Ah yes, the other side of travel.
It’s become very apparent to us that the longer we travel, the more we expose ourselves to a host of viruses that our tender, western immune systems haven’t a clue on how to combat. Our first bout with a foreign illness on our latest trip, a Scottish strain that supplied us with a spectacular cough and the kind of psychedelic mucus that would leave a deadhead impressed, had us holed up in our Turkish apartment for the better part of two weeks.
Round two has us pinned down in a small bungalow on the southeastern coast of Lombok Island in Indonesia. Ironically, we think we traced the point of infection to the Pantai Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, where we went to get a flu shot!! We had planned to buy masks to wear on our visit to the hospital, but after visiting a half dozen pharmacies, we learned that the entire country of Malaysia was apparently sold out!
Anyway, on our second day on Lombok, Angela woke up and declared that she was definitely sick. Later that day, she took her temperature and announced that she had a fever of 101 degrees! Fearing that my wife had just come down with COVID in the most remote of places, I immediately decided that we were jumping on the scooter and heading for the nearest hospital. After a bit of testing and an X-ray of her chest, the good people at the RSUD Provinci Hospital (which would have fit right at home in Mos Eisley Spaceport on Tatooine) assured us that she didn’t have anything ‘more sinister’ than a common cold / flu.
Cutting back to present time … Angela is mostly better now. Unfortunately though, it’s been a week since our visit to the hospital, and we haven’t seen any part of the island besides our bungalow and the local hospital. More unfortunately, it’s now my turn to suffer with the Pantai Hospital flu! : /
On the bright side though, it is a fairly comfortable bungalow … and we are in paradise!
Who would have thought world travelers and grade school librarians would have so much in common. Ah-choo. And glad you are both feeling better.