Mercy me!

(I am having some trouble posting from my phone, so there is some weird overlap in posts coming through late.  Here's part II of my mini-emergency.)

Parents who are considering Semester at Sea, I can state with great confidence that the staff are flexible,  caring, and careful.  I would have told you this at the reception last night for parents of voyagers, but I was waiting in my cabin for them to decide what was the best course of action.

So I missed the parent reception, and I missed the lifeboat drill, and I missed seeing the lights of San Diego recede as we sailed into the open waters of the Pacific.  My "once in a lifetime" adventure has been postponed.  Fortunately, due to an arcane protectionist trade rule, the ship leaves from Ensenada on Wednesday.  I am cautiously hopeful I will be on it.

When my eye started to do weird things, I was hesitant to say anything.  Bodies do weird things, and usually they resolve, right?  But the timing really forced me to seek medical advice.  As expensive and upsetting as going to the ER and spending the night in a swanky hotel is when you were planning to be on the water, it is way more disruptive to be seeking medical attention when you are hundreds of miles off shore.

So the decision was made to send me off with the nurse practitioner, but then it turned out that a nurse practitioner from a former voyage was on board for the farewell reception and she gave up her whole evening to take me to the hospital.  This was hugely helpful, because stranding two of us (and half of the medical team) would have left the ship understaffed.

At the hospital, I was barely able to see the big E at the top of the eye chart.  I can see shapes (some of which aren't actually there), but everything looks like it's covered with Vaseline.  Sometimes it's a bit better, sometimes worse.

I see an ophthalmologist in a few hours.  The ER docs seemed to think I could rejoin the ship before it leaves Ensenada.  (This means leaving SD no later than 10 AM Wednesday.)  I hope the team on board ship is similarly amenable to the idea.