Unlike many other travel days, our return flight to Auckland on Monday was not until 7:30 in the evening instead of early in the morning. This gave us more than a half day to squeeze another activity into our last few hours in Fiji. On my Saturday bike ride with Heather and Joe, we had floaded the idea of an early Monday morning bike ride to the Sabeto Village Mud Pools and Hot Springs (we would skip the village tour). Thus, promptly at 7:20 am, we arrived at Bike Fiji to gear up and set out for the hour-long ride through the city of Nadi to Sabeto Village.
 |
The intended tour, minus the village visit
"It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" The start of the tour was not without glitches, primarily being the functionality of Mom's e-bike. I was really proud of her for being so willing to give it a try, and the thought was that the e-bike would help make the ride less strenuous. This turned out not to be the case. Not only did Mom get insufficient instruction on using the bike before we set out, we realized about 15 minutes into the ride that the bike's gearing was messed up and it wouldn't go into a higher gear. Mom was pedaling away with the assist of the battery, but she spinning twice as fast as we were an making little forward progress. The other issue we had was traffic and road conditions. There were no bike lanes, so we either rode on the shoulder of the road, dodging gravel patches, or on sidewalks, dodging people. We stopped a few times along the route to regroup, and Heather was amazingly patient with us taking over her last day on Fiji as well. |
 |
| "I'm on Fiji time. No Hurry No Worry" |
 |
| Mom and Heather in action |
 |
| I couldn't help but notice the reappropriation of the Camel brand logo to alcoholic products |
The Attack and Immediate Aftermath About 45 minutes into the ride, we exited the main road and detoured through an empty industrial park. It was without the stress and distraction from the main road. Mom was a ble to work the bike and learned how to operate the "scooter mode" in which she didn't have to pedal at all. We turned back onto the main road, and after about 200 yards we heard dogs barking and saw them running towards Joe and Heather, who were about 2 car lengths ahead of us. The front two riders passed by without incident, but the pack of 3 dogs made it to the street at the same time that Mom was passing by. She was in the 3rd position and I was behind her. There weren't many options for Mom. It was a busy road and the bike was heavy, so swerving away from the dogs was not an option. The weight and configuration of the bikes also precluded trying to manage the bike while trying to kick away the dogs. That left riding past and hoping that they dogs were all bark and no bite as the last option. This was not happened. I saw one of the pack bite onto Mom's left leg, and I think it was her forward motion that made the dog release, but not before penetrating her skin with both its upper and low teeth. Blood started streaming down her leg immediately, and I urgently called out "Help!" to get Joe and Heather to stop. They immediatly stopped and we got Mom off the bike and found a place for her to sit. As you can see from her face, she was taking it in stride and commenting about what a crazy thing to happen. I washed her leg with bottled water, then wrapped a hotel towel around her leg and tied it with my sun sleeves. I knew that she didn't feel it yet, but that before long the adrenaline and shock was going to wear off and it was going to be awful.  |
| The arrow marks the spot where a pack of dogs burst from the bushes and attacked. One of the dogs caught Mom's leg, changing the entire trip in an instant. |
 |
The former girl scout and her troop leader had a hotel towel at the ready.
At this point, adrenaline was high and Mom was "grinning and bearing it". |
The next few hours involved a bunch of complicated movements to get us to a medical center and someone to pick Heather and the bikes up that she was standing with on the side of the road. It was made even more complicated by the fact that Joe had no cash to help with taxis, his cell battery was dying, and Heather couldn't be reached on her phone because she had no international plan. We checked in and she was taken back to be seen within 20 minutes, but the pain was starting to come in sharp waves. It was really awful.
The medical staff did an ultrasound and x-ray first to gauge the extent of the tissue damage and then did their best to numb the wound with lidocaine injections so that the doctor could clean out the wound and close it up with stitches. One and a half hours after entering the building, we were paying her itemized bill for $160 and after another 30 minutes we had procured wound care supplies from the pharmacy on site for another $100. I shudder to think what the cost would have been if it happened at home. I hailed a cab and we headed back to the hotel. I dropped Mom off, went up to the bike shop to talk to them about what they should change to avoid this situation in the future (pepper spray velcroed to the bikes) and got a refund for the tour.
 |
| Pacific Specialist Healthcare |
 |
| New patient paperwork at Pacific Specialist Healthcare |
 |
| First look by doctor |
 |
| X-ray |
 |
| After lidocaine, beginning stitches |
 |
| Ready for discharge |
Passing Time at the Nadi International Airport
I could talk about the odd conversation and his confession of a premonition involving Mom in the car on the way back to the airport with Joe, or the fact that we went to the airport 6 hours before our flight because we couldn't think of any better options. I could talk about all the efforts that we made to elevate her leg but how it continued to swell. And I could describe our new method of getting through airports requiring airport staff and wheelchairs. But the gist of the story is that the dog bite was the beginning of the worst 22 hours of our trip, hands down.
Our flight out of Fiji was delayed, so we didn't arrive in Auckland until 1 am and didn't make it to the hotel until 2 am. Mom was limping and in pain, and we had to be up and out the door the next morning at 6 am for our next flight. We were tired, stressed out zombies counting down the days for this trip to end. The light at the end of this 22-hour tunnel was that we had Air New Zealand business class for our next flight and Mom could both sleep and elevate her leg. More on that in post #37
 |
| Cafe outside departures area where we spent at least two hours |
 |
| Mom's new method of travel |
No comments:
Post a Comment