Change of Plans

We're home again! We should be at Cape York but while we were having a break in Qld, my 88 yr old father had a heart attack. We decided to come straight home and drove back from Cairns in 3 days which is 2,800 kms (1,740 miles) away. Driving from dawn to just before dark, to avoid wandering stock on the road, we hoped to get back in time to see Dad. In the meantime I arranged for him to have a specialist see him and he was transferred to Melbourne. We missed seeing him by one and a half hours so we drove to Melbourne (another 2 1/2 hrs) the next morning. Luckily he was stabilized and was to have an angio. Unfortunately the cardiologist thought it would be too risky so after more non-invasive tests and a blood transfusion he has been transferred back to hospital here.
  It is hard to remember that he was living independently and walking for 30 minutes a day until this happened. He is now frail but cognitively still very good and we are hopeful he will regain some of his strength but also aware that he won't be able to live independently now. My days are now fully occupied with speaking with Drs, hospital visits, washing PJs etc but we are grateful that we got back in time to see him and he is starting to accept that he will need to be in an assisted-living facility. He wants us to finish our trip and the window of opportunity to travel to Cape York closes at the end of August, so we may go back to finish it, depending on how he recovers from his illness. My siblings live locally and they are also supportive of us completing our trip while they are around to help Dad. We will take it in turns to take holidays and short breaks so there is always at least one of us available to visit and support him.
   We did have a fantastic trip and I'll post more photos soon. The photo is of a lovely place in Qld, called Lawn Hill Gorge. Would love to return there as it was very restful.
Hugs, Jan Mac