It ain't over til the fat lady sings....

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3/9/11 (Barb) Well I guess we ended the blog a little bit too soon. We didn't have to leave the hotel til midnight so we spent Monday morning doing up some laundry and packing. Well I was packing and Skip said he wasn't packing yet..too depressing. I said that when I get a gut feeling to do something I usually did it or I ended up being sorry if I didn't...boy was I right! Around noon I started to get queasy. I went to our room about 1 pm and got into bed with chills. I knew I had a fever. I slept for a few hours then woke up to having to go to the bathroom....diarrhea ….I went a few more times and then I took some Amodiam AD but that didn't stop it. By 11:30 when we were headed down to the lobby to get our ride to the airport I was quite a mess. We got to the airport and the line was LONG...Skip told me to sit and he would stand in line. I went to the bathroom a couple of times and when he got to the lady who checks your passport etc before you get your ticket...I went over and stood in line. I had a hard time, I was so feverish. But as with any other time in my life when I'm faced with pain or sickness or whatever..I think of Tammy and Doris and all the pain they have gone thru and that gives me strength. Well as luck would have it....the computers were down so it was taking longer than usual...plus there were people overweight in their luggage so there they were with open suitcases pulling stuff out and shoving stuff in any bag they could use as a carry on. What a circus! Finally we get our tickets and they tell us that when we get to Ft. Lauderdale we will have to go thru customs, immigration, leave security and go to the Spirit counter and get our boarding passes and go back thru security. We only had 50 min. between flights. You do the math. Anyway we get our boarding passes and head for security. We go thru security and they take a bunch of stuff from Skip...like the beer he was trying to bring back 😉 and some very expensive bug repellant that they let us bring INTO Panama but could not bring out ....go figure. So we head for our gate and guess what....we have to go thru ANOTHER security...yes another one...and after we sit down, of course, I have to go to the bathroom and since I left this highly secure area (5 ft away was the bathroom) I had to go thu security again. Ok..so the plane late...we know that there is no way that we will make our flight in Ft.Lauderdale at this point. So we get on the plane and the good news is the plane was crowded but since I booked our seats as A and C hoping that no one would choose to sit in the middle..so we had no one between us. So we take off and I zonk out after ordering ginger ale and taking 2 sips of it. I woke with a start and climbed out of my seat and headed toward the bathroom where (of course) the toilet seat was nasty so I cleaned it with some soap and just in time sat down and immediately used the sink to retch my heart out. Thank God my stomach was empty so it was only bile. So I'm going from both ends now. Somebody is pounding on the door...which I am sure he HAD to have heard me retching! Still he kept pounding. Finally I got out of there after cleaning up the sink and went back to my seat and went back to sleep. My fever is still high I know it is. The plane lands and Skip says he'll take care of both our luggage....which is what he has been doing all along the big sweetheart. I had put an extra pair of underwear and some paper towels in a plastic bag in my purse in case I would need them. I grabbed the plastic bag out of my purse and the paper towels just in case cuz I was not sure I'd make it off the plane without retching again. Sure enough I stood up and said Oh MY God the pain..you have no idea of the pain, I'm going to vomit...and then I started to retch...big huge loud retching...and Skip (God Bless the Man) hollers..People you'd better move and let us thru..she got to vomit and if you don't want to get sprayed you'd better let her by. OMG like the parting of the Red Sea I stumbled thru retching all the way. It was so embarassing...all the way down the ramp.....into the gate area. People just moved for me!!! A person took for of us thru Customs ahead of everyone and put us on an elevator and told us a wheelchair would be waiting when the door opened. Well let me tell you that woman pushing that wheelchair knew what she was doing. Skip told her that we had to make connecting flight to Ft. Lauderdale and she just took over...she pushed me ahead of the whole line at Immigration, pushed me ahead of the line at the ticket counter and then pushed me ahead of the whole line at security. And believe me the line was long. The lady at security said to me what is in the pink bag, you can't take that thru and I said vomit and her eyes got so big and she said well throw it in the garbage, it can't go thru...so I did and they got us thru security like a flash and that woman took us to our gate and right to the door of the plane. We would have never made it on our own for SURE! The whole process took just a little over 20 minutes from deboarding to sitting in our assigned seats for the trip to Tampa. The actual time between flights was reduced to around 35-40 minutes because the flight from Panama city arrived late. Just a quick note for everyone … The airplanes flown by Spirit Airlines are old, old and old. Our comments only apply to the 3 planes which we were actually on during our trip to Panama.
I fell asleep as soon as I got in my seat and slept most of the way to Tampa. Now to back up just a bit...Skip had told me NOT to let on I was sick or they might not let us on the plane..so I jokingly said just say too much Carnivalle....then after I thought well I can always say I have a Migraine...Anyway one of the stewardesses on the plane asked him how I was and he told her oh just too much Carnivalle!...So we finally get home and God Bless Jerry and Joanne (who picked us up at the airport) they let me sleep on their couch (in between bathroom breaks) til Skip and our friend Tom B took the camper to the campground and got it all set up so all I had to do was go from couch to truck to bed. It was a pretty bad night...I will not go into details...but sometime during the night my fever broke and I woke up soaked with sweat. I'm a little better today...drinking gaterade and some gingerale..but no food yet...still going to the bathroom but stopped vomiting...I'm sure I'm on the mend but like I said before...it ain't over til the fat lady sings and she was doing some singing for sure!

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Comments

[B> P>]

Hope you get well quickly...

[Pat Jocelyn]

Poor baby!
Barb, what a horrible way to end the trip. i'm so sorry you had to go through being so sick at the last part of your trip. I can't tell you and Skip how much I enjoyed your daily blogs. As a writer, I can tell both of you, your writing was interesting, had a great sense of rythym and each day left me wanting more. Thanks to both of you for volunteering so much time at the end of each day so your friends and family could share in your adventure. Are you going to stay in the area for a bit or are you guys heading out soon? Pat