22 Jan 2019
Closing in on Japan! Day 8 of 10 in our sail from Honolulu to Kobe. Seas have been rolling the past few days, with higher winds, but our Captain has done a great job of keeping us away from some even rougher waters and storms that we hear are dotting the Pacific. Not as much sea sickness this leg, despite the bigger seas, though it still creeps up from time to time. Our family report in this department: I was down for the count one evening but otherwise have felt well with a quarter patch on. A almost passed out playing basketball one day early on (most likely due to the seas which are more strongly felt the higher and more fore you are on the ship - the basketball court being the highest and most far forward spot that you can be on the MV World Odyssey) but perked up after some sleep. H and G have kept patches (or some fraction thereof) on consistently and this is working well for them.
The food is pretty good. G and I love not shopping for it, preparing it or cleaning up afterwards! Flavors are already repetitive but there is still a great deal of variety at every meal (several proteins, salad, fruit, etc); pretty amazing how they are able to put these meals together with such fresh ingredients more than a week out from our last port. The rolls are delicious and A is averaging a quarter-stick of butter daily, just like at home. Kitchen staff is lovely and crew all over the ship make an effort to greet you by name (I am Miss Megan or Dr Megan). My favorite group is still our crew medical colleagues. They are good natured, helpful and kind to our voyagers and their crew patients as well.
We had a staculty - crew reception last night where the officers (group of about 10) mingled with our staff and faculty. G and two others (including a music prof from UCSD who is teaching several World Music classes on board) played a jazz trio and they sounded great. Festive atmosphere.
Ok - medical update. This voyage has been my chance to put on an epidemiologist’s hat and has been super interesting in that regard (again, if you are medically interesting, it does not mean that you are feeling awesome and I really feel for those folks who have been ill away from home and / or ill and having to forego teaching responsibilities on board). Several seasonal viruses seem to be circulating, just like we’d be seeing at home and we are still circulating flu. We appear to have had our #10 case of flu A this morning (cases either test confirmed - nasopharyngeal swab, types A or B but not strain - or strongly suspected by symptoms and sometimes, symptoms plus proximity to an already confirmed case). We are still testing to confirm only if we intend to treat (like the only two passengers <age 5, both with asthma; they are, thankfully, doing well). We are now in the 1-2% of the population zone here in our closed system of the ship. The majority of our cases did have the flu shot but because we don’t know strain, we don’t know if we are seeing attenuated versions of flu or if we are seeing something not included in this year’s vaccine. We are arriving shortly in Japan where they are also dealing with a higher than normal number of flu cases (flu A, mostly H1N1 which WAS in this year’s shot, thankfully). Neither location (Japan or ship) is that different from where many US cities are currently. Each of our flu cases seem to be working their way through their illnesses and as we approach Japanese shores (with more medical infrastructure than we have on board), I am breathing easier.
We’ve done lots of thinking about how to keep our voyagers healthy in our next several ports and how to curb the spread of what we are dealing with on board as well. CDC has a well-fleshed out guideline for dealing with influenza on cruise ships and we have been following this. In addition to the guidelines about not circulating about the ship when ill, it’s simple stuff (hand washing, sanitizing work stations and work-out equipment, covering coughs, etc) but when human behavior is involved, it feels like we need to get the word out fresh each day (announcements, dean’s memo, people posted in the dining halls reminding about hand sanitizer, etc). Trying to juggle this all without cultivating alarm.
Speaking of human behavior, we are not seeing any more sunburns since the weather cooled a couple days ago and the condom jar has needed a few refills.