Travelling and Health Care

We’ve found travelling and health care to be a challenge!  Consistency and reliability are not always the strong points, and even though we are generally health we’ve had more than our fair share of accidents!

It’s been right from the start, when only a few months after we left, then 8-year-old Peter crushed his finger. We did not wait long at the first hospital, but X-rays quickly revealed a fractured right index finger. The HMO and Intern advised us that we’d have to head immediately into Melbourne and that they would transfer Peter to Monash hospital for plastic surgery to reconstruct the finger. The consultant was called to confirm this opinion and inquired, “What sort of family are you? Are you bushwalkers, musicians or football players?” He advised the intern to apply two steristrips to the wound and bandage it, with a course of antibiotics. I asked the concerned intern if he could at least bandage some melanin and gauze onto the wound.  They gave him a tetanus injection, but never once asked if he’d had any pain relief or offered any to him.

He wasn’t much better in the car on the way home.  I was relieved because I’d wanted to hear it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but Jarrad was fuming as he disagreed with the doctor’s opinion.  Peter was still cold and pale, and very drowsy.  When we got back to the campervan and I unlocked the door, we realized that the bottle of medicine that we’d given him for pain-relief wasn’t paracetamol – it was phenergan!  The poor kid hadn’t even had any pain relief at all, and no wonder he was so drowsy!  We gave him some paracetamol for real this time, and let him go to bed.

A day and a half later, he woke up with it visibly worse.  We did not allow him to eat or drink anything other than water but headed in for the four hour drive to the Children’s Hospital. We arrived at noon, with the X-rays, having only stopped once to allow all children to go to the toilet and to buy Peter a small bottle of lemonade.

The plastic surgeon enquired if Peter had anything to eat or drink that day, and Peter replied pedantically, “Only water and 750ml of lemonade,” to the doctor and nurse’s amusement. “Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me have anything else because we were coming here.”

“That’s great,” said the surgeon, “Now because I’ve had a cancellation we can fix you up today. There was another boy who needed surgery, too, but he’s been eating and drinking today so he has to wait till tomorrow. It’s lucky you’ve had so much self control.” Peter looked pleased and proud.

It was 3.30pm when a tired, pale Peter entered theatre to have his finger reconstructed. An hour and a half of reconstructive surgery was needed to rebuild the finger that was apparently shattered like a sausage someone had taken to with a meat cleaver and barely attached. We were advised that he would need weekly hand therapy for at least two months to achieve optimal function in the finger. He was also going to have to keep the arm elevated for two weeks to help with healing.

Then there was another time when Susan came off her bike head first and had a concussion that required her to be airlifted via the Royal Flying Doctors to Adelaide children’s hospital.  Or the time that she sliced her foot open in the ocean and needed stitches – on New Years’ Eve.  Or the time she got scarlet fever in the Outback and needed to spend a night in hospital on IV antibiotics gasping for breath.

I have a pre-existing eye condition.  When I was seventeen, a birthmark I didn’t know I had ruptured in my eye, leaving the entire eye covered in blood.  Once it had settled down, I had very limited sight left in that eye.  It has deteriorated further with each pregnancy as my blood pressure has risen.  It is really sore and itchy in the light, so I frequently have to have the eye shut.  Late last year, the eye started itching and was so sensitive to the light I couldn’t open it any more.  I knew it was a long shot to go to an optometrist, as it had originally been diagnoseed jointly by two ophthamologists – both of whom had only read about it, and never actually seen a case.  Why I have to get the rare conditions I’m not sure – I don’t want to be quite that unusual!  Anyway, the optometrist had no idea, and referred me to an ophthamologist.  I would accept anything to have the eye more comfortable agai.  Drops.  Surgery.  Laser sight correction.  Drugs.  Glasses.  I doubt there is anything that can be done, though, because there was absolutely nothing that could be done twelve years ago when it first happened. I have no answers yet, though, because the ophthamologist had a long waiting time, and I’m now in a different state.

It makes it so hard to go to appointments when you have to book them months in advance and you’re never quite sure what state you’ll be in!  Or in an isolated region!

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Amy and Jarrad

Travelling Australia in a campervan since 2009 with our four children aged 4, 7, 10, and 11. We are a family living on the road. Stopping to work in rural and remote towns as we need more money, we love this lifestyle. The four kids are homeschooled as we work our way slowly around Australia.

Latest posts by Amy and Jarrad (see all)

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