Monthly Archives: March 2015

03.30.15
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I’m drinking a cup of coffee….

This is the first coffee I have had for a week…I did the caffeine withdrawal in the hospital…the killer headache…the ask someone different for a cup of coffee and maybe they will say yes…then they told me I was on a caffeine free floor.  Curses.

I was in the hospital last week for my second round of diverticulitis…I truly believe the doctor who sent me home with oral meds the week before didn’t really have the medical knowledge to treat my ailment and unfortunately I had to suffer for it.  My care was taken over by an infection disease doctor…who I must add is the best doctor I have ever had in my life…it almost makes me tear up to think about how much time he spent with me discussing what I should and shouldn’t eat, his plan of action for me to cure the diverticulitis and get on with my kidney surgery.  He sent me up with a Picc line and sent me home with IV antibiotics and I have total confidence that he is going to get me through this.  Total confidence is something I’ve never had in a doctor before and it peaceful.

I’m also eating contrary to the healthy eating I’ve been doing for the last year.  I’m eating white bread, I’m eating peanut butter, I’m eating soda crackers, I’m eating ice cream – I’m to eat soft and low fiber…only water, apple juice and grape juice – no coffee although one cup occasionally will not kill me…no onions, no green peppers…I no longer have pain but know that I still have heaping amount of infection in a 4cm abscess.

This too shall pass.

Took a short walk in the sun this afternoon and talked flowers with my neighbor Robbien and did I mention drinking a cup of coffee.

Going out to the deck to bask in this beautiful sun.

Until next time….

03.19.15
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Random Belize…..

We stayed at the Radisson St George Hotel the first night.  It was cautioned that the neighborhood was not a safe place to be at night – especially for tourists who have a tendency to wander because they just want to know where “this” road goes.

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I took a picture of these steps in the hotel because they felt good.  I liked the way they looked, I liked the way they felt – they were comfortable.

Before we headed off to Corozal, we took a foot tour of Belize City near the water in the downtown area.  I can’t say that I didn’t feel safe but I just didn’t trust anyone who tried to get my attention.  Anything can be had for a price.

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This was in the center of town…every city loses someone(s) in the war.

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Roads between Belize City and Corozol were quite bumpy…no shoulders … lots of blemishes and lots of Pedestrian crossings which are not marked well and can be anything from a crude little bump in the middle of the street to a well formed piece of asphalt.  The Nissan Pathfinder we rented had very bad shocks which was totally understandable due to the rough roads.  The two hour drive in the car was not pleasant!

I see Belize as a very poor country.  As usual, we didn’t hit the tourist spots, we wanted to see the inside and outside of the country.  I can only speak to the areas we were in but it is not a place where expats can move to and expect their way of life to continue. Traveling north from Corozol about 7 miles is the crossover into Mexico which the entry city is touted as the shopping mecca with a Walmart and cheaper gas.  We didn’t cross the border.

Snapped a couple of pictures of the larger houses in Corozol downtown area.

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elaborate fencing was everywhere.

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We stayed at the Sea Breeze Hotel…budget hotel.  Cheap and clean was all I could ask for…and it was for the  most part.  Most nights we ate around the corner at the Copper Horse Inn.  The Canadian who ran the Copper Horse Inn provided great meals and great sass!

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The Belize City airport is very nice.  This isn’t the first time we have visited a country where you boarded from the Tarmac…but it’s a totally different feeling than what we are accustomed to in the states.

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I know that most of my trip was seen thru diverticulitis eyes….the unknown and lack of amenities I’m accustomed to certainly took away from the joy of my visit.  IF I were to go back, I would definitely do the tourist stuff and forego my curiosity of the Belizian culture…but I probably won’t go back.  Too many other places waiting to be explored.

Until next time….

03.18.15
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I have a girlfriend who has been battling cancer for several years…

Tracy has always been very open with details of her cancer, her procedures, how she is trying to prepare her body for those procedures and staying strong and living life.  I’ve soaked in her details and thought that her writing about her life was probably as cathartic for her as it was for us, her friends, who thought about her struggle day and night.  The one thing I always wondered is…when you have this CANCER growing in you and you know it is there…how do you not think about it all of the time…how do you just accept that it is there and continue to put one foot in front of the other and be viable?

I now have kidney cancer that I wake up with everyday and go to sleep with everynight.  It is there!

What I think this has done for me has thickened my resolve and pissed me off….and I’ve never been one who just sits around and takes it when I’m pissed off!  Let me add here that my kidney cancer is probably all contained in my kidney and the doctor is pretty sure that they will snip it out and the cancer will be gone.  There is not Chemo or radiation that I”m aware of to treat kidney cancer.  More than one person has said to me that if I’m going to get cancer…this is the one to get.  It has also been suggested that having diverticulitis probably has saved my life – with the finding of the cancer early before it broke out of it’s lining.  So far…I think I’m lucky!

What I’ve become militant about it is what is going in my mouth.  I’ve eaten healthy for the last year – sans Thanksgiving, Christmas and vacation.  There is a difference in wanting to eat healthy because I”m almost 60 and don’t want to die early and wanting to eat healthy because I’m almost 60, have cancer, and don’t want to die early.  It’s all called perspective….

One of the things I’ve read about kidney cancer is there is really no known cause…but smoking cigarettes and being overweight may have a cause and effect.  CHECK!  Guilty of both…so I”m really not a victim unless I don’t change things…then I just have a death wish.

Until next time….

03.15.15
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Oh! and by the way…you have kidney cancer…

I’ve been a lot of places since the plane arrived in Kansas City last Monday night.  All of them have been confined within a 15 mile area between our home and St Lukes Hospital in Lee’s Summit.  Many are morphine drenched dreams but most are just trying to figure out how in the hell this happened to me.

The trip to Belize.  Not great/not horrible/won’t go back!

During lunch Saturday, I started getting this twinge in my stomach – within an hour, I told him that I needed keys to the room that I wasn’t feeling good.  I made it down the steps and approximately 6 steps to our car when I yelled that I needed him to drive me to the room.  I knew I was circling the drain fast and really had no other option than to buckle down – call from my strength within and tolerate the searing pain until we could get back to the states.  The hospital was not even an option especially after I read about the Corozal hospital on-line

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So that is what I did.  I slept – I could make it on very short little walks – airplanes, airports and thankfully wheels down KC.  After the CT scan at St Luke’s Hospital, I was told it was two abscesses/diverticulitis  which were causing the knife like pains….oh, Mrs. Brown, what we also found on the CT scan was an 8cm tumor on your left kidney which has a 90% chance is cancer.  da dada daaaa!

Prognosis is good – several docs have looked at the scan and a later one of my chest and believe that the cancer is contained in the left kidney.  They will take it out and as the urologist said – I should be able to live a long and normal life.

That’s it for now.  As many times as this revisits my head in a day, I’ll be back to talk about it all later.

Until next time….

03.05.15
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Belize

No TSA issues…I love Kansas City International.  No plane issues.  Close on our connecting flight at Bush International in Houston.  

I took this picture of Dave and Gena on the train that connects the terminals…not paying attention…shock..I nearly flew across the train because I wasn’t holding on when the train started moving.  He grabbed my purse strap just in the nick of time and saved me a lot of embarrassment.



as soon as the plane landed in Belize City, they opened both the front and back doors and we felt instant heat and humidity…we deplaned on the Tarmac and I felt an urge to start complaining about the heat…okay…I did.  We boarded at 11 degrees and landed at 90.  crazy!

The actual city of Belize City is not worth writing home about.  It’s not good.  We have a room in the St George Radisson away from downtown…very nice…it’s where the queen used to stay when she visited her kingdoms when it was British Honduras.



The moon was coming up while we ate dinner…this picture does nothing to show how really beautiful it was.



I snapped these pictures from the balcony on our way back to our room.  it is very nice…except the birds In The trees (he says grackles?). They actually sound like a woman screaming and they are right outside our door so I question the grackle name.







Heading north to Corozal in the morning.

…..and just a picture for the family…we brought the 12 year old…



Until next time…..

03.02.15
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A long weekend of movies!!

Sorry..kissedbyadog.wordpress.com…I know I shouldn’t complain about the snow!  We didn’t work the auction Friday night and have been alone-in the house-together since Friday.  My FitBit activity couldn’t be lower unless I were dead!  I have kept up on my planks but there doesn’t seem to be a category for that!

Watched 3 movies…Friday night was Ida – which won an academy award for Foreign language film.  I used to shy away from subtitled films.  I’m glad I’ve gotten over that because this Polish film was very memorable.  The film synopsis:  A young woman preparing to become a nun is sent from her convent home into the secular world to spend several days with her only relative.  The trip will bring Anna into contact with experiences outside her sheltered world, and will lead her to knowledge that may shake her sense of her own identity. (Think German-Jewish after World War II).

Saturday night was Twin Sisters (2002).  Another sub-titled film (think Holland-Germany-Jews).  Synopsis:  1920’s Germany.  Two sisters aged six years, no sooner see their remaining parent buried when they are torn apart.  Lotte goes to live with her upper middle class Dutch aunt in Holland, Anna to work as a farm hand on her German uncle’s rural farm.  I will remember this one forever!

Sunday afternoon was The Theory of Everything. (2014)  Eddie Redmayne won the 2015 oscar for best performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.  He was amazing in the role of physicist Stephen Hawking.  The theme of the movie for me was there is nothing you can’t do if you really want to do it.  No subtitles other than the closed captioning 🙂

Weather is on the way to improving – mid to upper 50’s by the weekend.  We will be up, up and away to Belize and 60’s should greet us as we step off the plane in KC early next week.

Until next time….