11/06/2009 by Brigid.

Today’s news is much more encouraging. I rang at around 10am and discovered that Mum is doing well and they are expecting to return her to a normal ward later today … which means I should be able to speak to her tomorrow.

We spent the morning doing various useful administrative things and searching, unsuccessfully, for a phone card to try and cut down the cost of calling home. Then, this afternoon, Doug took us out to his country club, and John got to play his first round of golf in three years …

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

I think a note of thanks is due here, to Guy and Vickie, and to Theo and Alma, for allowing us to bend their ears. I don’t think we were exactly sparkling company and it is especially dull finding oneself discussing other people’s ailments ad nauseum.  But, from my point of view, it was a real comfort to be amongst friends.

There was no mobile phone reception at Theo’s farm, which was a particular worry, as I had no idea whether anyone had been trying to contact me. We left after breakfast and made a quick call to the hospital from a gas station outside Hamilton. The news was better. Mum was conscious and “doing well”, though still receiving oxygen and a little support for low blood pressure – normal, apparently, in older patients.

We are due to spend the next couple of days with Doug and Joanne in Michigan, before riding with them to Chicago to start The Mother Road Rally. Logistically, this is the first point from which we could, practically-speaking, abandon the trip, if necessary.

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

The talk all day has been around whether or not we can continue the trip and, if not, would the insurance cover our repatriation costs. The news from the hospital is that Mum is still sedated and on oxygen, but otherwise “comfortable” in Intensive Care. For the time being, there is nothing we can do except keep going. We spent the night with more friends in Beamsville, Ontario.

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11/06/2009 by Brigid.

As we were packing our bikes to leave, my mobile phone rang. Odd, I thought, that my aunt should be calling me. Surely, Mum would have told her that John and I were travelling …

It was bad news from home. My mother, probably my number one Blog fan, had been rushed into hospital. “She told me not to tell you and Sarah”, Margaret Anne said, “But I thought you ought to know”. I rang the hospital. It was not a reassuring conversation. A distinctly sickly-sounding nurse told me that, as it was Sunday, Mum would not be seen by a specialist until tomorrow.

For now, there was nothing John and I could do. We just made as good time as possible to our next destination, Beeton, Ontario. Thank heavens we were staying with friends.

It was about 6.30pm by the time we arrived. We overshot the driveway by a couple of hundred yards, and discovered that we had the wrong house number. The phone rang again. “Your mother is having emergency surgery tonight.”

Not the news we wanted but, at least, she wasn’t lying on a trolley in a passage somewhere, still waiting to see a doctor.

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