Day 49 Darwin

7 July,

Today we had to spend some time at the doctors.  Bev has severe bursitis of her hip.  About three months ago, she had a steroid injection to relieve the pain.  She had this once before and it was very effective.  However, this time it didn't work and she has been experiencing pain ever since we have been travelling.  Initially this was manageable.  However, lately the pain has been getting worse, probably because of the walking over rough ground that we have been doing.  So, she had to see a doctor to start the process of getting another ultrasound-guided injection.

At the same time, however, she has been noticing signs that the benign tumour she has in the base of her spine could be beginning to exert pressure on the nerves in her spinal column.  She has been warned that if this happened she would need immediate treatment.  Scary stuff.  She mentioned this to the doctor who advised her to ring her surgeon in Canberra.  We realised that he could tell her to come home immediately which would leave me having to find a way to get the caravan back home.  This would present me with a few problems because old men like me have no business towing a caravan single-handed all that way.

In the event that didn't happen.  The surgeon considered that it was possible that the tumour could be beginning to misbehave. However, he did not think she would be in any danger if she continued her holiday and saw him when she gets back in 7 or 8 weeks. He also said that ,of course, if things change ring him immediately.   What a relief, of sorts.

I decided to press ahead and investigate the possibility of having the caravan freighted back, just to see how difficult it would be and how much it would cost if ever the need arose.  As it turned out, I couldn't find any heavy freight company that could do this for me.  They either didn't deliver to Canberra, or could not transport anything as wide as our 'van.  I think I would have to revise my plan and work on the possibility of having it freighted either by road or rail to Adelaide or Sydney and then tow it home from there.

So that is how we spent our day today.  We still are not finished with the doctors.  Bev is scheduled to have the steroid injection on Thursday.

Actually, there was something else we did today.  We made sure that we had a long and luxurious soak in the pool in the late afternoon and we then sat around in our wet swimmers 'til dinner time.  It was a great way to beat the heat and humidity the builds up every afternoon.  I think this is going to become a fixture in our daily routine.