Our trip this year was scheduled for 5/19 to 5/29, we’ve been going to SXM most every year since the mid-90’s. It’s our favorite place in the world. I’ll start with some of the usual trip report observations, but unfortunately (spoiler alert…) this year our trip was cut short.

Weather couldn’t have been more perfect; we stayed in a studio at Club O as we enjoy being such a short walk to the beach. The beach at Club O was very clean and not crowded at all this time of year. Further north on Orient Beach, the seaweed got progressively worse as you got nearer to Mt. Vernon. It’s always been worse on that end of beach, but this year it was bizarre how much seaweed had built up. It was pretty bad even at CoCo beach, and terrible north of that. Can’t imagine swimming in that area. But again the south, Club O end of the beach was pristine.

We arrived on Tuesday, 5/19. We arranged online in advance to have Orientique leave basic provisions in our studio – some bottles of water, a 6 pack of Carib’s, coffee for the first morning, coffee filters, paper towel. It was nice to not have to worry about any shopping on our arrival day. We had dinner in Orient Village at Le Piment, one of our favorite places. We usually eat there on our first night as we don’t feel like driving far at the end of a long travel day. This year it wasn’t quite as good as usual, both my wife and I were a little disappointed in the food. But we’ll certainly be back there next trip; anyplace can have an off night!

We spent the next three days on the beach, couldn’t have been more perfect. Happy hour at the Perch, catching up with friends that come this time of the year, swimming, walking the beach, and just relaxing.

Wednesday for dinner we went to the Dingy Dock at Oyster Pond for ribs, another long-time favorite. They were good but my wife thought there weren’t quite as “fall-off-the-bone” tender as in the past. They also misplaced our order and took about an hour to bring our food, even though they weren’t very busy and all we ordered was two rib dinners. The waiter apologized and bought us each a drink. No worries, we’re in paradise!

Thursday night for dinner we ate at Piazza Pascal in Grand Case. This was fabulous; it’s become one of our favorites on the island. We split a mozzarella and tomato appetizer. I had a mixed seafood & pasta with pesto dish. Terry had a shrimp and pasta dish. We split a bottle of wine and tiramisu for desert. Unusual for us to go this “all-out” for dinner (we’re simple folk!), but this was worth it, everything was great. I believe the total bill came to $120, even dollar-for-euro for cash.

Friday, after another great day on beach, we took a late afternoon walk to the Mt. Vernon end of the beach and back. We walk a lot on these trips, especially early every morning, but this time I was feeling a little “off”. By way of background, I had quintuple cardiac bypass surgery 20 years ago (!)… I was 42 years old then (62 now, do the math). Five years ago I had a cardiac catheterization procedure done that showed all of the 5 grafts were still 100% open, and I’ve been healthy generally. Still, I’m guessing you can see where this is all headed…

Even before Friday, I had been having some jaw pain – a common cardiac symptom. But this is not terribly unusual for me. It’s what led me to get the cardiac cath done 5 years ago, and since that test came out clear I didn’t think much of the pain, it would come and go. Still, on that walk late Friday afternoon the pain was getting worse. So we decided not to go out for dinner after our walk, instead we decided to stay in and ordered delivery from Rancho del Sol. I can’t resist going back into standard trip-report mode here… we’ve always avoided Rancho del Sol, we were last there long ago when it was a Mexican restaurant and have seen it change over the years, for a while it was a convenience store. We ordered a Caesar salad and a pizza, which arrived quickly. We were quite surprised at how good it was, and inexpensive!

Anyway, starting at about 7pm Friday night the jaw pain was getting worse, wasn’t going away, and eventually was accompanied by chest pain and pain down my left arm, pain extreme enough to cause nausea. At about 11pm Terry called security and they in turn called an ambulance that took me to the hospital in Marigot, where our adventure REALLY began.

I spent two days in the Marigot hospital, and I’ll admit I was very scared. I arrived at the emergency room late in the evening, and none of the personnel there spoke much English. To be fair, I speak even LESS French. They hooked me up to an EKG, did some blood tests, and gave me various pills and shots (I had no idea what). I was admitted to intensive care. To give you an idea of the size of the hospital, I was in Room #1.

Oh, one last restaurant review… I would not recommend the food at the Marigot hospital. Breakfast both days consisted of a bowl of coffee (not a typo) and bread. I wasn’t very hungry anyway.

The worst of the pain did subside. Likely they were giving me blood thinners, and nitroglycerine when the pain was bad. On Saturday a doctor was on duty that did speak good English. To their credit, the medical personnel in Marigot did what they could with the resources they had, and I am truly grateful for all the attention I received. The doctor consulted with an off-site cardiologist. And in retrospect, they came to the absolutely correct conclusion… I needed to have another cardiac catheterization to really find out what was happening. The closest place that could be done was in Guadeloupe. And I needed a medical flight; they wouldn’t let me go on a commercial flight due to the medical risk.

If I may step back for a minute… when we booked our flights (on American) back in February, I considered the inexpensive travel insurance they offer on the airline’s web site. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before the trip that I decided to buy the specific medical evacuation insurance that takes you back to your home hospital. The cheap stuff may cover some trip cancellation expenses, but it at best would have flown us to Guadeloupe, not back to our home hospital (we’re from Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Of course we wanted to go home, where I had been treated in the past, they had my medical history, and we were most comfortable. So the decision to buy the medical evacuation insurance was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made… we bought the insurance from SkyMed for $165 (for both of us). The medical flight from St. Martin back to Milwaukee would have cost us $35,000 - $40,000.

The Marigot hospital used a facilitator that spoke excellent English and was a godsend in terms of helping us coordinate everything between the hospital, SkyMed, and the medical evacuation team. She worked very hard late into the night on Saturday. By Sunday I was being taken by ambulance to the airport (on the Dutch side), and was loaded onto a Learjet owned by AeroMD, fully medically equipped and accompanied by a doctor, nurse, and respiratory therapist. Oh, and of course my wife! AeroMD is a medical flight company serving the Caribbean, based in St. Thomas. I can’t say enough about how professionally and competently they handled everything.

One stop in Wilmington, NC for customs and to refuel… the plane was small and fast, about 5 ½ hours total from St Martin to Milwaukee. Another ambulance took us to our hospital here at home. I was there for two more days, had the cardiac cath I needed. The news was basically good… of my quintuple bypass 20 years ago, the 4 arterial grafts were still wide open, but the one venous graft was occluded, likely what was causing the pain. I can’t imagine that they would have been able to determine this as easily in Guadeloupe, without my records from 20 years ago. I’m doing fine now and being treated with meds, cardiac rehab, lifestyle changes, and have a number of follow-up appointments scheduled.

My apologies for the length of this report, and I’m leaving out lots of details. Most of those agonizing details were handled by my wife Terry… making contacts, doing all the packing, dealing with the rental car, the folks at Club O, the airlines. All this while dealing with me in the hospital, and all in a 2 day period. I don’t know how she did it. She did have much help from friends staying at Club O, and we owe them a great deal of thanks. But purchasing that medical evacuation insurance was only the 2nd best decision I ever made. The best decision I ever made was when I married Terry 30+ years ago.

Oh, one final loose end. We had to leave our 2 suitcases behind; they wouldn’t fit on the Learjet. American Airlines won’t allow luggage on a flight without a passenger, which I guess I understand. We’ve been trying to do FedEx, but the forms are ridiculously tedious (e.g., list EACH item in each suitcase, it’s size, weight, material, country of origin, and value), and it looks like it would be exorbitantly expensive. We’re hoping Club O will be willing to hang onto them; it will give us an excuse to make a return trip ASAP! Well, let’s say no later than next May. Something to look forward to!