Dan's Adventure

During the last eight months, the longest that I had spent in any one place was ten days on Koh Tao in Thailand when I was learning to dive, that was true until I arrived in Auckland. In total I have spent just under three weeks in Auckland and I haven’t actually seen any of the city. I arrived in the evening, checked into the hostel and then got on the bus to Auckland City Hospital where I have spent a total of 17 days.

It all started at Mount Cook four weeks ago. I was walking on the hooker valley track when I twisted my ankle. I didn’t think much of it at the time as I was still able to walk on it and made it back to the hostel in Mount Cook village. That evening it was slightly swollen and it did hurt a little when I put weight on it but I thought it would be fine after a few days. I started taking pain killers and anti-inflammatory pills in the hope that it would go away and spent the next couple of days resting it as much as possible.

On arrival in Taupo, four days later, I discovered that I had a lump the size of a tennis ball growing out of my ankle. After a bit of prodding and poking, the doctor decided to stab it and try to drain some of the fluid out. That procedure was under local anaesthetic and once it wore off it hurt like a bitch! Time was a real problem at this stage as I was travelling to Auckland the next day and the day after I was flying to Santiago. I was therefore under strict instructions from the doctor to get it checked out at the hospital in Auckland as soon as I arrived to ensure that it was improving before heading to Chile.

When I arrived in Auckland I found that the tennis ball had burst and the wound it had left was oozing pus. At this point it was painful to walk on so the hospital was my only choice. Earlier in the day, before I discovered the oozing, I had considered skipping the hospital visit and flying to Chile. I thought it would clear up with the antibiotics the doctor in Taupo had given me, but fortunately a friend put things into perspective for me “would you rather get treated here where everyone speaks English, or in South America when you know no Spanish and the health system is no where near as good?”. So off to the hospital I went.

After waiting a couple of hours I was finally seen by a doctor who informed me that I had no chance of flying to Chile the following morning as his recommendation was for me to be admitted to the hospital and be put on IV antibiotics for at least a week. I called my travel agent back in the UK and postponed my flight by a week as I was still confident that I would make it. Later that night I was xrayed and examined by an orthopaedic doctor. The xray showed him that I still had a metal plate in my ankle from an accident I had a few years ago where I broke the same ankle by falling off a ramp at a skate park. His concern was that the infection could reach the plate and become chronic so the decision was made to operate on my ankle to remove the plate and clean out the wound in order to prevent further infection.

A week and two operations later I was still on IV antibiotics. My leg was in a cast and I hadn’t left my bed (apart from hobbling to the toilet). At Auckland hospital I had no easily accessible means of communicating with the outside world, no phone, no internet access and I couldn’t access the roof to send smoke signals, so I was fortunately allowed to make a couple of calls from the nurse’s phone to let my family know the score and to contact a few friends who managed to spread the word that I had been hospitalised. I ended up having visitors throughout my hospital stay; people that I had become friends with whilst in New Zealand, friends of friends from the UK and one friend that I first met in India who now lives in Auckland. The visits were very much appreciated and helped me through the long monotonous days.

In New Zealand there is a health care scheme called ACC which covers everyone, including visitors, for any medical care that is required following accidents that occur whilst in New Zealand. ACC was therefore picking up my hospital bill, a big relief after I was given an estimated bill four days in which already totaled $14,000! My doctors unfortunately advised me that I would not be able to continue my trip, it was their recommendation that I should return to the UK. After being discharged from hospital, I would be on crutches for six weeks and after that there was no way I would be able to do anything as strenuous as the trekking I had planned for South America.

Almost three weeks after first being admitted to hospital in Auckland, I am now sitting in LA airport waiting on my next flight which will take me back to the UK. My around the world adventure is over. It may have ended badly, but at least I had one hell of a time before this unfortunate episode.

One day I will make it to South America.