It’s been a while since the last post, so there is a lot to update you all on. We have settled in now, found out where all the grocery stores are etc. The weather has been a mix of really nice days, 70-80’s F during the day and cool in the low 60s at night, with a smattering of rain and one really hot day with a hot night. We have one mini split ac unit in the livingroom/kitchen area that we use occasionally, but nothing in the bedrooms. It rained a couple weeks ago quite a bit that caused flooding and landslides north of us with road closures and some lives lost unfortunately.
After I saw Ortho at the hospital and she manipulated my wrist and put a plaster cast on, I had a f/u (Follow/Up for you non-meds) with Ortho and they changed the plaster cast to a fiberglass one. Sophie recommended I go with purple, so that is what I did. The fiberglass one was on for 2 weeks and I got the cast off on Feb 2nd, which felt so nice! The forehand looks white but not too atrophied. There was a good amount of dead skin on my hand that was a bit gross, but with a little scrubbing it is much better. ROM (range of motion) is definitely limited in all directions, there is no pain unless I test the limits of my ROM. There is still a little bit of swelling around the wrist, but I can use it reasonably well. I start PT (physical therapy) on Feb 9th.
I started work on 19th of Jan, mostly the first week and a half was spent watching videos about cultural competency and learning the EMR. On 30th of Jan I saw the first few patients. I had one of the senior doc’s Sandra, sit in with me. She is one of the founders of the clinic and knows the system well. The EMR is Medtech Evolution, not too bad to use. They also use Heidi AI to scribe, which has been working great. I just have to do a few tweeks to the note, but overall definitely saves me a good amount of time. The notes are very simple, just a blank space, and they auto save, so there is no need to sign the note. I have inherited a patient panel from the previous doc, who left in October and was originally from Romania, but I think came to NZ from Britain. The other docs in the clinic are really great, there is a husband/wife team from Britain who have decided to stay and have been at the clinic for 2 years. A doc from Germany who has been at the clinic for 7 years, and a doc from Belgium who was there for 1 yr but decided to go back home. And there is a Maori doc who has tattoos on half his face who is really great. There are also a couple nurse practitioners who practice independently here and who are excellent. The nursing staff is wonderful as well. They are able to prescribe certain medications and do the quick visits like sore throats and UTI without needed doctor supervision. It sounds like most nurses who are graduating now have this ability to be nurse prescribers, and it is a bit of additional training they need for that. There are also 3 pharmacists that are embedded in the clinic who do prescribing and are a wealth of information and will see patients to help them manage their meds. They do iron infusions in the clinic, so much easier to get this done here than in the US. I have the ability to do all the procedures that I was doing in the US and they try to work up the patients as much as possible before referring them to specialists. There is a website called clinical pathways where you can look up by condition what the recommended workup/treatment is. Also NZ formulary is on line so you can look up meds and get dosing info etc. Meds are covered under the government insurance and pts have to pay $5 when they pick up a new rx. They do 3 mo prescribing for most chronic meds and there is recently a change to be able to prescribe for 1 yr, which sounds great, but really doesn’t apply to that many patients due to need for followup (f/u). There is a lot of uncontrolled diabetes and there are still a good number of health disparities for Maori and pacific islanders. They don’t really do physicals so when the patient comes in I have to remember to review the health screenings with them. I have one consultation room that I work out of, so when the patient arrives, I go get them, do their visit and vitals etc, and can schedule f/u if I want to directly into my schedule. I can text patient directly, it is one way communcation, but nice to be able to do for little things.
Ok, enough work talk! Let’s get to the fun stuff! A couple weekends ago we went to Taupo (a town north of us where there is a lake and some hot springs) where we stayed a couple nights. We had our first adventure with the NZ roads, it was the period after we got a bunch of rain, and the road (state “highway” – 1 lane each direction, with occasional spots to pass) that would have made the trip 2 hr drive, was closed — like “none shall pass” closed. They said it would take 3-4 hr wait, apparently a gravel truck had turned over earlier that day and it took them 8 hrs to clear it. So instead of waiting on the side of the road, we took the long way around through mountain passes, farmlands, and national forests, which was beautiful, but unfortunately for Sophie was a bit too much josseling about causing her to get car sick. A 2 hr trip ended up taking us 5+ hrs. Since the road was quite remote there were no side of the road restaurants we could stop at and had to piddle on the side of the road. We also ended up driving through a desert and saw mount Ruapehu which is an old volcano, 9K feet tall, which was quite impressive and apparently there is skiing there in the winter (also used as the backdrop for Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings, of course they added CGI too). There was evidence of logging in the forests and they replant the trees, which is nice to see. In and around Taupo there is a lot of geothermal activity, and there are several geothermal and hydroelectric power plants that produce a fair amount of power. Given the geothermal activity there are a bunch of hot pools you can visit, some at fancy spas and some that can be accessed in a park for free. The kids really enjoyed those (we went to the park one). About an hour north of Taupo, we made an afternoon stop at Hobbiton (the Shire from Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit movies) That was really cool. We got tickets a couple days ahead of time, and there are different types of tours you can take, but we just did the basic one. Most of the hobbit houses were just doors in the side of the hill, but with the way they put so much detail into the courtyards it felt like they were real. There was one house that we could tour on the inside with all the things, living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen etc, which was so cool to see/walk through. Also it was interactive, you could sit on the beds etc. The kids really liked the kids room with bunk beds. (Check out the link to the photo album below)
We have also explored around Hawkes Bay, been to the beach a couple times in a town called Waimarama. The sand there is super fine. People can drive on the beach and have these old farm tractors to bring the boats in and out. There can be quite a rip current there and there is a part of the beach that has lifeguards. There are people surfing and fishing and Alina went out on a boogie board. Although, this past weekend when we went she somehow got pushed to the area where the boats come in and got a bit stuck/stranded. Luckily a boat had just come in and they went to get her and bring her in. I still had the cast on so could not easily swim out to get her. It was super scary for her, but at least she had the boogie board to keep afloat. She eventually went back in the water and had fun in the waves. The water temperature was quite nice, not as cold as the water in NH, but not super warm either, especially near the shore, it gets colder if you go further out. We also visited the Aquarium in Napier, which was really nice, they have little penguins there and we saw our first kiwi bird. They also have a big tank that you can walk through like a tunnel which is super cool. We found a jumping/trampoline park in Hastings called Velocity, which the kids have really enjoyed. It is not super big, but fun, and they also have an arcade and laser tag but we have not done laser tag there yet. There are many very nice parks that are within walking distance to our house with beautiful gardens and fun playgrounds. We finally went to Splash Planet, which is not super big, but really fun and a 10 min drive from us. Alina tried her hand at the go-carts and kept getting stuck on this one corner, but she’ll get it eventually. They have these indoor pools that are warmer so the little ones really enjoyed them. Speaking of pools the kids have really enjoyed having a pool at the house and the littles are starting to do some swimming without their floaties!
Alina has started school. It has been a week so far and it is going well. She has 2 teachers and her class is a blended class of 50 kids (Year 5 and Year 6 in one room), it is one big room with different work stations/areas. School starts at 8:55am and ends at 3pm. They provide lunch and she has to bring a snack for “morning tea.” There is a really cool playground and fields and a pool at her school. They do different sports here, and she will try canoe polo, we’ll see how that goes. We signed her up for horseback riding lessons, which are quite reasonably priced, she had the first one and really enjoyed it. She also made a friend, Sawyer, at school who lives around the corner from us and whose mother is one of the administrators at the school.
Chris and Sophie are home with Gerard until they turn 5 in March, then they will start school. We have completed their enrollment paperwork and they will start to have some visits at the school to get them acclimated with it. We hope that they will have swim lessons at the school once they start. They are enjoying their time at home for now.
Gerard has an interview for a potential job on Tuesday, we’ll see how that goes. The company is called Eastek and they do security systems, home automation and monitoring for homes/businesses. Given all the remote monitoring we have at the house in Exeter and his extensive networking experience, his expertise will be much needed/appreciated (hopefully/fingers crossed!).
We bought a truck, Toyotal Hylux, used, 2024 model, dark blue, and are currently on our first road trip with it to Rotorua. There are many more hot springs here in Rotorua, and it is much more of a tourist town than Taupo is. We went to a hot spring river called Kerosine Creek yesterday that was down a dirt road and super weird to go in a river and have the water be 105 deg F! Not like the rivers in NH! It was sunny and in the 70-80s yesterday, so not refreshing, but relaxing. The pool at our hotel is also warm, probably in the mid 80s, the kids are loving it. As soon as Sophie wakes up she asks to go in the pool. As soon as Alina wakes up she asks to be on her iPad… oh well, we’re on vacation, so can keep them busy enough without going on the screens. The little magnet-tile sets have come in handy with that. We also got some camping gear yesterday, a tent, sleeping cots, and sleeping bags, so next trip will be staying at a campground! Gerard and I are excited about that, and although we have gotten used to the comforts of the camper, I think we will enjoy getting back into tent camping. I don’t think we will be doing much remote camping, probably go mostly to campgrounds, but we’ll see. It’s amazing how quickly the truck bed fills up, we miss having the gear tunnel and frunk from the Rivian. We went to a BBQ place that is right next door to the hotel last night and it was a little reminder of the US with the food and music. Even though it’s been a month, Gerard and I have not gotten pangs of home sickness, Alina has. We certainly miss all you lovely people in the US.
In lieu of posting pictures here, I am including a link to our NZ Google photos, which is easier and has many more pictures than I could possibly put on this page.
Love to all and may your days be enriching and memorable.
