July

Sorry I haven't posted anything in forever. We've had a crazy month. Our very good friend, Lexie, had a skiing accident Friday, June 26th - the first day the ski fields were opened here in New Zealand. She was flown to Dunedin hospital so we were able to visit her right away. She had suffered a bilateral skull fracture but thankfully there wasn't any swelling or bleeding and didn't require surgery. Dan and I spent time at the hospital with her while her family was arranging to fly here from Illinois. It was such an overwhelming & frightening experience. Hospitals here are so different from the ones we worked at back home. As medical professionals, it is difficult not to see where you would handle some things differently - like pain management. Lexie improved quickly though and was transferred to the rehab unit for about a week before being discharged to home. Thankfully, she is recovering very well and was able to fly back to Illinois with her parents for some rest & recovery time before coming back to finish her PhD studies here in Dunedin.

Of course, as soon as we said goodbye to Lexie and her parents, we started to feel ill. Yes, Dan and then a few days later, me, fell ill with flu-like symptoms. I'm not saying we have the swine flu - since they just tell everyone to stay home if they have symptoms and don't test anyone for it. But swine flu is the dominant flu virus here. Anyway, we are slowly recovering, but maybe you can see now why it's been a slow month for blog posts.