It's All Fun And Games Until You Get Sick Four Different Ways

I feel like even my travel stories end up revolving less about the place I was visiting and more about yet another random mishap I had, so I tried to actually talk about Morocco in the last few posts.

But I can't help myself. There were mishaps and how could I keep that from you?

The problems didn't end when I missed my bus the first day. Or when I arrived in Casablanca for our first tour group meeting and I didn't have any of the materials I was supposed to. Or when the Moroccan spa treatments Angie and I signed up for included me walking into a room to find Angie happily hanging out in her full bikini after my scrub-down lady made me strip almost completely (and let me tell you, having a loofa that makes sand paper feel like kitten fur come at you while you are topless is less than relaxing). But the problems went medical. Sigh.

It started with a sore throat and head cold. I did not think to pack any medicines but whatever, I can keep going through a head cold.

Then: it was nausea.

It came out of nowhere. Angie and I were about to go to sleep when I have to run to the bathroom and lose my dinner suddenly.

Hmm, this is a little more problematic considering our bus -- the bus we spend a lot of time on most days --

has no bathroom.

(Don't ask me why a seniors tour should ever be put on a bus with no bathroom, but that's how it was)

So now I need intervention. And of course I don't speak french or arabic and we are spending time in old souks that don't exactly have CVSs, so I'm at our tour guide's mercy to find me medicine that will keep me from vomitting out the door of our bus as it rolls through north Africa.

And here's where I remember a horrible yet hilarious story of a friend of a friend's trip to India. This guy took meds given to him by a local right before he left the country and ended up POO'ing HIS PANTS while being in nearly a coma on the flight home. People had to wake him up to get him to take care of it and he ended up wrapping a towel around himself like a diaper and passing out again, while continuing to have issues all the way home.

So you see why I had a substantial level of fear regarding taking meds I'm not familiar with.

Anyway, THANK THE LORD these meds were fine and I didn't get sick anymore from that particular issue, though I did still have a fever and feel crappy from the head cold.

A few days later - I have another issue. This time more similar to poor India Plane Boy's. 

Sigh.

Thankfully, it was during the night again and I didn't even wake Angie during my trips out of the bed (even when I accidentally fell into the light switch and then layed in bed uncontrollably giggling) but did I mention this happened in the hotel room where we can't shut the door all the way because it would trap you inside? And that there is a toilet paper shortage throughout all of Morocco? Yes. Because being sick for the third time in a few days wasn't enough of a complication.

I end up thankfully finding some old medicine in my makeup bag and had grabbed a roll of toilet paper from another hotel when we left because I knew I'd need it for places that didn't have any, which was a good thing considering we had just run out in this hotel room. (Seriously, the lack of toilet paper got old. When we finally landed back in the states I used a restroom in JFK and nearly teared up with joy over having enough toilet paper. I wanted to wrap it around myself like a dress. I wanted to jump into a pile of it like leaves. I wanted to roll it over my head and pass it to everyone around me like they do at the end of The Blue Man Group show in Chicago....)

Anyway, after feeling better about having meds and TP for the time being, I start to panic again because I know I'll need to wake up and get back on the bus.

The bus with NO BATHROOM.

So I'm praying hard AGAIN and again have to wake up and search for more medicine. At this point I don't even know what to treat -- head cold? nausea? the ..other ...thing? Angie can't even deal anymore and she simply walks past our tour guide and dead-pans "we have another issue" and just keeps walking.

I bet my tour guide was so happy to see me leave.

So thank the Lord again, I'm much better the next day and am able to enjoy Marrakesh and its square full of people, snakes, and monkeys, and I think "what the heck? I'll get a cheap little henna tatto like the other people are doing."

And fast forward to two weeks later and I still have the design on my arm.

In a rash.

The ink is long gone but yet the design is still perfectly there, just red and raised like some intricate pattern Chloe scratched violently into my arm. I'm taking steroids to get rid of it and scaring myself finding things on the internet about the evils of black henna and what all it can affect the rest of your life.

SON OF A.

I didn't even choose black, I just went with whatever the first artist that approached me had. I've had real henna (the orange kind) before for a friend's Sikh wedding and was fine but apparently black henna is basically a super concentrated black dye that you should not put on skin.

It would've been safer to risk whatever the snakes and monkeys would've done to me. Good grief.

So now I'm praying again and hopefully can report soon that it's all fixed and this freak incident is behind me. But seriously, who is surprised this happened:

And to think I was in Nicaragua where three of my friends got the swine flu (see: here) and I was completely fine! On this trip, I get sick four different ways. Sigh. Keeps life interesting I guess.