Eskimo bubonic malaria flu

Recently, we went on an Alaskan cruise.  Despite being married to the other half of me and having a totally kick ass Kid, this trip was one of the highlights of my life.   If anyone says to you, "Hey, wanna go freeze your  butt off in Alaska?"   Do it.

In order to save money on our flights, we took a circumventous route.   We were leaving out of Dallas, but we flew to Los Angeles, had a layover, and then flew on to Seattle.    Our return trip home we traveled the same path, but with a longer layover.

While hanging out in LAX for four hours, an Oriental man,  his wife, and his daughter sat down across from us.   The man was sickly.  His waxy skin had a greyish-green cast to it.  His eyes were tired.    He had a wracking cough and spit blood into a handkerchief he kept in his pocket.

Now those of you who read and retain knowledge, have seen Tombstone, or watched ER or House, can imagine what was running through my head.

Tuberculosis.

I'll be your Huckleberry.

I have a friend at work, who swears that an Ebola monkey lives in my attic, because if some obscure, impossible to diagnose disease is floating around, my family gets it.  I  just knew Tuberculosis was in our  future.

While in Alaska, I don't know if it was the temperature change or allergies, but The Kid and I both got sick.  We coughed and we hacked and our noses ran down to our chins.   We were quite attractive for formal night pictures.

Being the OCD person I am, I was prepared for any eventuality. I had brought Benadryl, eye drops, cold medicine, Immodium,  muscle relaxers, Tylenol, painkillers, band-aids, Preparation H,  and Ex-lax.   You never know what you're gonna need when you're going to the land of whale blubber for fuel, but I was obviously expecting tummy trouble of some kind.

None of our meds were working with our sickness though , and  since we didn't know if Sick Bay was free  (we were on a cruise after all), we just sucked it up (literally) and went on all the glacier watching excursions we could.  (You gotta keep an eye on those glaciers.  They're fast.)

Taken with my iPhone during our tour on the Floatplane of Death.

We decided since allergy meds wouldn't work, it couldn't be allergy.   We ached all over, had a sore throat, a scary cough, and a nasty nose.   The cold and flu meds wouldn't touch it.   We deducted that it wasn't a cold.  It did feel a little like the flu though, so  we  I quickly decided that it was probably something obscure....an Eskimo Flu only known to the Great White North or possibly the deadly  Eskimo Malaria that results  from all the huge mosquitoes that live in the land of ice and grizzly bears or  maybe  the Bubonic Plague that's running around from all the fleas on the moose and caribou.   Obviously  I am not at all dramatic when I'm sick.   I named our mystery illness the EskimoBubonicMalariaFlu or Eskimo Malaria for short. ( I liked the double M in EskiMo and Malaria.)

Upon our arrival back in Seattle after the cruise, we took a couple of days to see the sights and soak up the culture that is Seattle.

One day while walking around Seattle, I started coughing and couldn't stop.  Some Japanese tourists looked over at me in disgust.   I pointed to myself and said, "Eskimo Malaria."  Their eyebrows shot off their faces and they RAN, not walked, RAN away from me, chattering excitedly.  I'm sure they were headed to buy surgical masks and antibiotics.

See? Even people in other countries know about the Ebola monkey in the attic.




**Footnote:  Upon returning to the Great State of Texas, we went to the doctor, who told us he had "no clue" what we had but put us on a broad spectrum antibiotic because we sounded "bad."    See?  The Doctor didn't even know about EskimoBubonicMalaria Flu.