Song: Help Is Round The Corner/Swallowed In The Sea
Artist: Coldplay
If you want a good read, this post is definitely for you. NY Times called this post "RIVETING!" ... j/k. It is pretty good though.
The week has been incredible for me. As all of you know, I got married last Friday. I could not have asked for a more perfect wedding! Everything went flawlessly and we had such a great time. I only wish it would have lasted longer! Time flew by super fast. Thank you, by the way, to all the awesome people who participated in it! You all made it exactly what I dreamed. I really do want to go into detail about the wedding, so I'll save that for the next post. For now, I'm just going to focus on the honeymoon for blog sake. If you've read my blogs in the past (back when I had myspace), you would probably remember my "Down with the sickness" entry (that horrifying week in Prague). Well, if you thought that was bad, read on!
...We had the privilege of staying in the presidential suite that night at the Westin Colonnade...which was pretty flippin amazing! It was 2 stories high (the room, that is) with the bed and amazing bath upstairs and a living space and dining room downstairs. Bottom line, pure awesomeness. We enjoyed ourselves on Saturday by going to Houstons to eat (I totally pigged out) and watching some in room entertainment (aka whatever was on TV). We were still a little exhausted from the wedding. Sunday morning we woke up at 3:30 to be at the airport by 4. Our flight was destined to leave at 6:30 am, and we were ready to go!
Thomas and I had designed the perfect honeymoon in
Peter Island that was really the whole package. Massages, snorkeling, sailing, food, everything included. Sounds like a dream, right? Well, it was so much better than that! It was by far the most gorgeous place I have ever been! We took 2 connecting flights to get into Tortola, one of which was on a propeller plane (Tom's first time on one of these). When we arrived in Tortola, we were greeted by the Peter Island personnel who immediately took our bags and offered us drinks (cool!). We enjoyed some crisp Coca-Cola and proceeded to get on a 50 ft boat that would take us straight to our secluded dream island. Everything was beautiful! The water, the people, the service, EVERYTHING! We could not wait for the fun to start!...however, we arrived a little bit late on Sunday, so we decided to relax and save the beach for the next day.
DINNER TIME! Time to enjoy some world-renowned dining. This four diamond resort housed one amazing Executive chef, Michael Clinton. The foods were really exquisite, so I decided to be a little adventurous and try something new. The special that evening was duck. I thought, "hmm... duck.... kinda like chicken, right? I'll have that!"... along with this thought was the appetizer idea "scallops... hmm... kinda like shrimp, right? Okay!". So, my meal was set. Scallops and Duck. WHAT A MISTAKE. I'm not a fan of scallops. The texture killed me. The duck was the weirdest part. I wasn't aware that duck could be cooked "to temperature" (aka rare, med rare, well, etc). My duck was red. I guess that means it was somewhere in between medium and medium rare? Who knows. Anyway, I did not enjoy this world class cuisine. I'm just a steak and potatoes simpleton, what can I say! Well, the night wound down and we finally fell asleep after playing a round of pool and whatnot.
Around 1 o'clock AM, I ran out of bed by reflex and immediately began puking (thank goodness I made it to the toilet). That was the beginning of the end. I must have puked a good 20 times before Tom decided to tell the front desk we needed serious help. Search and rescue came to save me (since we were on a secluded private island that had no medical facility) thanks to the resort manager Mr. Mason (really cool guy!). By this time I had my head hung in the toilet, completely drained of all life. The British Virgin Island search and rescue team's arrival was such a relief for me. Finally! Some help. Poor Thomas was horrified watching me puke my life away. I felt so bad for him, but couldn't control my urge to chuck every 10 seconds. I was lifeless, couldn't move unless it was a chucking reflex, was very slow and unresponsive. I remember receiving oxygen from a rescuer named AMANDA, and being carried out by two other rescuers named TOM AND PAUL (irony, no?). They were really nice and took good care of me.
They proceeded to take me to an inflatable boat with an engine and 4 other men. It was pitch black darkness. From what Thomas told me (because I was laying down semi-unconscious in the raft instead of standing like the rest), it was terribly rough seas, and very dark. Apparently their source of light in the pitch black ocean was one of the rescuers holding a household flashlight in front of the boat. YIKES! That must have been creepy. Good thing I was in O2 land. We finally made it to the shore of Tortola. They carried me into a jeep looking vehicle, and I of course immediately wanted to chuck again. I heard someone say in an adorable British accent, "Please don't chuck in the car! I just cleaned it!". I complied. I hung my head out the door and proceeded. We arrived in at the hospital in minutes, and they got me the best seat in the house. I had a room with semi-updated technology and great nurses. They started an I.V. drip to help my severe dehydration, gave me a shot to stop the nausea, and collected some blood for testing. Mr. Mason was there with us all evening to help us and make sure everything went smoothly. What a blessing! Eleven hours later, I thankfully began to feel better. They prescribed me antibiotics for my bacterial food poisoning (why I'll never eat duck or scallops again). Tom and I were scared the bill would be terrible (an I.V. at Kendall Regional once cost me $1,500...and I was only there for an hour). Thank God... the bill came to a total of $136. Amazing. Wish prices were that low here in Miami.
Later that day we were escorted back to our island on a ferry. I felt pretty decent for having been deathly ill a few hours earlier. Tom and I played some Yahtzee! and we ate some dinner (of course, all I could eat were crackers). The rest of that whole day was devoted to sleeping for Tom and I. The night before was exhausting. The terror, the physical agony, everything wore us down. We had big plans for Tuesday though! We hoped it would be a better day.
Tuesday morning was nice. I woke up feeling really good and ready to eat some pancakes (since breads were included in my diet). I ate, and it was nice! My stomach didn't think so, however. I assume that because of the trauma only a day earlier, my body completely rejected the amount of food I consumed (about 1 pancake). I fell ill, again. This time, no puking. Just the terrible nauseated like I was about to puke (just about the worst feeling in the world). I was in agonizing pain on the bathroom floor for about an hour until Tom decided to call my mom. He was panicking, and so was I. He asked me as I laid in pain if I wanted to go back to Miami. I could only mutter, "They wont refund usssssssss", knowing that like most hotels, you pay in advance and they keep your money. Like the great husband that he is, he responded, "I don't care if we don't get a penny back from these people, I just want you to get better!". It hurt me more emotionally at that moment because I knew the medical technology was better in the states, and going home would mean a better recovery. I finally decided, "Yes, please take me home asap".
Tom proceeded to call my mom to see if her travel agent would book our flights for that very evening out of Tortola. After this, Mr. Mason's partners, Marika and Chi-Chi (don't let the name fool you, he looked a lot like
Michael Clark Duncan!) came to help us in our room. They told us they knew of a good americanized clinic that could care for me better than the hospital could, so we went. Chi-Chi carried me to the car, on the boat, and so on. They pulled a lot of strings to get us instant service at the walk-in clinic (again, awesome staff at Peter Island). At this clinic, I received 2 I.V.s again, got an ultrasound to make sure I didn't have gall stones or appendicitis, had blood work done, had a shot of Phenergen (miracle!), and a shot of Zantac; both shots of which were conveniently and respectively located on separate butt cheeks (that left major bruising). This time was a bit more painful. The nurses had a hard time finding a good vein for my I.V., and must have poked each arm about 5 times (10 total). They bruised my right forearm pretty bad (bad enough for people to think I'm a druggie), but the rest of them healed up pretty well. As you probably already assumed, with Americanized service comes Americanized prices. Our bill was a bit more hefty. Luckily it was all coming to an end.
Thomas paid the bills and told me we had to leave immediately. Our bags were on the way to the hospital so we could go straight to the airport. I puked..FINALLY! It actually felt good this time. I felt instant relief at that moment. We got in the car with Marika and one of their cab drivers and went on what seemed like a crazy roller-coaster car ride. The driving was scary. Mostly because I've never been in the back of a speeding car driving on the left side of the road (Britain, woo!). It was a 2 lane road (one lane for each direction) and the driver was passing people like crazy! Thank God we got there safely. They held the plane for us thanks to Marika and we made it on board right on time.
Our connecting flight was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. When we arrived, we found out that they lost our luggage. Wonderful. We could then only laugh at all the miserable situations we had been through up to that point. We were only on our honeymoon for one day until we abruptly were sent home. That's when we developed the "screw it" mentality. When a bad thing happened, "screw it" infiltrated our thoughts. We arrived in Miami and were picked up by my loving Mom. We spent the night at her house since our flight came in near midnight. The next morning, we waited for the airport to tell us when they would send us our now found luggage (apparently it was in San Juan, but someone put it in storage...wtf?). They said 8 pm. That day was pretty nice. I did have a short "episode" of puke, but nothing bad. We waited that evening for our stuff, but no one delivered. We stayed at Mom's house again (since they were delivering there). The doorbell rang at 1 AM. YAY! Screw the late hour, WE GOT OUR LUGGAGE BACK! Thank God!
My parents decided to keep our whole endeavor a secret in order to give us "honeymoon privacy" (aka no one calling or anything like that). That is why I decided to wait until now to explain this whole thing. In reality, I am supposed to be coming home from my dream honeymoon Sunday afternoon, but have already been here since Tuesday, December 2. I asked a couple of people to keep us in prayer, and ask that when you read this, to say a short one for us too. This has been such a hard week for us newly-weds. Poor Thomas has seen things I had hoped he wouldn't have and we've been through some tough crap. To add insult to injury, my car wont start. I got it checked out (after taking 10 minutes to get it started) and they said there is NOTHING wrong, however, my 10-15 min escapades to start the car tell me differently. Oh well.
With all of this stuff that has happened to us, you would think we would be beyond miserable at this point. Fortunately, we are still happy as ever. Thomas and I have already planned our honeymoon 2.0 for next week in sunny Orlando, FL where we will be kicking back with Mickey Mouse and the Blue Man Group! We just decided to stick to our guns for now and do something semi-local and eventually do a honeymoon-do-over. This has been a true test for us.
Two things that I have deducted from this experience are 1. God is great. Despite all the bad, good things did come out of it. I am feeling a lot better as of today (Saturday evening/Sunday); Also, Mr. Mason and Marika are pushing to get us a full refund! Amazing! We also have the blessings of arriving and departing and arriving again safely. God really did have his hand over us (even if we didn't feel it right away), 2. It could not have been made more clear to me what a great husband Thomas (has already been and) will be for me! He has been so supportive and loving, I could not ask for more. I love him so much, and am so thankful to God that he was given to me.
One phrase got me through this. I said it on the airplane ride there, chanted it in my head while I hung over the toilet, and repeated it on multiple occasions: "God is my sustenance and strength." I also gained a new life quote from the event, "Every day I live is because of the grace of God. He is my sustenance and His grace is sufficient. For this I am forever content."
