Breakfast in Bed, the hard way: a case for travel insurance.

While on a re-positioning cruise that embarked about 2 weeks ago from Santiago, Chile, steaming North along the West Coast of South America, with a planned disembarking at Ft. Lauderdale, FL, before transiting the Panama Canal,  and others noticed my labored breathing. This was at dinner after a climb up El Morro and a hike along the volcanic ash cliffs of Arica, Chile that people noticed. I was fine on the walks, so I did the typical guy thing and ignored the concerns, i.e., man up, suck it up. I made it through the night and breakfast without acknowledging any issues. Leslie got on a nature excursion in Pisco, Peru for which there was, thankfully, no room for me. I did lunch aboard, felt lethargic, took a nap (unusual for me), then checked into the ship's infirmary to report my breathing issue. My O2 was 84% and I had temperature of 101°F, both not good. After a test for flu (negative), blood work up, and a chest x-ray, they diagnosed me as having community pneumonia with elevated blood glucose. They kept me overnight for observation, put me on O2, prednisone, antibiotics, an acetaminophen drip, and adjusted my blood glucose with insulin.

In the morning, the fever was gone, blood glucose was close to normal and O2 was 94% while under O2. The infirmary said they could not continue to treat me because they had limited O2, so I had to go to a Lima hospital to continue treatment. By the time of discharge, my infirmary stay added up to about $4,300 in charges.

We closed our shipboard account Saturday morning with little expectation of returning to the cruise. The Panama Canal transit was our bucket list goal so if we didn't meet up with the ship on Tuesday in Manta, Ecuador, we would just go on home. I was taken by ambulance from the ship to Clinica Anglo Americana, apparently the best hospital in Lima. In the ER, they did a blood workup, took a chest x-ray and a CAT scan, to confirm the pneumonia. I was admitted to a private room and assigned an English-speaking doctor. The hospital, if I ignored my first impression of the crowded emergency waiting room area, was very modern with very up to date equipment. A Google search revealed the hospital was the best in Lima, the most expensive, a sort of a boutique hospital that is well suited for an English only international traveler.

Leslie returned to the ship that night to pack all our bags and search for a hotel in Lima. The next day Celebrity arranged a driver to take her the very long distance back to the hospital and to a nearby hotel with all of our baggage. Leslie said goodbye to our friends and the ship departed Lima. To say that Leslie was distraught is an understatement.

The CAT scan revealed a more involved bout of pneumonia than the shipboard x-ray. Serious but treatable. Fever from the infection is gone, the blood glucose (response to the infection) under control. So, it was bed rest, antibiotics, O2 treatment, and clearing the lungs. The doctor felt that I could be discharged late Monday or early Tuesday, in time to meet up with the cruise in Manta, so long as my oxygen level without O2 assist is 94% or better, and I have no blood glucose issues or infection rebound. The only logistical travel issue was that I could only fly to low altitude, preferably sea level airports.

With our hopes up, we looked into how to get to Manta, Ecuador. The shortest travel time routing would have required us to make connections in Quito, Ecuador. Unfortunately, Quito is in the Andes, at about 9,500'. The doctor approved a routing that flew us from Lima to Panama City then to Guayaquil, Ecuador, a port city. The routing overshoots our intended destination, then back tracks past our destination, Manta. We then had to get a car or bus to Manta, a 3-4-hour ride south of Guayaquil. After Leslie emailed our travel insurance for advice and Celebrity to tell them we wanted to meet up with the ship in Manta, and the hospital (!!) offered to help research flights for us, we went for it.

My stats were good enough though not perfect, at Monday at lunch time. My O2 was 94% without O2 assist so there was still a risk. I was discharged at Monday afternoon with a safe to travel, cleared to board certification from the doctor, a requirement from the cruise ship to re-board. Thus began the race to meet the cruise ship.

The flight out of Lima was at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, so we had time to get to the airport. We just needed to meet up with the cruise ship by about 5 p.m. in Manta, before it shoved off at about 7 p.m. We flew from Lima to Panama City, made the connection with minutes to spare. They had just made the last call announcement as we got to the gate. We made it to Guayaquil where we were meet by a driver arranged by Celebrity. We took off on a 3.5-hour drive through the Ecuadorian countryside which reminded us of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia with its many rural villages, rice fields, banana orchards, and tropical fauna. We arrived in Manta at 4 p.m., went through at least 5 security checkpoints at the port area, and finally got on board at about 5 p.m. with two hours to spare before shoving off. After a 16-hour race, it was CRUISE ON!

Moral of the story, when going on one of our club ski or adventure trips, domestic or international, anything that involves a plane, train, ship, or bus, get travel insurance. Basic travel insurance is always included in our international trips, while optional travel insurance is only about $20 for our domestic trips.