Crash update Sunday 28th September

Honestly, the lengths some people will go
to get a bed for the night and a hot meal.

A few of you have ticked me off for not giving you more information about how Fo is doing. Apologies but, like any wannabe writer, I always try to leave my readers wanting more. So......on our return to Cairns Base Hospital the lovely paramedics noticed that Fo had an irregular rhythm on her ecg trace. Unsurprisingly, on arrival at the Emergency Department, the doctors decided to keep her in overnight for observation. Observations became further ecg traces, an echo cardiogram, blood tests and connection to a 24 hour wireless system that monitored all heart and respiratory functions. 24 hours stretched to 48 and, by this time, Fo had exhausted her typically meagre patience.
Anyway, the result of all this, is that it appears that the electrical wiring in the backup battery in her heart is rusty (Aussie doctor technical jargon for a condition where the electrical impulses that control the operation of the heart are prone to disruption). This, they think, may have caused her to black out while driving. Alternatively, she simply may have nodded off at the wheel. Whatever the reason, the outcome is that she cannot drive in Australia for the remainder of our stay and may face a similar ban in the UK. Bummer.
 
The good news is that the doctors are not overly concerned and everyone of them has said that we should continue our trip, with the proviso that we monitor Fo for any further symptoms. However, as she can't drive, we have to significantly change our itinerary and rely on Greyhound buses for all of our long distance ground travel. It will restrict our ability to see the non tourist side of Australia and mean that we will need to do more organised tours. Still, we didn't come all this way to give up at the first hurdle and are determined to see the trip through.

We are having a few days of doing very little and celebrated the fact that we are still above ground with a bottle of chilled Aussie fizz. We should pick up a new hire car tomorrow. Cairns medical services have been great, Hertz has been bloody dismal. I rang them minutes after the crash and was told that a replacement car would be delivered to us. We heard nothing for three days and, when we popped into their local office, found that they were unaware of the fact that we had crashed! Poor service delivery by anyone's standards.
 
Expect a short hiatus in the blog while we regain our equilibrium.