Saturday, April 11, 2009

Got to love ER

I'm a huge fan of the TV show ER, watched every season since it started many years ago. My favourite character was killed off eons ago, cried buckets over that lol.
Anyway, I digress. Yesterday morning, Sophie, Alex, Jan and I spent 2 hours in the company of the ER staff at King Edward VII hospital in Hamilton. Oh joy. Last Monday, Sophie fell whilst out playing with the local kids. The road here is quite gravelly in places, so she grazed her side just above her left hip quite badly. As the week went on, it wasn't healing, despite being covered with a dressing and cleaned very carefully. It had got an infection in it, so off we headed to the ER (A&E for anyone who is a bit lost!). Got there at just the right time, as it got really busy about 20 minutes after we arrived. The doctor agreed that it was infected, and prescribed oral antibiotics, antibiotic cream and to keep it clean and covered for a few more days.
Then to the crunch. Time to pay. I have great insurance, would never go on holiday without it, even before Nigel died whilst in Portugal. But the King Edward VII hospital does not accept foreign insurance, so I had to pay and then claim back. Good job I had a credit card otherwise I would have been scuppered. $459 (£313!!!) later we headed home. Eeek. Expensive set of antiobiotics and cream, don't you think? The care we received was great, very friendly staff, they did their best to put Sophie at ease as her wound was very sore. Just a warning really to anyone who is ever tempted to not bother with travel insurance. I can recommend insure and go, they were superb when arranging everything when Nigel died, all I had to do was make a phone call to their crisis line and they sorted everything out. It's a phone call no one wants to have to make, but thank goodness I had insurance. From what I've been told, it would have cost well over £10000 to repatriate Nigel if I had not had cover. That's a cost a new widow can do without!
The rest of Good Friday was spent at two parties. Here in Bermuda, it is traditional to fly kites on Good Friday, so the girls had a go... not very successful though lol. Jan and I sat on the porch of her friends who were hosting the party, sipping rum punch. It was very hot here yesterday, gorgeous blue skies and lots of sunshine. Not really ideal kite flying weather, but the Bermudians seemed to manage it better than we did! Once that party was finished, we headed back to Jan's for a barbecue. Several friends and neighbours joined us, and we had a fantastic evening out on the patio. Jan's a really good cook so dinner was delicious. Drank a lot of rum too.... oops! Today we are just relaxing here, then tonight we are going to the FOlk Club in Hamilton which is very good apparently. Should be fun! I'm off to sit in the sunshine so have a great Easter weekend, whatever you're doing!


1 comment:

Rhona said...

Sounds like you're having a wonderful time (apart from the ER bit!). We could do with some of that lovely sunshine back in the UK (we're having a bbq tomorrow come rain or shine! lol!!) Enjoy the rest of your holiday