Getting Sick While On Vacation…
It’s not all fun and games, but we can still enjoy it…
Going to a beach off of Charleston, South Carolina is one of my favorite summers events. We found out that travel to tourist sites such as London require active participation, and it’s not awfully relaxing. FOMO hits when we go to a new place.
So we took the family, a small group this summer, and rented out the beach house on the ocean. I felt great for the first two days of walking around Charleston proper, and I bought plenty of gifts at the market. Then it was our day to move over to the lovely beach house we like so much, except I felt run down and very tired. We ordered pizza that night and read books.
The next day and all the ones to follow were spent in our bedroom, which did look over the beach and ocean. I’d wander down to help do a puzzle or play games, but each day that passed brought more bronchitis symptoms and I felt worse.
I now know I have Covid. Again. And the start of pneumonia, too.
Have you ever fallen sick on vacation? I seriously hadn’t too often. Not like this. It’s a challenge, and while it feels like the days are wasted and thrown away, if we look at it a bit differently we can enjoy our time away from home.
Spend some time with your bedroom door open. It’s my sign that anyone can come in for a chat or a question. Listen to your loved ones talking and having fun. Try to spend a dinner with them. They want you. So be by them on a rocker on the porch. Do one thing a day to be with your husband/partner/family/friends. They will appreciate it.
The other thing you can do is find ways to pass the time. Sleeping only works for so long on most people, though my sister could sleep 20 hours straight at one point in her life. Read, go online, and spend a few minutes checking out the window.
It rained every single day at the beach until the day we left. Nice, right? Except it kept me inside without worrying that I was missing all the fun on the beach. I felt so horrid that I thought this was going to be the first time I never made it to the actual ocean.
But one night my daughter and son-in-law asked me to head out at midnight with flashlights to search for crabs. The tide was low, and we delighted ourselves watching the crabs eating, digging into the sand to hide or tottering into the ocean. One mighty crab stuck up his pincers and looked angry. I think I ran away. Lightning flashed far out across the ocean and added to the freeing feeling of being our after midnight.
I climbed the stairs to go home and felt the tiredness in my bones. But I was grateful for that night. My husband was asleep at the time, so he missed out on that adventure. Actually he seems to miss many of our annual crab nights.
If you get sick on vacation, as in not emergency room ill, then rest and join in for dinner. Drink a martini or two. (The second one was a big mistake, but still it was meant to be medicinal for me.) Create some memories that didn’t have to do with you missing out. Don’t miss out! Get in there and mingle! For a while.
Being sick anywhere is awful, but it doesn’t have to ruin your trip completely. I hope you never have to go through missing out on a big chunk of your days off, but it can be full of small magical moments that stay with you always.
Enjoy these last days of summer. They are waning away, but they are beyond beautiful. Grab a bunch of summer yet. It’s not over.
Tomorrow I’m writing about Septmeber. Yup, it’s coming!!
