As I write this post I’m on a riverboat somewhere between the Ukrainian towns of Nikopol and Nova Kachovka. (Got that?) And I have quite a little tale to tell.

I have no thyroid gland; part was removed in 1979 and the rest in 1991. I’m fine as long as I take synthetic thyroid once a day, but without these pills I would fade out and expire. Because of this I’m especially careful about bringing my pills on a trip and noting where they are.

This morning, as I got up, I felt dizzy and attributed it to vertigo, which I sometimes get when I’m on water awhile. As I got ready for breakfast, I went to my pill container to take my morning dosage of synthroid and noticed that there were only two pills left. How could that be? I had gotten a refill of 30 synthroid pills before we started our belated honeymoon in Italy 10 days ago. 

And then I looked at the pill container more closely and realized that it said “xanax,” not “synthroid.” Which would mean I had been taking an anxiety reliever for the past 10 days, and not the life-saving drug that I needed. Which may have explained my easy-going manner and good night’s sleep.

But how come I wasn’t comatose? 

We rushed to the bottom deck to the boat’s doctor, a heavyset lady with long fingernails and beet-colored hair.  She spoke no English, but through an interpreter from the front desk (whose hair was the color of the butter that spurts out of Chicken Kiev) I saw her shaking her head.

I was told with a grave look that there should be a Ukrainian version of synthroid at the next stop, the industrial town of  Zaporozhye. “Should be.” Zaporozhye? The doctor wrote something in Ukrainian on a piece of paper, and I went to bed suddenly feeling as faint as tuberculosis-ridden Camille in La Boheme.

My new husband was beside himself that I was in such dire straits, and I had to calm him down like in that episode of I Love Lucy, when Lucy is about to go to the hospital to have little Ricky and big Ricky is a total wreck.

I was scared, and started to imagine the consequences. What if they don’t have the drug and I had to be helicoptered out to Odessa? Do they have a helicopter or would I have to be bussed? Maybe there wasn’t a bus. Maybe a Cossack from the horseshow would have to rush on his mount to save me.

And I was befuddled. How could I have descended into those monk’s caves in Kiev the other day without so much as an extra breath? How come I wasn’t lolling around, like an Ukrainian Easter egg?

And then, through the haze of my anxiety, I remembered something. Three days ago, in Rome, we had to check our luggage, and at the last minute I removed my synthroid in case my luggage was lost, just to be sure I had it with me no matter what.

When we arrived at the riverboat in Kiev I assembled my things in our cabin, and reached into my cosmetic bag and placed the pills on the counter. But I forgot that I hadn’t placed the synthroid in the bag I usually stored it in, but in a zippered pocket in my travel purse.

And so I got out of my possible deathbed and I rushed to my purse and sure enough, there were my pills!

I did not have to be rescued by a Cossack. 

True, I had not taken the life-saving meds for three days, and that’s probably why I felt dizzy this morning. But I indeed would live to see the end of the honeymoon.

I immediately took a synthroid, and laughed and decided to write this post as we glide along the calm waters of the Black Sea to our next stop. But poor Bill is in bed with a terrible headache from all this tension. I may have to bring him his dinner in bed. And give him one of those xanax.