Is that a cruising light at the end of this delay tunnel?

We have some answers, a new target departure timeframe, lots of hope, but no real certainty yet. I’ll start with Dave’s hand.

We finally have confirmation that the inflammation in Dave’s hand and wrist was, in fact, caused by Mycobacterium marinum, as we suspected. If you missed my last post, we suspected this pathogen because of his friend Ian’s experience almost two years ago. The results came on Wednesday, about 24 hours before his Thursday appointment with an infectious disease specialist. They had read his file and themselves suspected M. marinum, but the timely DNA test results made their job easier. They’ve seen it before and they know how to treat it. Dave will start a 3-month course of two antibiotics known to be effective for this bacterium. He will take them for a month then return to the infectious disease doctor to check that (a) they clinically appear to be working (ie-there’s no swelling; there will not be a tissue biopsy), and (b) that his liver and kidneys are handling the antibiotics well. If all’s well, then he will continue the antibiotics for another two months. We know, long-course strong antibiotics aren’t ideal, but neither is a persistent, slow growing bacterium that can spread through the lymph system if not treated properly and completely eradicated. So there you have it.

The M. marinum follow up is only one of the issues keeping us in NH until very late April. Dave also needed a root canal in one of his top, back molars, under an existing crown. His first appointment was yesterday, a couple hours after the infectious disease appointment. What he didn’t realize when he went in was that this is a multi-step process spread out over a few weeks. <Sigh> He goes back to the dental surgeon in two weeks for the final part of the root canal, then he has to go back to his regular dentist a couple of days later to have the crown resealed. Dave is still trying to negotiate the exact dates so we’re not stuck here until early May, but both the dental surgeon and his dentist have April vacations in the latter half of the month, so it’s challenging. Our fingers are crossed that the second part of the root canal can happen a little earlier so his dentist can reseal the crown before he goes on vacation. Our fingers are crossed.

On a more positive delay note, we got our first COVID vaccine dose Wednesday morning! We knew we that meant staying in NH for up to 4 weeks depending on when the second does would be. The flavor of the day was Pfizer, and they automatically scheduled our second dose for April 21st. Besides, that’s that same week as Dave’s infectious disease follow-up, so we were going to still be around anyway. We’re just glad we’ll be vaccinated before we return to the boat.

So where is that cruising light at the end of the delay tunnel?

Once we have our second vaccine dose and Dave’s medical issues are settled we will return to Indigo Lady in Florida. We will have the OceanVolt representative meet us at the marina to review our solar-electric system, we’ll stop by our east coast Florida family for a visit, and then we’ll cast off the dock lines. We hope to meet up with some Florida friends who will be cruising the Keys. We also need to test Lady’s systems on an overnight run, and we can do that in the Keys as well. Then we will likely head to the Bahamas. Alas, it will be the start of hurricane season, or close to it, by the time we arrive. Then I’ll start tracking the weather obsessively and stress about every lo pressure system that comes off South Africa. If I don’t fry myself with stress, or wear down Dave with my incessant worrying about tropical storms, we may cruise the Bahamas into August. At least I won’t be worrying as much about getting COVID, and will be comfortable flying back from the Bahamas when the time comes. Lady will be riding out the rest of hurricane season there in one of their hurricane holes, thus the need to fly back to the US.

That’s where we stand for now. Several things have to come together before we can head back to Florida or consider traveling beyond. We continue to keep our fingers crossed.

Stay safe and take care of each other!