Hi Ho, Hi Ho...it's off to India we Go.

We had 6 days at sea between South Africa and Mauritius – plenty of time for the insurance companies and the medical teams to throw in every opinion possible as to what should happen to Pat’s arm...

The night of Desmond Tutu’s birthday party in South Africa was one to remember – for him and Pat. I was on call that night (carrying a beeper in a once-in-a-lifetime party was not fun) and was called away from the party when Pat came back to the ship. This older passenger had fallen off her bike while cycling through the wineries outside of Cape Town Her elbow and arm were swollen to about the size of a grapefruit, but she still had good range of motion and sensation. I did what anyone at Desmond Tutu’s birthday party would have done – sent her with instructions to Rest, Ice, Compress and Elevate (we left out the compression) and quickly returned to the party. :)

The next day, with more swelling down, things weren't "right", so a last minute trip to the ER for X-rays was in store. There was the strong possibility that Pat and I would be staying in Cape Town to have her surgery and then fly to meet the ship in Mauritius in 6 days time.

Thankfully, the common sensical physician in the ER in Cape Town agreed that giving her some time to let all the swelling go down before having surgery on her olecranon (elbow) seemed a reasonable plan – especially since we had a ship that was frantically waiting on us!

In between Cape Town and Mauritius about 10 plans were discussed, but due to some very strong opinions towards the level of medical care in Mauritius by our Medical Director, Pat and I were booked on an Air Emirates flight the day we arrived into Mauritius headed straight to Chennai, India. The plan was for her to have surgery at a “high class” hospital and join the ship in one week’s time. Seemed like a decent plan, so off I went with Pat to India. We missed all of Mauritius except the drive to the airport. But, in exchange, we had an extra week into the wild and wonderful world of wacky ‘ole India!