MAY TO JULY

It was May 16 before I could get the cortisone injection in shoulder. Then, if it wasn’t better in a week, there were to be scans and xrays.

John needed regular blood tests, because he was still on Warfarin at this stage. They weren’t happy with his readings and wanted to test him again  in a week, but he negotiated that to two weeks, to allow the Broken Hill trip to be fitted in. He left on 17 May, overnighted with my daughter in Bendigo, reached Broken Hill on 18th, to find that his daughter wasn’t able to fit in seeing him until the next night. So he had an unexpected  motel stay and a “free” day to fill in. Then, after a stay of a couple of nights with daughter, it went pear shaped and he left in the late afternoon, arriving at Mildura at 9pm at night. I’d become concerned when I hadn’t received my usual early evening call from him, and phoned, just as he was arriving at a Mildura motel. He was home the next day. I had enjoyed my peaceful five day interlude. He had not enjoyed his trip….

The miracle worker cortisone did not fix my shoulder. The diagnostics showed damage to rotator cuff structure. To quote the technician who did a scan: “there’s a big black hole where there should be structures”. The front tendon was torn off whatever it should attach to, middle tendon was only a third there. So I guess the sore shoulder was legit! An appointment was made with an appropriate surgeon, for mid August. Busy man… Going to be an uncomfortable few months.

M travelled, from Freeburgh, across into SA and to Marree. Camping out at Mungerannie was cut short by a mouse plague, some of which got into the Troopy. She took the Birdsville Track north. Did a flight over Lake Eyre and Cooper Creek. Diamantina National Park was closed due to wet, so she couldn’t go there, made her way to Winton and Opalton, and by the end of May was starting to head south again. Then, mid June, she phoned to say she’d been involved in a collision out of Tamworth, at the corner of the Moonbi Lookout  road. A short hospital stay, with concussion and a dislocated shoulder, then RACV arranged to fly  her home. Initially, she thought the Troopy was a write off, and her sister drove her up to Tamworth to collect her stuff from it. Then, because it was a camper, and hence more valuable, NRMA decided to return it to Melbourne for a final decision by the RACV, and it was eventually repaired.

Couey continued weekly attendance at Saturday morning outdoor puppy school. Somehow, I got to be the one who had to get up early to take her. The separation anxiety had become evident and we were working on ways to mitigate that. She’d shown herself able to climb a nearly two metre high fence in order to stay with us!

By mid-July, we were ready for another short trip away. I’d been keen to travel the Great Ocean Road again, having not been along its entirety for almost forty years. A tentative plan formed, to do that, then perhaps explore some of the Limestone Coast area of SE South Australia. We would have to be back by early August for a friend’s 70th birthday party.