June 4, 2016

We made it to Costa Rica yesterday.  Found that my feet, especially the left one, has swollen quite a bit during the flight.  I guess this must be due to the removal of lymph nodes.  That has never happened before even on long flights and I wasn't expecting it.

We are staying at Sugar Beach Resort. It's beautiful. Our phones don't work here so if you need to contact me please use Facebook messenger or email.  We'll be checking both on at least a daily basis.

On June 3 of 2016, we left Texas for Costa Rica not knowing exactly how long we'd stay.  We had our all of our things in storage in Austin after giving up the house we were renting.

2015 an the beginning of 2016 had been a rough time for us.  In January of 2-15 I went to the hospital in an ambulance where I was eventually diagnosed with colon cancer.  We were told at the beginning that it was a slow growing tumor that had a 95 -98% cure rate.  What we weren't told was that the treatments and complications could kill me and they almost did.  My last surgery was between Christmas and New Years.  The recovery has been tedious and at times excruciatingly slow.  Costa Rica has been a place of healing for me in many ways.

We explored quite a bit of the country and got some dental work done before returning to the US in August for my follow up appointments and to help out with some family stuff in North Carolina.  We returned to Costa Rica in October and have been living in a condo on the beach in Guanacaste.  The following posts are taken from my Facebook page where I've been trying to give my friends a balanced picture of life here.

Catching up

I'd like to believe that 2015 never happened.  It was one of the worst years of my life.  I spent most of it in bed due to colon cancer and its treatments as well as side effects of meds, adverse reactions to meds, and 2 rounds of a nasty infection.  My husband Stephen was the most wonderful caregiver. He took care of me night and day, cleaned up every imaginable bodily fluid, kept track of all my appointments, and dealt with insurance companies,  service providers and learned to cook.  I doubt I'd'still be here without him.

In late May of this year, 2106, we had all of our belongings packed and moved into storage before leaving for a week at the Kerrville Folk Festival.  It was a totally different experience for us to stay at the YO and only go to the ranch in the evenings.  I couldn't walk around on the rough ground very well so we only saw a few acts from the back of the theater.  We did get to see a lot of friends and that was the most important thing.

We left Kerrville on June 2 and drove to Houston where we left our car with friends and stayed the night in a hotel near the airport.  The next day, we flew to Costa Rica.