Medical Emergencies‼️ & tours with a local Trinidadian 🚑🌊🏝

Medical emergencies, hospital and hikes!! Being in a foreign country and having a medical emergency was something we always knew was a real possibility but in reality, it's a whole lot more daunting. It started out as a 'non emergency'. As anyone that's watched our videos over time will have noticed the crazy amount t of.weight that Teagan has lost in this past year. she has Thyroid issues so we decided to head of to Trinidad General Hospital to get some blood work done and check levels etc. The Port of Spain General Hospital is a regular government hospital, so it comes with crazy wait times, large number of patience and no flashiness of a private hospital. The staff are friendly and it took the better part of the day but we left knowing what we needed to know and new meds for Teagan. The day Teagan and I went into the hospital, Robin's left ankle had started to swell a little and seemed a little red. He insisted he was fine and thought he might just have a spider bite or something. By the time I got back from the hospital with Teagan. the swelling was worse, inflation worse and his ankle was now hot to the touch. Deep vein thrombosis immediately came to mind, but Robin, being Robin, was insistent that he was fine and would be fine by the next day. By the next.morning it had worsened but he was sticking to his story although I could now see he was also in pain. By day 3, it had gotten so bad that his skin was pulled tight, it was glowing red and so incredibly hot! he was now in so much pain that he relented and said we should go to the hospital. We went via a very nice Health Centre, they also suspected a DVT, but at the very best, a bad cellulitis case that he would need intravenous antibiotics for and suggested we get to the main hospital asap. Our first hospital visit was around an 11 hour expedition, during this time he had so many tests, ecg, x-rays and ultimately a doppler, that at 7pm confirmed that on top of the cellulitis in his ankle, he also had a deep vein thrombosis. The Dr's weren't impressed that he had left it for so long before going in and confirmed what we had been telling him for days, that had part of that blood clot moved and ended up in his lungs, as a pulmonary embolism, it could have been fatal. It was a huge reality check, very frightening couple of days. the Dr had originally wanted to admit him but Robin insisted he wanted to go back to the boat and promised me he would do everything he was supposed to without argument, so after intravenous antibiotics earlier in the day and then anticoagulant shots in the evening, we started the trip home, getting back to the boat around 10pm. The boat was in Chaguramas, about 40 minutes out of Port of Spain. Through all this, we have become seasoned taxi and bus travellers. There were many more hospital trips over the next 2-3 weeks, a CT scan to investigate the possible cause of the DVT,med collections and for a check up, now that he's on daily anticoagulants for at least 3 months. The lesson taken from all of this is that we now appreciate that a medical situation could stop ones dreams of cruising at anytime, every minute is to be even more appreciated than we already do and that we are so grateful to the Trinidad hospital system, where he got caring, thorough care and treatment, even as a foreign national without them even questioning where we were from. We would also like to thank Yvanna and Peake Yacht Services for being so incredibly accommodating with having the Peake shuttle ferry us to and from the hospital, through rain and floods someday, so many times through this ordeal. also to Ryan, the private taxi owner, who came through to pick us up at 5am on numerous occasions so that we could get to the hospital before the early morning crowds. Meeting Wolfy, a local Trinidadian that follows our channel and reached out to us, has also been an absolute highlight of our stay here in Trinidad. Out of the blue, he arrived to meet us with 2 amazing bottles of Angostura Rum as welcome gifts to Tinidad. The day we met, he bundled us into his car and took us for a quick tour of the nearby area and beaches, He then later took Denver and Colben on an amazing hike to a waterfall and look out points up above Deigo Martin, along with his friend Shastri. We had all planned on going with but it fell on the day that we had to get Robin to the hospital, so a huge thanks to both Wolfy and Shastri for their hospitality. Wolfy has also been a great 'go-to' guy when we have needed recommendations for local services etc, always just a phone call away and always happy to help.