The drive across the island of Hawaii really does give you a feeling for why it is called the Big Island. From Waikoloa, on the drier, Western side of Hawaii, you spend about 60 miles passing between the massive frames of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, going by a U.S. Army training complex, and driving through everything from grassy ranch lands, volcanic rock forms and what looks like high desert scrub brush. All of this comes with reaching nearly 7,000 feet in elevation before descending into Hilo, the second-largest city in all of Hawaii, on the Eastern, and wetter side of the island, and home to the Hilo Urgent Care center where I took my wife on the first day of our recent trip to the Big Island.

This was the sixth time we had visited the Big Island. And the way it started ensured that it would be unlike any other trip we had made since our first one nearly a decade ago.

When you say the word “Hawaii”, several images will enter a person’s mind. Hula girls. Luaus. Water everywhere. Beaches and tourists. Jack Lord. Flower leis. Lava flows. “Magnum P-I”. Lush, green forests. Surfing. All of these are so unique to Hawaii, and have become so ubiquitous, that even people who have never been there can probably give you half a dozen examples of what the 50th state is like.

What you do not envision when you think about Hawaii is your wife coming down with an unexpected case of Covid that would lay her up for the better part of four days of your week-long visit. And when you fly 2,500 miles into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and you have only seven days to make the most out of your investment in time and money, the absolute last way you want to spend your vacation is stuffed up inside a dark timeshare bedroom, unable to even do the most-stereotypical of Hawaiian activities like eating a lunch platter loaded up with two scoops of white rice and a big ball of macaroni salad.

But, that is exactly what happened to my wife this past week, as she found herself coughing, hacking and slobbering away like a 19th-century consumption patient.

All of this had actually begun about a day before we arrived on the Big Island from Oahu, where we had just spent a week going to the beach, hiking up and down Diamond Head, visiting friends and researching my wife’s crazy Hawaiian family tree. Our older daughter had picked up a cold in Honolulu, and as a precaution, we had given her a Covid test on a Saturday. She came through negative with flying colors.

But, come Sunday morning on the Big Island, my wife had passed the test she took, with the two lines on the little testing strip both showing up to confirm a brand new case of Covid, and the second one she’s had in the last year. We called my wife’s doctor’s office—which was in California and three hours ahead of us in Hawaii—in the hope of getting a prescription for the medication Paxlovid, which while it does sound like the name of a death metal band from Florida, is a near miracle worker when it comes to treating Covid’s flu-like symptoms.

And that’s when the fun really began.

The advice nurse said no one could do a video call in order to give my wife a prescription. Something having to do with it being Sunday and our new insurance coverage just starting up. I didn’t quite get the reasoning, but I knew it was no use to argue. What the nurse did suggest was that we find an urgent care facility where a doctor could see us and get some pills in our hands. This sounded reasonable, until I started looking up urgent care facilities in Kona, the largest city on the western side of the Big Island, and a good 30 miles south of us in Waikoloa. Every place I found was either closed because it was Sunday, or closed for good, because of who knows why. Which is why I then started looking up places in Hilo, the largest city on Hawaii, and a good hour-and-a-half drive away from us on the completely opposite side of the island. I called the place that had the highest Yelp ranking, gave them our details, and we were on the road.

We had planned on going to Hilo during our trip, but certainly not to see a doctor for a Paxlovid prescription. A prescription which the urgent care doctor wasted little time in signing off on and sending off to the CVS pharmacy at the Hilo Target store. We knew it would take a while to fill the script, so we killed some time driving around as my wife’s misery increased and I found a greasy spoon joint and got some lunch to go (Chicken Katsu, with the Hawaiian lunch standard of two scoops of white rice and a single scoop of macaroni salad). After about an hour, we figured enough time had passed and that we could pick up my wife’s prescriptions.

Notice I said “prescriptions”. This is because in addition to the Paxlovid, the urgent care doctor had also sent over a prescription for an antibiotic as a precaution in case my wife developed a sinus infection over the next few days. Call it a case of better to have it and not need it than need it and it not have it.

We arrived back at the Target parking lot where my wife stayed in the car as I went inside to get her script and a few other things—Because no one has ever gone into Target just to get one or two items has come out at least a hundred bucks lighter in their wallet—and within a couple of minutes, I had my wife’s meds and we were ready to start dosing her and let the recovery begin.

Then we ripped into the bag and…Something wasn’t right. 

The antibiotics for the sinus infection that might not be needed were there. But, what was missing was the Paxlovid, which was the reason why we had driven across the Big Island and already burned what was now three hours of our day. Of course, we both stared dumbly as if doing so would make the Paxlovid materialize in our hands. After this failed to work, I took everything we had and went back inside the store to figure out where our Paxlovid was.

And it was a good thing I went back when I did, because my watch showed 1:29 p.m. Which gave me exactly one minute to try to find out what was up before the pharmacy closed for lunch until 2. I found the same associate who had originally helped me, and the following conversation occurred:

Me: Hi. I was just in here to pick up some prescriptions, and there was supposed to be one for Paxlovid, but I didn’t get that. Could you help me out? (I then gave her my wife’s name and date of birth).

Associate: Let me check…No, we don’t have a prescription for that. We’re closing for lunch now. 

And she meant it, as a metal gate worthy of being used to lock up a San Francisco Tenderloin district convenience store clanged shut and I knew there was no way it was opening up for the next 30 minutes.

Well…There wasn’t much else to do at that point expect to call the urgent care center and try to find out just where the hell things went wrong. I got someone on the phone, told them what was going on, and…I didn’t know what to think.

“Oh…It looks like that was sent over as a fax instead of an e-script,” the associate said. “They didn’t get it?”

“No,” I croaked into my phone as Target customers reached around me for Band-Aids. “They don’t have any record of it. And they are now closed for lunch until 2.”

“OK,” said the associate. “Do you want me to send it over now?”

I went silent for a minute and did the math, Even if the urgent care sent the prescription over right then, the place was closed, and there was no way it was going to get fen looked at for at least 30 minutes. And based on past experience, after they opened, it would take another 45 minutes to an hour until the prescription was filled. Then, there was the hour-and-a-half long drive back to our place in Waikoloa. That meant we were staring down three to four hours ahead of us before I could get my wife back to bed. Needless to say, Plan A wasn’t really our favorite option.

But…

The woman at the urgent care center came up with a Plan B.

“There’s a CVS in Waimea,” she said. “Do you want me to call the prescription in there?”

For those not familiar with the geography of Hawaii, Waimea is on the opposite side of the Big Island from Hilo. But, it is also about 12 miles from where we were staying in Waikoloa. Again, I did the math and figured that if we hit the road right when they were calling in the prescription to the pharmacy in Waimea right then, it should be ready just as we pulled into the store’s parking lot about 90 minutes later.

“Call it in,”I said. “We’re on the way.”

We climbed back into our car, I made a brief pitstop to grab a cold Coke, and, with my wife moaning, groaning and generally miserable, we set off back across the Big Island at as high rate of speed as I deemed safe for our rented 2020 Ford Edge. After blasting our way along what is called the “Saddle Road”, we pulled into Waimea an hour and a half later and drove up to the front of the town’s CVS store. I went to the pharmacy, gave the girl working there my wife’s name, and…Just as I had envisioned it, she had the meds we needed right there. 

And as someone who takes any and all medications prescribed to their completion, I was not going to let my wife’s normal reluctance to swallow even a Tylenol for a headache win the day. 

It was now about 2 p.m., and if you know anything about Paxlovid, it’s that you are to take three pills, twice a day, in the morning and the evening, for five days. The doctor told my wife to take the first dose immediately, then the second in the evening, regardless of how long it had been since the initial pill popping. And in this case, for once, I didn’t have to admonish my wife to listen to the doctor’s orders.

We drove back to our condo, where my wife went straight into the master bedroom and started  what would eventually be three more days of moaning and coughing and slobbering like a Saint Bernard. By Tuesday evening, much of the “sick” part of being sick had passed, and she was able to eat a two-cheeseburgers meal from McDonald’s. She was feeling even better on Wednesday, but…another Covid test came back with the faintest-of-faintest lines that meant “positive”, and she stayed cooped up in the Condo. 

By Thursday morning, my wife was back to normal. And her Covid test was back to negative. We had just two full days left on the Big Island before our Saturday morning flight back to Oakland. Time wasn’t out our side, but we still managed to go back to Waimea so my wife could do some family tree research, and so I could visit the Big Island Brewhaus for beers and lunch. I also got to take our daughters ziplining—which was something my wife wasn’t going to do even if she hadn’t contracted Covid.

Every time we have gone to the Big Island has been memorable, and usually in positive way. Visits to Kilauea. Snorkeling with dolphins. Going to luaus. Driving to the summit of Mauna Kea. My wife finding family members that she had never before known. Trip No. 6 will, unfortunately, go down as the Covid Visit. But it’s now in the past. And we are looking ahead for the next trip to be Lucky No. 7.