Very sorry, but we had to come back :(

Above is the photo from the plane home.  And below, this is me at Sunnybrook Hospital.  Yup, we never did see the actual MRI, but the Greek doctor translated it and sent the results to the doctor on the ship, who shared it with our travel insurance company, whose medical team agreed that I needed to be returned home for treatment in Canada.  The doctor on the ship scared the living daylights out of us, saying that one wrong move and I could be facing permanent nerve damage and potential lameness in one leg or worse.  His position was that I should be flown home Sunday to be in surgery on Monday. When the insurance company said, we will offer to fly you home with your husband and if you decline, you can not make any further claim for this issue, of course we decided to come home.  To put your minds at ease, I seem to be fine aside from intermittent pain down the left leg (sciatica resulting from compression on disks and nerve roots and a thing called spondylolisthesis involving the L4-L5 and L5-S1). To continue to treat this whole situation with the greatest of seriousness, Cassio and I went immediately from the airport to Sunnybrook Emergency (which our family doctor recommended for quicker service).  We were at the hospital for a total of 9 and a half hours only to be told my symptoms were not serious enough even for them to refer me to their spine clinic. The frustrating thing is that the possibility of the worst outcome is actually pretty rare.

In the end, Cassio and I are very frustrated because a trip that we intended to do for another four months has been cut short and we are not convinced that I needed to come home after all.  The problem is now that I am on a waiting list to see a back doctor that could take up to 3 months and I have to be stable for a minimum of 90 days with any pre-existing medical conditon and not travelling against the advice of my doctor in order to qualify for travel insurance for this problem.  So, we can travel in Ontario.  And maybe we will do just that.  If that is the case, we will certainly keep you posted on all our revised travel experiences.  Please read below.  I posted all our other places today, from the one that is headed " the trip from Milan to Reggio Nell Emilia"  You can see where we went and kind of read backwards all of what happened to land us back here in Toronto.  Boo Hoo.

Thanks for reading along with us.  We enjoyed the trip as much as possible and have had a ton of great experiences.  Our plan is to get/stay healthy and go again.