JT's Travels: Land Down Under

Melbourne 1985

A baby in melbourne - AF

I wish i could say that our first trip was for a fun vacation.. it wasnt. my eldest was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition (VSD) and had to have corrective surgery before he reached 1 year. unfortunately he contracted pneumonia when he was 4 months, leaving him quite weak and we were advised by the doctor to have it corrected asap. so since the waiting list for that kind of surgery was a long one, we were also advised to have it done overseas. in this case, at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

Royal Children's Hospital

We were in a fix. money was tight; we had just returned from the states and my hubby was the only one with a job. lucky for us, my ex-boss (whom i worked for before i left for the states) learned of our plight and generously offered to bear the expenses. of course we jumped at the opportunity!! we remain eternally grateful to him.. god bless you encik syukur!

A friend fixed us up with her sister, a medical student there whose apartment was close to the hospital. i cant even begin to tell you what an experience it all was. first of all, there we were trying to deal with strange places & strange people when all we wanted to do was to be with our sick kid. thank god for melbourne's reliable trams; the public transport is extremely visitor/tourist friendly.

Tram passing right across the street

I was also struggling to handle my baby. i wasnt sure if i was doing the right things, everything had to be done through trial & error!! you see, i didnt have any siblings until much later and was totally without experience where babies were concerned!! my husband and i did a lot of growing up then, but we were very fortunate that the experience drew us even closer.

In ICU 2 days after surgery

1 week post surgery

Discharged after 2 weeks.

To make a long story short, the surgery was a success and my boy made rapid recovery. in just over 2 weeks he was discharged but we were told to stick around for another week minimum. so that was the time that we took to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing... yea, sightseeing!! if its one thing we learnt from being at the children's ward, never treat the kids as if they were sick but instead celebrate the fact that they were alive. the children were encouraged to play and it was quite a common sight to see boys running around with their drip stands in tow!! you would certainly never see such a thing here.

The kids at the ward were encouraged to play even though some of them had on pacemakers.

Our trips were short ones... nothing too hectic for the baby.

Ballarat, Victoria.
Its quite a big town about 110 km west of melbourne (not from memory.. i checked lol). its one of those towns that cropped up during the 19th century gold rush and we did the tourist thing and went to Sovereign Hill. its where they recreate the lives and times of a typical gold mining settlement - with the stores and stables open just like the old days, wearing clothes of that time and unconcernedly going about their daily business... you kinda do a double take and say, hey, have i gone back in time or something lol ? really cool !!

Sovereign Hill & Kryal Castle

Phillip Island, Victoria.
we rented a small car, a holden i think. the drive down was very quiet and peaceful, and helped to calm our rather 'choatic' spirits.... after all that had happened, we needed some time to accept the fact that the worse was over and that we could get on with our lives. Phillip Island is a beautiful place, with koalas as well as penguins... cute little buggers surely but we didnt stay for the penguin parade. unfortunately the timing just wasnt right.