What a trip!

I'm posting this on The Fat Lady Singeth as well.  Covering all my bases here.

Alan and I just got back from a cruise to nowhere.  That's what they call it when you basically wander around in the Atlantic ocean for days on end and enjoy the cruise ship as a resort, instead of getting suffled off the boat every day to try to see sights that you can't possibly see well in the time alloted.

I will get to my ONE TOUR this trip.

The trip was out of Baltimore.  This was a first time to use this port and I have to say that for passengers with mobility problems this was the best ever.  And our immobility this year was the worst ever.  So that's saying a lot.

They were very attentive to our needs and got us to our cabin in good time.  Dumb us.  We showed up two hours too early, thinking we were on a Miami boarding schedule.  Not at all.  But that's okay.  They were still very nice about our earliness (and we weren't the only ones) and weren't put off by it at all.

We had pre-ordered scooters so we would be able to get around the boat with little or no pain.  Well, that worked well for three and a half days, then Alan did a back flip with his scooter -- the back wheels got caught on the ramp through one of the doors to the upper deck -- and he got the wind knocked out of him, bruised several ribs, and was in misery the remainder of the trip.  Basically, he stayed in the room for the rest of the time, except for meals when after not liking the room service selection he decided he would join me for meals at the restaurants.  Someday I'll write about those mis-adventures, but not today.

Anyway, on Thanksgiving day, we were in Nassau, Bahamas.  Now, I've walked from the ship to Nassau several times, and each time it has been a wearying, hurtful process.  But I want those free bracelets and other jewelry they hand out at the various jewelry stores there.  I now have enough charm bracelets for all my girls, big and small!  All free!  And I have necklaces for stockings, etc.  I'm so excited about that.

Anyway, this trip what normally took me 1 hour to get into town, took only 10 minutes on the scooter.  It was so much fun and I could see so much more.  Granted many of the shops didn't have ramps, so I couldn't go into them.  Their loss, as I was in a spending mood, and I had saved my meager allowance for six months!  I bought myself a present for Alan to give me for Christmas -- that's a tradition.  I buy it, he pays for it, and wraps it up, and I enjoy it for as long as I live.  Then one of my girls will enjoy it.  See?  Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

Alan had been complaining and saying he was sure he had shingles, and I kept checking (this was after the back flip) to see if he did have shingles, and I saw nothing, so I decided he needed to get to an ER as soon as we landed.  Well, lucky for him, shingles showed themselves for the nasty things they are and now he only has to endure a trip to the doctor's office to get some anti-biotics.  He has the pain meds that they gave him on the boat, and the meds he's been taking since his last shingles attack.

You see, with a compromised immune system once you get shingles you never get rid of them entirely. You get rid of the rash, but the pain may lessen some, but it's still there.  Sort of like fibromyalgia.  And because his immune system is compromised, he can't have the vaccine that is available for singles. 

So at the end of the trip -- and I have to say we had the best wait staff ever -- I packed us up, and boy did that hurt, because I had been having to lift Alan from a chair or bed, and I was so totally sore from doing that.  I packed us up.  Got us all set to get off the boat which was slicker than butter this time.  What a difference from other cruises.  They wheeled us right up to the taxi.  The cab-driver took care of transferring out luggage to our car which was had parked at the hotel in which we stayed in Baltimore, and off we went. 

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!!!!