An Airborne Strain of Dengue...

Around the time I was boarding United Flight 860 to Washington D.C., Mark, Lori and the family was wandering around São Paulo airport trying to collect the 8 bags that they had checked. Since they would not be leaving Brazil until the next evening, all of their bags would be their responsibility. They rummaged through the bags until they had obtained enough clothing to get them through the next day, and then found a storage location in the airport to leave their belongings rather than hauling them to the hotel only to bring them back again.

Even though none of the fiasco was the fault of TAM Airlines, they still felt bad for the family and gave them a free hotel and free meals for the following day. It turned out that they had not missed the flight, but had just been too late to be considered for it. Continental, lacking God given wisdom, had oversold all of the flights for the following few days, and they had simply made the check-in cutoff time the determining factor of who would make or miss the flight.

They checked into the hotel and went to bed shortly afterwards. Uncle Mark spent the majority of the next day in bed, while Aunt Lori and the kids used the time to explore a microscopic section of the thriving metropolis of São Paulo. Mark was very bummed to be leaving Brazil, and his his feelings were apparent in his demeanor and his actions. The family had done the wise thing by leaving him alone for the day and by the time came to leave for the airport the next night they didn't know what to expect.

They got to the airport early and proceeded with the check in process. Aunt Lori had begun to feel a little bit sick that day and it had progressed in pain as the hours had worn on. By the time she was nestled into her seat on the 767 she began to have the tremendous pain behind her eyes that indicated she probably had Dengue fever. There are different strains of the virus, some have severe nausea (Case: Caroline), others have category six migraine headaches (Case: Me) and others effect the body in other ways. One thing is for certain, no matter what strain of the virus it is, you would never want to endure it cramped in a coach seat on an aircraft.

As the seemingly endless flight wore on, Lori's symptoms got worse. The pain behind they eyes increased, slight nausea ensued and she just wanted to lie down. A grumpy Mark, sick Lori and tired Caroline and William arrived in Newark that morning and made their way through customs without any problems. The flight from New Jersey to Boston was short, but the exhausted and likely sore group just wanted to get home. They collected their bags and then waited for my father to pick them up. In case you are wondering if I am still waiting for my mother, you need not worry I have been home for almost 24 hours by this point.

I got a call from my dad shortly after that saying that they were home and very tired. Lori spent a lot of the day in bed. Her headaches had been bad, but she was feeling a lot better by the time I talked with her later that night. Uncle Mark had slept the majority of both flights, and hadn't even really noticed that she had been ill. Like a hibernating bear, he had returned beneath the sheets when he arrived at home. The kids had already missed two days of school at this point, and spent much of the time that they were awake preparing for the start of a new year at Covenant Christian Academy.

Seeing it had been a pretty major adjustment for me when I returned from Brazil the first time I can only imagine how difficult it would be for someone who was returning after an even longer extended period of time. They had both felt useful doing what they had been doing. Mark had finally found something that he really enjoyed doing, and a group that he loved working with. The fact that he had been doing something for God and God's people made it even more fulfilling in his mind. The amount of things that Lori had done had been extremely encouraging, and when you are so used to encouragement, the now "lack thereof" is even more depressing. It was going to be a major adjustment for them, even more so than first going to the distant country. There was going to need to be an unknown time period of transition or as Aunt Lori called it, a debriefing...