UNPACKNG INCIDENT

Moving into a new house means lots of boxes and furniture to shift and sort. Hard physical labour - and the result is usually endless bruises. But the move to Loch St included damage that led to the emergency deparment of Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre.

And it was all my fault - even though Susan has tried hard to absolve me of her pain. In the process of moving boxes, I dropped one on her toe. I leapt to her aid and found a bandaid for amongst the other boxes but that wasn't enough. I should have insisted on good old Betadine as well. Somehow or other, Susan's leg became infected as a result and she developed cellulitis. Just in case you haven't heard of it, it's a  potentially life threating disease. That might have cut short our shared return to Perth!

She managed to get an appointment to see a GP but the standard dose of antibiotics didn't work so it was off to what we used to call Charlies (short for Sir Charles Gardiner Hosptial) on 31 January. Even at 10am the emergency room was nearly full and although the helpful nursing staff provided some pain killers and took blood, it took 6 hours because Susan was seen by a doctor. She spent the night and most of the next day on a drip receiving large doses of somewhat stronger antibiotics down in the dungeon of the observation wing of the Emergency Department.

It turns out, WA has a really good program called Hospital in the Home. The idea is that if there's someone at home to keep an eye on you and if you don't need hourly observation, you can return home and the hospital sends nurses and doctors to visit you every day. So for the first few days of February, Susan lay in (comparative) comfort or her bed or couch or on dining room chairs with nurses setting up drips and taking blood away to be tested and a lovely young doctor calling in to make sure all was well.

If you have to be sick, this is a much better way to be looked after than sleepness nights in uncomfortable hospital beds.

You'll be pleased to know that Susan has recovered from her trauma but there was one problematic outcome. She wasn't allowed to swim in the pool for another couple of weeks or the ocean for even longer. 

And the lesson is: wear steel capped boots whenever you are helping me unpack boxes.