Day 33 Gallstones and more driving

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So a much shorter blog than usual today (sigh of relief?). We had our first unplanned emergency today. Ian has suffered with gallstones for about 4 years now. Being a man he is not keen on the op to have his gallbladder removed and to be fair he suffers infrequently with probably only half a dozen attacks since he was diagnosed (apparently he has 3!). The biggest problem is that we haven't been unable to work out what starts one off - definitely not the fatty/fried route. So when he started with an attack at 4am it was completely unexpected. Sometimes they can be relatively mild but fate made this probably the worst one he has every suffered. Trouble is there is nothing that helps so he just has to suffer the pain which is pretty intense.

And I knew that I would be in charge of the drive later that day so decided the best way was for to try and grab some sleep! Caring eh!

At 8.30am he was still going (although it appeared to have peaked at around 7) so I headed off for breakfast on my own, and as the previous night we had been the only couple I really was on my own. Cath and Simon were very concerned and keen for him to go up to the medical centre although I said that experience told us that eventually it would die down and by tomorrow he would probably be as right as rain.

Our big problem was the car was due back in Auckland by 5pm latest, a three and a half hour non stop journey. About midday Ian decided he was well enough to risk the trip so I bundled him in the car with lots of goodies from Cath and I set off.

Now Ian can't read in moving things so we decided that as opposed to trying to reroute ourselves the way we had been directed to wildwood I would go back the easy way via Hamilton. And it was easy to follow, it just took longer due to the number of towns that route went through. With non stop driving we got to the outskirts of Auckland about 4pm and I started to relax when we hit the Friday traffic! Also the entrance number we go on didn't exist as an exit! Luckily Ian was feeling much better by now (I could tell by the passenger seat commentary on my driving that started about 3!)so he managed to direct us to the garage with 5 minutes to spare. I knew he was completely better when he suggested he took over the driving to the car hire place from the fill up garage NEXT DOOR! You can probably tell I am never allowed to drive abroad and luckily I had been insured this time as its included and I thought I would need to take a turn when we get to the South Island.

So no stopping, no sightseeing, just dodgy NZ driving.

We got to the hotel where I had a well earned cup of tea and one of Cath's fantastic shortbread from Ian's provisions. As we arrived Ian took a phone call and it was Cath asking how he was. How's that for customer service, especially as I only said where we were moving onto in passing but she must have remembered. Quick shower and headed out to find somewhere quiet for a bite to eat. Luckily we did find an Italian that fitted the bill as everywhere else was full of Xmas parties!

Sofitel Internet let me down again. I do not believe that I downloaded 300mb of anything while I was out as we had had unlimited internet for the previous 4 days. I was hoping to catch up on the blog posting and our fantasy football positions are suffering!

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