North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Branford, FL-Sept 2, 2024 to Sept 22, 2024
Our trip to Newfoundland ended all to soon (because we were enjoying our stay so much), but health issues compelled us to depart as quickly as possible. Escaping Newfoundland was complicated by the fact that for a 36 foot motorhome, the only way off the island is by ferry. And at this time of year available space on the ferry was virtually nonexistent.
We were having such a good time that we originally extended our stay by two weeks. Then after the health issues arose, we attempted to get a reservation on the ferry so we could depart as soon as possible. Well, that wasn't gonna happen. So, from August 16 to Sept 1, we were stuck on the island.
But, not accept defeat and just hole up somewhere, we decided to avail ourselves of the Canadian Health System. That was a real experience. The Canadians have no concept of private insurance or self pay. If you don't have a Canadian Health Card, you are out of luck. No clinic (their version of our Doc in the Box) or doctor will even talk to you. We finally discovered that if you go to the Emergency Room at the hospital instead of trying to see the appropriate doctor, you can get treated. They will accept cash payment.
Once we got that all squared away, we still had to wait for September 1 to arrive so we could get back to the USA and begin our journey back to Florida to see our doctor.
Poor EJ experienced rapid onset vitritis, which is inflammation of the vitreous jelly in the eyeball. This causes pain, blurry vision and extreme sensitivity to light. Doctors have no idea what causes it, or more accurately, it could caused by hundreds of different things of which they have no way of pinpointing the actual source. But they do know how to fix it. Prednisone eye drops reduces the inflammation and eventually stops it. And it could come back in the future. But now we know how to treat it.
So suffice it to stay, the last month of our Great 2024 Adventure was not a lot of fun for EJ.
For the folks who were wondering at our rapid pace (for us) to get back to Florida, that's why.
Obligatory cat picture follows:
