Apr 20 - Home - finally!!

We made our 1:30 a.m. flight to Dubai and I survived it with no major incidents. I really, really didn't want to be the reason the plane would have to make an emergency landing and my face would get plastered all over CNN. No, thank you. I'll pass.

The rest of the group was staying overnight in Cairo and heading out on a 10:00 a.m. flight to London, having a 5-6 hour layover, and then onto Toronto. We were going to be home before they would be.

I still had very little appetite but I concentrated on continuing to get fluids into me. In Dubai, I felt decent and brave enough to tackle the long flight. No chance of an upgrade - the flight was fully booked. We took a deep breath and headed into battle.

Because I was still wired on meds, I was awake the whole flight, and because Doug was so on edge about me, he was awake the whole flight. I watched four movies - Marshall (about Thurgood Marshall's early days as a NAACP lawyer), The Shape of Water (best picture Oscar winner), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (rough language) and On Wings of Eagles (about Eric Liddell of Chariots of Fire fame when he was a POW in China).

The flight was blessedly quite smooth, although had the "feathering" of the aircraft coming into Toronto lasted much longer, Doug would have been in trouble. We used our new Nexus cards that deem us to be "trusted travellers" to access the Nexus gate that had no line up and thereby bypass the long lines at passport control. Those cards are the best $100 each we've spent in a long time. The kind officer helped us to figure out how to claim the rug that was coming.

We saw some piles of snow at the airport - the vestiges of a vicious ice storm that had slashed through Ontario the previous weekend, causing traffic havoc and power blackouts and fallen trees. We missed it all! Sweet. On the drive home (about an hour), we revelled at seeing orderly traffic with no donkey carts or tuk-tuks and no pedestrians zig zagging across the highway.

We were home safely by 7:00 p.m. and ever so happy. There is nothing, just nothing like home.

Epilogue - my gastrointestinal system got a bit better each day and I finished the medications on Sunday night. I still wasn't sleeping well because of one of the meds so adjusting to the jet lag was a lost cause. Monday morning - I woke up covered in a red, itchy rash. Great - an allergic reaction to either one of the drugs, or a combination of two or more of them. Couldn't get into see our family doctor, so we went to a walk in clinic and got Prednisone, a powerful steroid to combat the spread of the rash which was heading swiftly towards my face and throat and could have hit me with anaphylactic shock at any time. The Prednisone slowed things down. By Tuesday, I was still a mess, but at least anaphylactic shock seemed to be no longer imminent. The rash was trying to spread down my forearms and down below my knees. I spent a lot of time oatmeal baths and having Doug slather me with a non-steroidal based ointment recommended by the pharmacist. The Prednisone makes me jumpy and almost twitchy, so no chance of sleep while taking it. The doctor gave me sleeping pills but they couldn't seem to make a difference. Good thing the newspapers come nice and early because I was up at all kinds of weird hours. Saw our family doctor on Wednesday and gave him the whole sordid story. He prescribed anti-itch pill to use at night that induces drowsiness. I actually slept properly on Wednesday evening. He's going to refer me to the Adverse Reactions Clinic to get to the bottom this wicked reaction so that we can avoid it in the future. By Thursday, I was on the mend, with the rash mostly receded, but lots of weird blotchiness still remaining. What an ordeal!

And as if that wasn't enough, Doug brought home a cold from Egypt. He's getting better now but has sounded like Kermit the Frog for a few days. He refereed a couple of basket ball games yesterday with virtually no voice. Used a lot of hand signals I guess.

And so, our big Middle East adventure is over. We enjoyed so many things - seeing Patty and Bob in fascinating Dubai; visiting several World Heritage Sites; riding Casa Nova the Camel in sight of the iconic Great Pyramids; floating down the Nile River; and seeing sites of significance from the Bible. Visiting the site of the baptism of Christ was very spiritual moving for me. It was truly a memorable trip, with a bit of a bobble on the end, but we got through it, with a few valuable lessons learned.

We were delighted to travel in small group where we could get to know one another. We wish all our fellow travellers wonderful future adventures.

And to all of you who have patiently followed this blog, I say thank you. Apologies for the delay - it took me several days to be able to concentrate well enough to tackle finishing this blog. Go back to about April 15 - that's where the first posting from Cairo was when I first encountered slow upload speed. It has been a pleasure having you along for the ride. I hope you have learned some things about Dubai and Jordan and Egypt. May you too continue to enjoy learning about this fascinating world of ours.

Doug and I are off to Newfoundland for two weeks in late May - we're going to see whales and ice bergs and meet some of Canada's most friendly people - the Newfies. I'll probably blog that one too!Read more