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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