The Cabin By The Bay

Upstairs Lounge aka living room in Kiwi lingo

Andrew's makeshift room from an entryway downstairs

Phillip's room (picture was from his sliding glass door to the deck)

Groovy downstairs lounge

Kitchen/dining room is upstairs

Claire's room doubles as guest room with a private patio

Lynn picked the "room with a view"

Anna's room...of course she wanted pink!

The house is starting to feel a little more comfortable to us but still not like home. Things are older here especially in the rental market. It is taking getting use to. We don't have central heat and air which gives the house more of a camping feel with wet cool temperatures, lots of spiders/mosquitos, and cabin like interior. The fall weather has been very sunny this week which raises the temperatures for the afternoons. I sat out on the deck today and started one of those books I got for Christmas. The kids fished with Lynn. Claire opened the windows (no screens here) and had a fastfood coffee shop going out the window with deck waitress service too. Anna said she thought it was the best day we have had yet. The boys got up early and went to an annual road race in downtown Whangarei and then on to Phillip's Rugby game. The girls slept in, called my mom, and walked to the cafe for a late breakfast. We grilled out the very common kiwi meal of "lamb sausages with onions and peppers" for dinner. They serve them every where here including for breakfast at the Rugby fields. They remind me of the sausages my dad and I use to get at the fair when I was a kid. Someone should introduce the Kiwis to funnel cakes and they would have "fair food" down! I included some pics of the kids at what we have termed "the cabin by the bay".
The work week last week was interesting for Lynn with 2 plane trips on a prop plane without climate control last Tuesday and Thursday. The trips were all day affairs to do clinics in the extreme northern community of Kaitia. He said he saw a lot of severe sleep apnea patients who can't be seen in Auckland for months even if they could drive the 5 to 8 hours for a sleep study. He started formulating some ideas and meeting with folks about how to set up testing and c-pap to serve this 150,000 person area on a budget that might get approved by controled healthcare. Seeing such severe sleep apnea, advanced lung cancer, and limited resources (no EEG in Northlands, no pet scan in all of New Zealand) has struck a compassion in him to see what can be done in the system we are in. He has termed it 2nd world medicine because it is much better than 3rd world countries and resembles modern medicine but simplified and scaled down. The gardener that takes care of our yard told me he has prostate cancer and is waiting on surgery for the past 3 months. He looks like he is 50 years old. I am not a Urologist but it doesn't sound good. There is no radiation Oncologist here. Our next door neighbor moved here with seizures and finally got a CT scan that showed a mass. She is going to Auckland for 3 weeks of work up, etc. We don't have neurosurgery or neurologists in the Northland. Radiology is limited to a few cat scans/MRI's a day so you just have to wait until you can get in. The pathology lab appears very similar to US labs and I am finding some opportunities to teach medical students, interns, and residents about lab testing, blood products, etc to try to decrease pre analytical lab errors and inappropriate use of blood products. I am working on some administrative projects like revising requisition sheets, updating lab manuals, and initiating some lab tests the clinicians want. Fascinating "A?" We have gotten a kick out of lingo here. Some of the common phrases are: cool and awesome, being keen on something if you like it, something good is said to be "sweet as" but they never say as what (side note until today Phillip thought people were saying 'sweet ass' all the time, there is common cursing here at all ages), instead of loads of something it is "heaps of", making a statement then saying "A?" as if your asking Do you agree (Claire is really picking this one up). It would go something like this....
We are keen on New Zealand and having heaps of fun because things are sweet as but it would be awesome and cool if you would visit. A?