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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
This is part three of a three-part series on our vacation to Ireland in June.
Part Three: Swine Flu?
We began the final third of our trip with one night’s stay at Ballyseede Castle Hotel in Tralee, County Kerry. I have one Irish ancestor that I know of, Thomas Blennerhassett Hurley, who immigrated to the U.S. sometime before 1865. I know little about this man, other than that he lived in Mobile, Alabama, and was a carpenter and bridge builder, and died before 1900. I also know that the Blennerhassett family originates from only one place in Ireland - County Kerry. Ballyseede was the home of the Blennerhassett family from the 1500s to 1966, though the current castle was built in the 1700s.
Since I found out about Ballyseede a while back, I’ve been referring to it as our “ancestral manse” - but then pointing out my ancestor could just as easily have been their stable boy. Either way, when we decided to go to Ireland, I knew we just had to go see the place where some of my ancestors probably lived (or at least mucked out stables).
The castle was gorgeous inside and out - everything I had imagined it would be.
But the castle was also where things began to go awry with our so-far-perfect vacation.
D woke up early, feeling keenly nauseated. He threw up violently two or three times, and we hoped it was just food poisoning from the previous night’s dinner of roasted lamb, and that it would run its course. We went down to breakfast, thinking some Sprite and toast would help him feel better.
Instead, he turned gray and sweat popped out on his forehead. He had to sit on the floor, while I fanned him with a menu. We made the wait staff intensely nervous, and the other guests kept coming by and asking if he was okay.
Finally, when he felt well enough to stand, we went back upstairs and put him to bed. I left the room, so he could get some rest. Downstairs, I asked if we could have a late checkout, still hoping the worst would pass and we could get going. We didn’t have our next night planned because we’d intended to drive up the west coast of Ireland to the Cliffs of Moher and just see where we felt like stopping along the way, so I had no idea what to do next if he didn’t improve. Adding to the difficulty, our rental car was a manual shift, and I can only drive an automatic.
While D slept, I walked the beautiful grounds with my camera, met some nice ladies from California, and sat on the front steps playing with one of the castle dogs, Einstein, who loves to fetch pebbles. Several people who’d noticed the episode at breakfast asked me how D was, and I said we thought it was probably food poisoning. The American ladies laughed and said, “Hope it’s not swine flu!” I laughed, too. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Then I got a call from D, saying he still felt terrible, and he’d taken his temperature and now had a fever. In the room, I touched his hands, and they were gray and cold as ice.
That’s about when I started to quietly freak out. Food poisoning wouldn’t give someone a fever, would it? And we’d just heard on the news the day before about the first woman in Scotland to die of swine flu, along with her prematurely born baby. Until this moment, I hadn’t been taking swine flu seriously at all. Seemed like much ado about nothing. I hadn’t bothered to listen carefully to the news about it or read any articles.
A tiny trembling began in my body, just under the surface - like my skin might actually give way and let all the quivering pieces underneath fly in every direction. I checked us out of the hotel and dragged our luggage down the stairs, while D barely propped himself in an upright position. The hotel manager suggested we take D to the emergency room at the hospital conveniently 5 minutes’ drive away. We made it there with D driving - due to some amazing force of will on his part - and he immediately went and lay down across several chairs in the waiting room.
I checked him in and paid the emergency room fee - they have universal health care in Ireland, even for foreign visitors, but there is a reasonable fee for emergency services. There, hidden by the frosted glass at the bill paying desk, was where the tears came. I brushed them away before the clerk came back, but still she said, very kindly, “Don’t worry - he’ll be okay now.”
In the emergency room there were ominous signs warning about 5-hour wait times (and others warning about swine flu). But there was no one else in the waiting room on this Wednesday morning, and D was quickly taken back to a little area for the preliminary interview and tests. When he couldn’t sit upright long enough to have his blood pressure taken, the nurse called for a gurney. I followed behind as he was wheeled into a curtained area.
In this brighter room, I could really see how gray he was. His hands were still so cold, and he was so weak he could barely twitch a finger. The nurses asked questions about what he’d eaten the night before. They seemed very casual about it all, and that made me feel a little better. The nurses and then the doctor asked a few questions that I suspected were designed to eliminate the possibility of swine flu - do you have a sore throat was, in particular, repeated a few times. They seemed relieved by his - or my, in place of him, because he could barely speak - answers.
But then, as the doctor was about to leave, D spoke up - just so they knew, he’d had a stuffy nose for the past couple of days.
That’s when everything changed. The doctors and nurses looked at each other, suddenly anxious. The doctor asked about the sore throat again and again. I told them I had a mild cold just before we left for Ireland, and that D appeared to have caught it.
Everyone left. There was no chair for me to sit in, so I stood beside the curtain, listening to the doctor and nurses talk on the other side of it. Swine flu, someone said. Quarantine. Which one of you was in direct contact with the patient?
I looked back at D, weaker and paler than I’d ever seen him, and the trembling feeling that had begun a half hour earlier intensified. I began to be really scared. What if this really was swine flu? We’d been on a plane and at three airports with endless possibilities for contagion. What if D was really sick? What if … ?
I tried to stop myself from crying because I didn’t want to upset him. He noticed anyway, and held out his hand to me. I took it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and I knew he meant he was sorry for messing up our day and maybe the rest of the trip.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, and it broke my heart that he would feel guilty on top of feeling so sick. I tried to be upbeat, saying this was an adventure and it was good we hadn’t booked the next hotel yet.
Then the doctor and one nurse came back. They gave us masks and told us we’d have to be put in isolation for a while. They moved us to a little windowless room that looked like it had most recently been used as a storage closet. They told me my job was to make sure they two and only they two people entered the room. They brought me a chair and some gingerbread biscuits and a pitcher of water, and they put D on fluids through an IV. They pricked D’s finger four times for blood sugar tests, and they swabbed his throat twice for the swine flu tests. The doctor put me on the phone with a woman at the health department, and I explained to her about my cold, D’s cold, and the sudden onset of this stomach thing.
We found out the test had to be sent off to Dublin, and we wouldn’t have results until the next day at the earliest. They said we would probably have to stay here, in this little room, overnight.
Meanwhile, I googled swine flu on my phone and began to feel reassured in spite of the isolation and the scary masks. The symptoms didn’t exactly match what D had, and even if he did have it, the prognosis for someone of his age and health level was extremely good. I called my mom and told her what was going on, mostly because I had to talk to somebody about it, but D and I thoroughly agreed NOT to call his mom, as she would have a complete freak-out.
D started feeling a little better when the IV fluids started kicking in and even managed to sit up and eat a little lunch. Then the doc came back and told us that after the swine flu experts at the health department had thoroughly discussed the situation, they had come to the conclusion that D probably did not have swine flu, and we would be allowed to leave the hospital.
Still, the doc was still really nervous about the prospect of us going out and touring the countryside without a definite negative on the swine flu. I reassured him that we’d hole up in a hotel for the rest of the day - what else could we do anyway with D feeling so bad? - and got a recommendation for one nearby. We exchanged cell numbers, so he could inform us of the test results. Then he gave D some Tamiflu and pain reliever/fever reducer tabs and instructions to wear our masks in public, just in case, and escorted us out himself. On the way, everyone we passed looked at us like we might be carrying the plague.
Once we were in the car, we ditched the masks. D drove us to the hotel, which was only a few blocks away. I checked us in, so that he could go straight up to the room without contacting anyone. D tried taking the effervescent fever medicine, but it made him violently throw up again. He slept the rest of the afternoon and evening (while I went out for a while to the nearby shopping center and bought a hat at TKMaxx - yes, just like TJMaxx but with a K - and some juice and crackers for D at a grocery store), and then he managed a late room service supper.
By the next morning, D’s fever had broken. He was sore from all the heaving, but he seemed to have made a total recovery.
We hung around the hotel as long as we could, waiting for the test results, but when they hadn’t come by 1 p.m., we decided there was no way he had swine flu if he was already feeling this good and we might as well make the most of this - our last real, full day in Ireland - while still staying near Tralee and the hospital. We drove to the nearby town of Blennerville - another bastion of the Blennerhassetts - where we toured the restored windmill and visited the museum about immigrant ships during the Famine, many of which departed from the Blennerville/Tralee port. On the way there, we got two calls - from the health department lady and the doctor - both telling us the good news - D was negative for swine flu, and we were free to return home. (Also, would we mind bringing back the rest of the Tamiflu, as it’s in short supply?)
Then we drove the Dingle Peninsula, another incredibly scenic drive. We stopped at the Famine Cottages museum, where during a rain shower, we popped into a stone stable and were followed by a little group of goats, seeking shelter there, too. On the hillside was a beautiful white pony, who looked exactly like a unicorn, minus the horn.
The view of the ocean from these extremely humble cottages - the scene of such misery during the Famine years - was breathtaking, but as they say in County Kerry, “you can’t eat scenery.”
In charming Dingle Town, we did eat fish and chips (for me, again) and a cheeseburger (for D) at Murphy’s Pub, after strolling around the lovely harbor and before embarking on the long drive back to Dublin, where we’d be flying out of the next morning. (On the way back to Dublin, we dropped the Tamiflu back off at the hospital in Tralee.)
It’s a good thing the days are so long in Ireland. We only had one working headlight, but the last tinge of green light was only just fading from the sky when we arrived at the Travelodge near the Dublin airport at midnight. Then in our room - very much resembling a college dorm room and with a similar level of comfort - we organized and packed up all our stuff for the return flight.
Next morning, we were a little sad to say goodbye to our trusty Ford Focus, but then we had such trouble finding the rental car return area that we were more than ready to turn over the keys when the time came. After an endless wait in customs, everything with our flight went off without a hitch, and then we were back in Atlanta.
We could feel the 98-degree heat the instant we set foot in the breezeway, and I blurted, “Can’t we just turn around and go back home?” After 10 days away, in the beautiful cool of Ireland, the South suddenly felt like a foreign country and Ireland our home. I missed it intensely.
Now, two weeks have passed, and things are back to normal. I’ve (almost) adjusted back to driving on the right side of the road. The adoption waiting drama that I’d virtually forgotten about on vacation quickly zoomed back into focus with a vengeance. D’s mom was mad we didn’t tell her about the swine flu drama as it was happening.
Yep, things are definitely back to normal. *Sigh* When can we go back?
So glad that everything worked out okay! It would be scary to get sick in a foreign country, so far away from home. I’m glad the nurses and doctors seemed so nice.
I’m sure that was scary, but I am impressed at the quick intervention of the Irish medical staff, and their attention to a possible case of swine flu. At this point, swine flu doesn’t seem to be that threatening, although today there’s news from the CDC saying everyone should have 2 weeks food/medicine supply this fall/winter in case of further outbreaks.
You wrote: “It’s not your fault,” I said, and it broke my heart that he would feel guilty on top of feeling so sick. (Regarding Darwin)
Those were my husband’s first words to me when he learned he had acute leukemia — which he died of within a week. I felt just like you did, but then good men like my late husband and Darwin are difficult to come by in these times. Be happy, and appreciate him!
Cara, thanks for pointing that out about the Irish medical staff. We were really impressed with them. In addition to worrying about D, I was freaking out thinking about all the places we’d been and people we’d encountered so far on our trip, if he really did have swine flu. So I totally understood their need for caution!
And I’m really sorry about your husband. I can’t imagine.
swine flu is really not very deadly at all, there are just mass panic;;’