Ouch! My colon!

Confined here for a little while

I'm afraid my plans for visiting Islamic Cairo tomorrow might be derailed. I seem to have picked up a case of the notorious travelers YUCK! Which is weird because I haven't eaten much. When it's 100 degrees and you're dressed Full Ninja, you don't really want to eat anything except salad, sushi and white wine and I'm not dumb enough to go after any of these in Cairo. In fact, I have been super paranoid about what I eat this whole time in an effort to avoid exactly this situation. I'm wondering if it's heat exhaustion.    

In any case, I feel like dying. Hey, at least I got to see the pyramids before I die! Oh, shit! Did I jinx myself?

I have Immodium AD and Cipro antibiotic in my bag. However, I haven't yet taken either. The unfortunate most common side effect of Cipro, given my situation, is...get this...hypersensitivity to the sun! So if I take that, I'm pretty much down for a while whether I feel better or not.

I haven't taken the Immodium either. One of my guide books tells me that medicine from the States rarely works on Egyptian bugs, but that the Egyptian stuff almost always does. So I have decided to give it a shot.

Except that I don't have any. This is where becoming a Ramses Hilton VIP just became worth EVERY PENNY.

At check-in, I elected to pay $5 per night extra for the plush Nile-view 25th floor suite I now occupy. It came with all sorts of extra benefits, not the least of which is a special concierge just for those of us who are very special.

When I decided to hunt down some Egyptian anti-diarrhea medicine (sorry I had to say it), at first I forgot this convenient fact and called the "regular" guy. He politely informed me that this medicine is probably available at the pharmacy across the street, thank you, goodbye.

At least I have a balcony to barf off of!

Mind you, "across the street" entails playing an 8-lane game of human Frogger, made extra fun for a woman with the runs alone in all black at midnight. Not sure I'm up for it.

Then I remembered "my" concierge.

I got on the phone and within two minutes he had me connected personally to the pharmacist. A couple of minutes later, I had confirmed that they had the medicine in stock (and it is cheap to boot). I opened my mouth to confirm the location of the pharmacy and the pharmacist got very confused.

"No, no, no, Mrs. Bower!" He said. "I bring it to you now!"

He is on his way to my room. He is getting a huge tip.