So we’re back! The flights home were relatively uneventful. The only excitement was about three hours before landing Joel started having some sort of allergic reaction to something. Over the course of the next several hours his lips grew bigger and bigger until he looked like a very manly Angelina Jolie. We also realized what we thought were mosquito bites were actually hives. Awesome.
Thankfully he never had any trouble breathing so we landed safely in Chicago on time. My mom, dad and two of my siblings were waiting to greet us which was incredibly wonderful. We went out to eat and stopped at the pharmacy to get Joel something for his ever growing lips and hands.
Of course I thought we should head straight to the emergency room as he looked rather alarming. Joel, the pharmacist and my mom (who is a RN) all thought as long as he wasn’t having any trouble breathing he would be fine with some benadryl and rest. Not going to lie, it’s probably nicer to be at home rather than sitting in a waiting room for hours. I’m obviously monitoring Joel closely and am not sure how I’ll be able to sleep since I’m going to want to be constantly checking that he’s still alive.
Then, we walked into our apartment and were greeting with the overwhelming smell of death. It smelled like a herd of cats crawled into our living room to die.
Don’t forget, we just came from India, we smelled some unbelievably awful things. This? I’m pretty sure was worse.
We followed the smell to the kitchen where we saw black ooze coming from the fridge. When we opened the fridge door we were greeted with a cloud of fruit flies. At some point in the two weeks we were gone the fridge died. Throw in some unseasonably warm weather and you have quite the disgusting welcome home.
In an attempt to not lose it completely I went to the store to get some spray and candles while poor swollen Joel cleaned up the mess. How he did it without vomiting all over the place I’m not sure. Having to suppress our gag reflex for two weeks through various smells and odd foods probably helped.
The smell is finally starting to go away. Either that or the smell burned my sense of smell out completely. I suppose I could open my backpack to check and see if my sense of smell is still working.
I’m pretty proud of myself for not losing it completely. I haven’t slept in long enough that my brain isn’t working well enough to count how long it’s actually been. I do know we started traveling over 30 hours ago. Normally I don’t do well without sleep and can become a sobbing mess when things go wrong while I’m over tired. Just the fact that I held it together and even managed to recognize that I will eventually find humor in this, shows that this trip helped me grow a lot.
I can’t wait to share everything I learned and all my pictures and stories with all of you. I definitely missed being a part of civilization. For now I have a puffy husband to care for, candles to light and sleep to catch up on.