AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS

February 8 2018

We all know that life has a way of turning plans upside down, and that is certainly what happened to us. On Day 12 of our 112 Day World Cruise, we had to leave the ship and return home. Steve has been struggling with the after effects of surgery in August and November, and on the weekend, he took a turn for the worse. We were luckily within 24 hours of docking at America Samoa, one of the few islands in the area that has a commercial grade airport. Thanks to some amazing work on the part of our Vancouver travel agent, Nazir Karnai, and some back and forth emails with the surgeon Dr. Greg Bailly in Halifax, we were able to get flights all the way to Fredericton, arriving four days after we began the trip back.

There was some serendipity at work, as there are only two flights a WEEK from Pago Pago, and we happened to be there on one of the days. Also, the day we were flying out marked the inauguration flight of a large aircraft to the island. We were lucky enough to get seats that laid out flat which helped Steve immensely.

At all points in the long journey back, people were helpful and considerate. Our faith in humanity is reinforced.

We are so disappointed that we had to leave the cruise as this was something we had looked forward to for a long time, with ports of calls that we were eager to explore. But, life happens and we are so happy that we were able to get back home with no bad outcomes.

Steve has a medical procedure tomorrow morning with his urologist at the local hospital. We will know more then.

So, unfortunately, this is likely the last post that we will make on this blog.

By the way....Steve did win Bronze again in the Olympic Golf Putting Event onboard the ship.  He said he would have won Silver but he missed a short one. Nerves no doubt.