Things Fall Apart

We're supposed to be leaving today for Florida, right?

Well, you're not going to believe this, but we've had to cancel the trip. The whole shebang.

Two days ago I developed a little tickle in my chest. It wasn't much but it was making me cough, and as time wore on I began to feel worse and worse. Yesterday it really began to catch up with me, with a sore throat and a stuffy nose, and I developed a very low fever (about 99.8º F) in the afternoon. I was testing Covid negative but I remembered when I did have Covid, back in February, that the test took a couple of days to turn positive even after my symptoms developed -- and those symptoms were very similar. Dave and I had several co-workers who came down with Covid in the last week so it seemed entirely possible that's what it was.

We had a serious "what if" discussion. We agreed that getting on a plane with a fever was irresponsible, even with a mask. We also agreed that it would be the worst possible outcome if we got to Florida and tested positive there, especially if we'd already met up with members of my family. And if Dave tested positive after me, we'd potentially have to isolate the entire time we were on vacation. And we have no health insurance in the United States. (We have travel insurance for emergencies but it's a fairly limited policy.)

We called Travelocity to try to bump our tickets forward by two days, so we could see how my illness played out. But doing that would have cost us an additional $5,000!

So we looked at our airline tickets and there was no penalty for cancelling them. There was no penalty for cancelling the hotels. We'd have to pay the billion-pound dog-sitter a fraction of her agreed-upon wage, but that seemed doable. We reasoned that we'd seen Dave's family over the summer and I saw my mom and brother in October, and we could reschedule the trip for February break. (With the added benefit that we wouldn't be traveling during the madness of Christmas.)

So we pulled the plug, which was surprisingly easy to do -- essentially just a matter of clicking buttons on the Internet. I felt the worst about cancelling on the dog-sitter, who now loses a lucrative holiday gig, but she was very understanding and said she felt so bad for us.

I unpacked my suitcase and went to bed, and woke up in the night shivering beneath my sheet and two blankets, with my temperature at 100º F. I croaked to Dave, "I think we made the right decision."

Now, this morning, I'm not so sure. My Covid test is still negative. I think I just have a cold.

Dammit.

If I'd had just one more day to wait before making a decision, I might have decided differently. In fact, if we'd waited until this morning, I might have decided differently. Then again, who knows what I'll feel like later today.

What's done is done. Looks like it's Christmas in London.

Olga is happy, at least.

(Photos: We put the suet feeder back up in the garden, and the parakeets have discovered it once again. The bright blobs are Christmas lights on our avocado tree, which was in the foreground of my shot.)