Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Nassau Nightmares and Disney Dreams

Carnival Valor, days two and three

Day Two, written Monday, Dec.10, posted Dec. 12


Last night was a DISASTER!  Poor Mark!  He was up throwing up seven times from about 2 a.m. to 6:15 a.m. when things finally settled down.  He had nothing left to vomit, and I was starting to get concerned about dehydration.  And both of us were exhausted from lack of sleep. 

Because he had had a mild sore throat for two days prior to boarding, we had a thermometer in the cabin with us.  He took his temp around 7 a.m. and it was 99.2.  I gave him a decaf cup of tea and a piece of dry toast, both of which he kept down, but at 8:30 his temp had gone up to 100.2  At that point, we were both concerned about strep throat, or Norovirus, or food poisoning.  We decided to go to the medical office.

The nurse was  just wonderful there, a real dynamo.  The charge for seeing the nurse is $40 and to see the doctor is $90, plus charges for any procedure or test they actually do or medication they dispense, UNLESS you show up with gastrointestinal problems.  Then the first 24 hours of treatment are FREE!  Who knew? 

Mark had to fill out a detailed form for the CDC.  Then the nurse took his vitals, and his  BP was fantastic, 112/72 thanks to keeping down the metropolol, and his temp was down to 99.3 again.  Because he had kept down the tea and toast at 8:30, the nurse felt he was doing ok; however, she was required to put his info into the CDC website.  She said there was a chance that he would get quarantined.  Well, his symptoms weren’t so bad, I guess, because the CDC did not place him on quarantine.  The nurse gave him a choice of an injection in his butt that would make him sleep all day but take away all nausea or a tablet to dissolve under his tongue that would take away all nausea for 8 hours with no other side effects. She felt he should do one or the other just in case because more vomiting would be very unhealthy.  He chose the tablet and was released with the admonition to rest, eat light, keep taking in fluids, and come back tomorrow morning to report on his status and get released from their system.

By this time it was 10:30.  Although I had gotten duplicate shore excursion tickets at the desk earlier in the morning, we had no intention of doing our Atlantis tour today. In fact, it left without us at 9:15.  Instead we went up to the buffet area to get Mark more tea and water and maybe something else to eat.  Then we had the best part of the day!

Docked next to us was the Disney Dream!  That sure perked up Mark’s spirits.  We sat and watched people shushing down the AquaDuck and walking around the decks. Mark also drank an entire glass of water and ate about a cup of plain oatmeal.  He said it made him feel full, and although he felt tired and weak, he did not feel that it was going to come back up. 

We took a cup of tea for him and a second cup of coffee for me and headed back to our stateroom.  Mark is now sound asleep in the bed while I am writing this blog entry.  Poor baby.  He’s exhausted.  We are hoping that by tomorrow, a sea day, he is back to normal.

Next month we will be sailing on the Disney Dream and riding the AquaDuck.  Hopefully, we will leave all this illness behind.

Mark spent the whole day in bed, sleeping.  I slept, too, from abut 11:30 to 1  and then went up for some lunch.  We left Nassau at 2 p.m., so I stayed up to watch us slide by the Dream and the Allure.  That was fun.  Then I returned to the cabin and slept from 3 to 5:30.  Mark woke up and took his temp again.  It had gotten back up to 100.3, so he took some Tylenol and after forty-five minutes it was down to 99.3 again.  Around 7 p.m., we went to the buffet to find something for dinner that he thought would be ok.  He had half a baked potato, some broccoli, a little rice, and two small cubes of swiss cheese.  Time will tell if he can keep it all down tonight.  That tablet he took this morning is long done.

Our plan is to stay in the cabin again all night and hope that all is well.  In the morning he has to report back to the medical center anyway to check in on his progress.

One other amusing note is that after we got back from dinner tonight our original set of shore excursion tickets were in the cabin, including the ones we would have needed this morning.  A little too late folks.

I have taken a of pictures, but the ship’s wi fi is too slow to waste the minutes to upload any of them at sea.  You can expect lots of pictures to show up next week!

Day Three, written on Wednesday, 12/12/12 about 12/11 and posted on 12/12/12


Even though Mark slept all day Monday, he also was able to sleep all night.  He woke up without a fever and feeling pretty good.  He ate some oatmeal and eggs for breakfast, and then we went to the medical center to be checked again.  His temp was normal there as well, and his pulse, which had been 110 the day before, was only 88 this morning.  He was dismissed from their system.  Yay!

This was our first of two sea days and it was formal night.  Since Mark felt well, he got the schedule out, checked off all the things he wanted to do, and proceeded to do them all.  He was back to normal.

We did some lectures, walked around and explored the ship, sat in the sun awhile, dressed up for formal night, lit the menorah (I was asked to sing the songs again.), and went to the dining room for dinner.  One exciting thing was the Broadway Trivia. I WON! I got 18/20, stupidly missing Mama Mia and 42nd street.  I won the big prize they give out, called a ship on a stick and 24k plastic.  It’s a plastic statue of the Carnival Valor on a trophy like thing.  Fun!  The big show was great in the main theater and then we sat outside watching Bourne Ultimatum on the giant screen. 

In our travels around the ship, we discovered that there was a row of chairs in front of the screen that were rocking chairs.  I was excited to sit there and watch the movie.  The weather got a little crazy, though.  All day we were traveling very fast, 18 knots and a little over.  As the day progressed it was getting a little rocky.  We have been in worse rocking, but some people we spoke to who were newer cruises were surprised.  At the show, the cruise director announced that we had been having 59 knot winds to contend with, so the captain had all the stabilizers out and had slowed the speed a little.  Still, as we sat in our rocking chairs to watch the movie, it was amusing to watch the water shoot up and out of the two hot tubs and the pool in front of us.  We had NEVER seen water slosh out that high and far before.  Pretty amusing. It was like watching a regular geyser go off.  Eventually, it also started to rain, so we finished watching the movie at a table under the cover next to the pool, which meant we were even closer to the giant water geysers and spray.  Pretty windy out there, but warm air.

We went to bed after the movie, around 12:30 in the morning.  Mark also slept pretty well all night.  Day Three was a LOT better than day two!

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