. I am not in terrible pain, but my nose will not stop running. I get snot all over my clothes, my mother's clothes, the couch and the cat. The cat dies about four months later.
13) About six months later, Arlington, VA: I strain my back, either as the result of lifting a video kit, suitcase or both. Fortunately the woman who replaced my mom's former boss is available, as is a good physical therapist.
14) Christmas, 2003, Sarasota, FL. After graduation, I have few real vacations, other than Delaware, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Trips to Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, and New Jersey remain healthy. In December, 2003, my father is diagnosed with acute congestive heart failure. It is to be our last Christmas together. Right before my departure, unbeknownst to me, I am sweating noticeablly. My "baby" pig cannot stop kissing me. I am too much in denial to realize I am running a fever and that the salt all over my body is driving him crazy. Now I get really nervous when he gets affectionate. I somehow make it home to my parents' with a raging headache from the changes in air pressure. There is a yin-yang thing to this: I am excused from dinner at Helen's.This is a good thing. Unfortunately, she sends leftovers home with my parents. And I am too miserable to hit the day-after-Christmas sales until about 7PM, probably a first for me. Lillian invites us to dinner provided I don't have a fever. I feel like typhoid Mary. It takes days for my return-flight headache to abate. On the advice of my eye doctor I know take a decongestant before boarding a plane and on the advice of my general practicioner I take a baby aspirin to avoid blood clots.
15) May, 2007, San Juan, PR. You have already read about this. Except for the part about the woman who sat behind me coughing for most of the return flight. As the old Mike and Ike's TV spot went, "the fun keeps comin' and comin' and comin.'" In less than three months I am headed to the Jersey Shore for a week.
posted by Numerologist at 11:13 AM
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