You've Got To Be Kidding Me

Well, that didn’t work out like I planned. Anyone who knows me knows that my sinuses are a disaster year round. I have “narrow sinus passages” according to my doctor and am “just unlucky”. Seriously, it actually says that in my appointment notes. So when I started to have allergy symptoms a couple of days before my trip I wasn’t surprised. I’d been having them on and off for a month. When it started to exhibit signs like a sinus infection I also wasn’t surprised. I get roughly one sinus infection per year so I know the drill. I made a quick appointment at my doctors office the day before I left and got antibiotics. I also took a Covid test certified for travel the night before and was unequivocally negative. Historically antibiotics have cleared up the symptoms from my sinus infections really quickly but they do leave me feeling quite tired. By the time I landed in Newcastle I wasn’t feeling any better and a positive test result confirmed I had Covid. Shit.

I had a few panicked minutes but Michele talked me through it and I checked into the hotel and began my isolation. I’d been diligent about wearing my mask and using sanitizer the entire journey so I’m thankful about that even though the primary reason in my mind was to keep myself from getting Covid. I toyed with the idea of trying to delay my walking trip by 5 days but that wasn’t a possibility with the tour company. Once I confirmed no changes were possible it actually made everything much easier. The trip was effectively over. I needed to monitor my health, complete my isolation per guidelines and then get back home if I felt better. So that’s what I did. My food was brought to the room. I only went out a few times and was sure to mask up, take the stairs, avoid folks, etc. Virtually the entire time I was the only person wearing a mask which seemed odd but whatever. At ten days (I hadn’t had any fever for 7 days and my symptoms had almost disappeared) I boarded a flight and headed home.

I’m home now and doing fine. I’ve got a bit of a lingering cough but nothing too bad. Overall, I didn’t get that sick. The fatigue was the biggest symptom but I’m not sure if that was Covid or the antibiotics. It definitely could’ve been worse.

In short, I flew to England to sit in a Hilton, eat pizza and watch Law and Order (with some NCIS thrown in for variety). I acknowledge that I was lucky enough to not get very ill and be able to isolate and get home without any drama but it’s still a tough pill to swallow.

England

Two good things did happen while I was in Newcastle. One, when I was at the airport at 4am they played an Oasis song, followed by a Social Distortion song (when have you ever heard Social D at an airport for craps sake) followed by another Oasis song (Stand By Me) and on that song dozens of people throughout the big bar area I was in all began to sing along. That was pretty cool.

Also, I had the best vegan hash of my life. It had sweet potatoes, beets and Sriracha.

That’s it. The rest of the trip sucked like a Hoover factory. I guess I’ve been pretty lucky in my travels up to this point but it seems like Western Europe walks just aren’t meant to be.