Universal Healthcare during COVID-19 works!

I can’t believe how impressed I am with the outreach to us from our local CCSS clinic. The CCSS is the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, commonly referred to as "la CAJA". Yesterday we received a call for John from our local CAJA health center. Since John is language challenged when it comes to understanding people speaking Spanish on the telephone, I took over the call. The caller was a staff member at the local clinic and she was just calling to make sure we are okay and did we need anything health-wise during this time of social distancing. She confirmed our ages, living situation (food, shelter, ability to cook, clean, bathe, and generally take care of ourselves), regular medications we take, and our emergency contact information.

I explained, even though we pay our quota to the CAJA each month, we have always used the medical services of our friend and doctor in town to write prescriptions we have filled at the CAJA pharmacy. Since March we have avoided contact with the public as much as possible and we haven’t wanted to go to the CAJA pharmacy to fill prescriptions. We have been ordering our medications from a local pharmacy via WhatsApp (text message). This pharmacy provides a free delivery service. The CAJA representative explained they would be more than happy to fill the prescriptions for our regular medications and deliver them to our house monthly. She took down the names of all our medications and promised to set up an appointment by telephone with one of the doctors working at the local CAJA clinic. Today, she called back to confirm a doctor will contact us today, or tomorrow, to confirm our medications and submit the prescriptions to the CAJA pharmacy to be filled and delivered. She then proceeded to provide me with the phone numbers I can call to order refills in the coming months.

Some folks complain about socialized medicine, but for us, we find the medical system so much better than what we had in the United States. Granted, elective medical services are not readily available and there is a waiting list, there are waiting periods to see some specialists, but overall healthcare and emergency services are great. Just last week we ventured out of the house long enough to get our seasonal flu vaccination at a venue set up by the local CAJA. Earlier this year, clinicians from the CAJA showed up at our door to take our temperatures, blood pressure, and administer Tetanus booster shots. The system works! ¡Pura Vida!

UPDATE 5/28: The doctor at the local clinic just called to reconfirm our regular medications. The prescriptions will be filled tomorrow and delivered to our door on Monday.
UPDATE 5/29: 30 days worth of medications were delivered at 10 AM. Each medication can be refilled twice.
UPDATE 6/1/20 Two clinicians from the local CAJA office came to check on us for symptoms of Dengue Fever (breakbone fever). They confirmed there is one reported case of Dengue in our neighborhood and she has recovered. Time to inspect the property again to eliminate any mosquito breeding grounds.

Universal Healthcare for all!

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What's an "emergency" in an Emergency Room?

It's 10pm on the Turd of July.

"There's an elephant sitting on my chest," she said. Her blood pressure had spiked to over 160; she was pale and clammy; her demeanor was noticeably languorous. My EMT "load and go" brain kicked in. We loaded. We went. But we probably went to the wrong place.

"Shouldn't we call Cruz Roja (the Red Cross ambulance)? You're in no condition to drive." she said.

The girl has obviously never seen me totally in The Zone. One might be "impaired" by too much scotch but when it's time to fight and the explosion of adrenaline kicks in, you fight like a maniac -- a very cold, calculating, sober maniac.

(On top of being aware of my above "skills," I was determined to take matters into my own hands because I had visions of the Cruz Roja responding at about the same speed and enthusiasm as the Fuerza Publica, i.e., "whenever".)

I decided that we were going to the Caja Hospital de Alajuela. Patricia had received excellent treatment there one night for a bout of pneumonia and my treatment at the Atenas branch for 2nd degree burns had been exemplary. How bad could it be? He said.

During the drive, there were a couple of times she touched my leg as a signal to be careful when I achieved the terrifying speed of 100 kph out on the autopista (63 mph ... pfttt!). Other than that, for your reference, it is exactly a 30 minute drive with the new Coyol connector road between Hwy 27 and Hwy 1. Other than the patient's angst, the trip was uneventful.

So, I wheel up to the ambulance dock at the back emergency entrance of the sparkling new Alajuela hospital and ... nobody there but a sleepy old guard. Oh well.

I help her out of the car and we walk the few steps to the ER reception desk.

"Corazon!" I exclaim, thumping my chest and pointing to her (wishing I had paid closer attention in my Spanish For First Responders class in California.)

The dude says something that doesn't process in my brain but he's pointing to the line standing in front of a door marked "Triage." Noooooo!

But, as part of my extensive Pura Vida training and two years of practice to NOT grabbing clowns by the shirt front and jerking them up over their desk for "attitude training" I simply nodded and we went to the line. Wow!

The Triage office is a very tiny room with one guy in it. It has two doors. One faces the general ER area (a HUGE waiting room) and one faces the ambulance back entrance area, where we were. The line at the general door was long. Our line only had two parties in front of us. Luckily, it seems that the policy is to clear the line on our side while the "walk ins" on the other side have to wait. And, the Triage guy was attentive, if not a little non-chalant about a cardiac emergency. He sauntered out of his office, sat her down and took her blood pressure while asking a couple of questions. He then executed a computer printed form (the ONLY computer or computer form we were to see during this odyssey) and he put a red tag onto the form. Oh boy! A red tag. Now shit's going to start happinin'.

He pointed us to a semi-open doorway, indicating we should "cross over". I say "semi-open" because it was hung with opaque 4" wide, vertical plastic strips, such that you could move them apart and enter but that the people outside couldn't see in.

For good reason.

I said "cross over" because on the other side of the plastic strips we entered a 25 meter hallway that would be a perfect setting for a Stephen King horror movie. Both sides of the hall were lined with gurneys holding the sick and dying off casts. Almost all of them looked terminal to me and all of them were just "parked." Several of them had IV pouches hung above them but all of the pouches were empty. Great way to enter The System.

Undeterred, we pushed through the stygian gauntlet and made it up to the real nurses station. "Now that red tag is going to get me somewhere."

Not.

With a big yawn (10:30 PM) the clerk/nurse/whatever (everyone is wearing scrubs and "corporate" namebadges too small to read) looks at the paperwork, tosses it into a basket on the top of the counter and points us to a line of 8 metal chairs. I think about doing the chest thump and "corazon" pantomime thing again but figure that this is just the Pura Vida system. Let it go. If my darling collapses or suddenly arrests, there's still plenty of time to grab some shirt fronts and drag them out to where she's lying on the floor, I figure.

The line of 8 metal chairs once had 1" thick plastic-covered pads on them. The pads had been upholstered onto a plywood base. But all that's left now are raggedy bits of plastic with a sporadic showing of loose fiber to tease one into imagining how comfortable these chairs must have been ... 30 years ago. There were already 6 folks on the 8 chairs with one end of the line empty -- almost. At the far end of the chairs was a woman in a wheelchair, all bundled up, asleep, with a heavily bandaged foot resting on the edge of the last chair. We made ourselves as small as possible and sat, taking care not to push that blood-seeping foot off the edge.

Presently, a 12 year old kid walked up to the counter and took our file out of the basket. Well, he looked 12 to us.

He read and read. It was a single page. And he read some more. Then he called Pat's name kind of "out there" into the general time-space continuum, as if he didn't know where the line of chairs was. We waved our hands and he turned to look at us, then motioned toward a nearby door. Holy reflex hammer, Batman, this guy's wearing a stethiscope around his kneck and he has a ballpoint pen in his pocket. This must be a real doctor!

Since Pat and I are joined at the hip, we both stood and headed for the door together, whereupon the kid (we promptly began referring to him as Doogie Howser) waved me away and mumbled something.

"He says you can't come in," Pat said. Ahhh. Yet another test to see if my self control system against choking little shits is sufficiently strong to overcome my emotions.

So, they go alone into the sanctum sanctorum room and I'm left outside trying to decipher doubly unintelligible mumbles issuing through the door. Nada.

Pat comes out and states that she's headed (on foot ... no wheelchairs if you're only suspect of being about to die) to the EKG room and I cannot come with.

I am shooed back to the little chairs. Like a dog. I obey like a little dog. Oh, woe unto them if I were still a Real Man. Sigh.

But, hey! An EKG! This should change their attitudes and get some action around here!

In no time at all, Pat was back.

"The EKG is negative. He says they have to do a blood test and a chest x-ray"

Well, O.K. Some high blood pressure congestive episodes won't show up on an EKG, I guess. Goodie, let's wait over on the swell chairs. I wonder where you get to the point of getting one of the ER beds and a little medication, etc. Crazy thought.

'Bout an hour later, amidst the chaos of employees stampeding past us to get to the employee break room across the hall from our chairs, an unidentified scrub-clad woman walks up to us with a handful of pills, still in their individual Costa Rican foil wrappers, and dumps the mess into Pat's hand and hands me a plastic shot glass, generously filled with water. "Take these," she says to Pat in Spanish.

I'm starting to think about bolting from Hades and heading to the private CIMA Hospital over in Gringolandia, even if it does cost your life savings to barge through their ER doors.

Pat doesn't think this is a good idea (yet) and I hunker down.

Actually, I stand up because my nether regions have gone fast asleep sitting on the hard plywood-seated wonder chairs.

First thing I do is walk back towards the nurses station to get a peek around the wall beyond which a lot of moaning and stuff is issuing. Holy Crapola! This is a Wednesday night. What happens here on Friday or Saturday nights?

There are 8 open-fronted examination chambers, each with three gurneys, all full; and, there are 3 rows of better looking chairs and wheel chairs, all full. And it seems every single patient has an IV packet -- almost all collapsed and empty -- with a tube running to their arm or hand. Must be the standard treatment around here. "Dehydrated? Plug 'em into a half liter on fast drip." "Broken foot? Plug 'em into a half liter on fast drip." "Influenza? Plug 'em into a half liter on fast drip."

"Heart attack? Nah. They don't need no stinking IV. Stick 'em over in dem freakin ol' chairs we moved over from the old hospital. Maybe they'll croak and that'll rid us of one so we can free up a chair."

With everything full, I count like 50 souls needing attention in the ol' ER on this "quiet" hump night. Maybe a word about the staff is in order at this point.

There's Doogie, of course, and maybe (we're never sure of this) one other guy who might have been a doctor because he periodically pulled patient files from the counter-top basket and read them and read them and read them.

Then there were 6 ladies, all in scrubs, messing with papers, going to the employee break room and occasionally delivering pills with dem little bitty cups of water.

There was Working Man, who must have been a boss nurse or something because as often as he messed with paper, he would also get up and go do something with a patient. He's the only one that I saw change anybody's IV bag. One other of the women inserted an IV needle, that I saw.

Speaking of needles, there was Blood Girl. She came with her little cart full of vials of blood and alcohol wipes and needles. I loved her modern asceptic technique. She walked up to the girl next to us on the chairs, (who spent almost the entire night passed out on her mother's shoulder,) and slipped the surgical tubing "tourniquet" around her arm to pop out a vein. Then, with an alcohol swab, she wipe and wiped a spot on the girl's arm. Then she switched to a clean wipe -- just to be sure -- and wiped some more. Then she dropped both wipes into a bio-haz bag ... and wiped her own nose with the back of her index finger ... then picked up the blood-draw needle between that index finger and thumb and shoved it home. Do you think my eyes betrayed me when my eyelids flopped back over the top of my head upon observing this textbook example of medical safety and sterility? I tried to be good. Minded my own damn Pura Vida business.

Then there was the "escort boy." His job seemed to be going to and from the break room more than anybody else; and, then he was the one who motioned us to follow him (again, on foot -- no wheelchair) across the hospital to the x-ray department. He was a little put out though, that us damn old people couldn't walk as fast as he, because, hey, he had to get back for, um, break time.

The radiology dude was a really funny guy, I guess, because he kept escort boy in stitches the whole time we were down there, regaling him with ... I don't know ... stories or something. Anyhow, it must have been mighty funny material.

Last, but certainly not least, is the cleaning lady. We were there from 10:30pm on the 3rd until 7:30am on the 4th, and she never stopped moving. She'd sweep and then mop. She'd empty waste baskets then clean the employee break room. Never. Stopped. Working. And she was probably getting paid $10 per day.

So, back to the story. We're both pretty sore from the chairs and Pat is freezing. I guess they keep it cold in there to hold down the germs or something because no normal organism could live in there for long without a lot of protective clothing. We noticed that many of the patients were obviously experienced with The System because they had brought their own blankets and extra clothing. Not us. We're stupid gringos.

At some point Pat's blood work came back from the lab and they were mystified. Nothing.

Time for another EKG. Pat came back from that little trip and said that they had decided to run a different type of blood test on her. Ya know, they didn't want to waste a whole extra blood test strip on her the first time around because, well, not every cardiac patient presenting with an elephant on her chest develops the proteins or antibodies or hooper-gloopers or whatever they were not going to test for the first time around. Much better and more efficient to run Blood Girl down for yet another draw, send it back upstairs for processing, checking off another box on another form, running it back to the ER and .... oh, hell. Then they told us it would be at least another 3 hours to get those results. It's 3am.


My butt is killing me and I've got a plan.

"Hey, since it's going to be "forever" to get the results back on this test, why don't I run back to Atenas and get you some warm clothes?"

"But it's so far."

"Oh ... but I want to," I'm saying, thinking of the rather plush-ish drivers seat in our Subaru and the hour away from hell that such a trip would entail.

So she assented; and, I went.

Now, I need to do a quick little back story here to put the following into perspective. We had just paid to have two little gated fences built on either side of our main house so that we could confine our dogs to the back yard/side yard areas, keeping them away from visiting guests of our casita and away from any gates to the outdoors. You see, they love to jump up on strangers and they love to get out of our compound and run around the neighborhood. When we left for the initial hospital run, we had put the dogs out behind the new fences. (Plenty of dry shelter areas, water and doggie beds but no way to run off and no way to irritate anybody.

So I pull off our neighborhood street and into our long driveway (3:30am) and waaaaay of up the drive way I see two glowing eyes. Then the eyes are bounding down the lane in big gazelle-like leaps of joy. In the fog of my brain and darkness something is circling the car like a ... well ... crazy dog. It's our mini-pin, Goose. Happy as a pig in poop and you can just about see the laughing smile on his face saying, "Haha. You can't keep me penned up." We still haven't figured this one out. He has never figured out how to get out of the back yard before. He had to either climb the 2 meter back yard fence or he had to climb the new 1 meter gate and then the front 2 meter fence. Baffling.

Anyhow, I grabbed clothes, snacks & drink and ran back to Alajuela.

Back with Pat it's back to sitting. And sitting.

Then, 6am. It's obviously shift change as new faces roll in and old faces start to gather up their personal stuff to go home. Damn. This is certain to add an hour or more to the stay because the newbies won't be up to speed and won't know Pat's history and ....

CLUNK!

The pneumatic tube drops into the nurses station a package full of test results. Oh, could we be so lucky?

Working Man retrieves the tube and starts leafing through the reports. He looks over and gives us "the look" meaning that our results are in. He staples them to our now-considerably-thick pile of papers and STICKS THEM INTO THE "TO DO" BASKET!!! Hot damn! We're either out of here or Pat gets a bed and some action.

Shift change here entails lot's of laughing; chatter; hugs; leering male something-or-others-in-scrubs checking out the butts of the newbie female something-or-others-in-scrubs; and ... one 20-something is braiding the hair of one 50-something as several others observe. This just ain't the time for reading charts, yo.

But then Doogie comes back. We thought he'd gone home. He grabbed the pile from the To Do basket and he read and read and made notes and read and read and made notes and read and read. Then he called out the name ... of someone else. That patient and he left the area together. Pat had heard the intake of that patient during my 3am absence as someone also having chest pain issues.

"But he was way behind us in line!" I say, beginning to think that maybe we're in the gringo line and that guy was in the tico line. Plus, that guy looked to be about 30. Where's the fabled "taking care of seniors first" treatment?

They come back. Doogie disappears. Now it's pushing 7am.

Doogie reappears and picks up the files and reads and reads ... well, you get it. Then HE CALLS PATRICIA'S NAME!" Then he takes her away because he wants to do another EKG. (Somebody's cousin must own the EKG-paper vending company that supplies this hospital. Is this the 3rd or 4th one?)


I'm shaking my head, muttering and generally looking like a genuine curmudgeon when a really tico-looking man about my age squeezes into the chair beside me.

Just then, a guy and girl, in scrubs, come walking up with the apparent intention of moving down the line of chairs taking everyone's blood pressure. As they get to me, they ask indecipherable stuff and I can only say, "Mi esposa," and point toward the EKG door. Then the guy next to me says something to them in Spanish and they move along. I'm a little confused by this until he leans over and whispers conspiratorially into my ear, in perfect unaccented English, "If you think this is bad, you should see the Caja hospitals in Guanacaste and Limon. They really are nightmares compared to this."

My head could have exploded. Worse than this? And who is this "masked man" who came at just the right time to save me with his perfect Spanish and perfect English? Turns out he is a dual national with 18 years of residency in the U.S. and the rest of his 60-something years in Costa Rica. Then he gave me a little taste of how "good" things could have been for us during out fun vacation to the hospital.

"I've been peeing blood for 3 days. Yesterday I started sitting here at 6am, having nothing to eat or drink since midnight the day before yesterday because they needed my system totally empty to do a kidney ultrasound. Then, they delayed the ultrasound until late yesterday afternoon. It was so late that the only doctor who could read the results had already gone home. So they told me to go home and come back today for the results. I figure that I'll be here all day today before I learn anything."

Oh, good, now I'm ready for all kinds of good things to happen.

Pat returns.

"Well, Doggie did 3 EKG runs and then 3 blood pressure tests. My blood pressure is back up a little but the EKG is negative." she says, mournfully. "Oh ... and the new blood test is negative so he's just going to prescribe a different type of blood pressure medicine and aspirin."

And here I'm thinking of that ancient old joke punchline of a doctor saying, "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." Maybe I should give him a "punchline" of my own.

Ah, no. Pura Vida.

So Doogie writes and writes and writes into Pat's chart. Then he chats with some of the newbies for awhile. Then he writes some more. Now it really is 7am. Finally he fans out a handful of prescription scrip and waves Pat over to his throne desk.

We're free! We can leave. Or not. It seems that the scrip written at this caja location is no good in any other pharmacy other than theirs, which is over on the other side of the hospital and generally good for another hour of "waiting to be served".

But finally, the gods are smiling on us and there are fewer than a handful of peeps ahead of us at the Ye Olde Dope Spot and we're out o' there in less than 20 minutes. Record time for once.

Drove home wide awake. Rustled around with Pat and made breakfast of some sort. Sat down and jotted a little stuff on the computer ... and then ... the big crash. Not the computer ... my brain and body. Pat's too.

With only a few minor interruptions of phones and people at the door, we both slept the 4th of July away. Hope we didn't miss much. Hope we don't EVER need an ER again. If we ever do, I'm thinking of heading straight to CIMA. What the heck. A little bankruptcy never hurt anybody.
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Shopping trip to Golfito

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since we've blogged about anything! I apologize to our faithful followers and I have been duly chastised by more than one of you. It's not that we don't have anything to share, we've just been busy! I've been purposely holding off, because I've been trying to get the house in shape to take some photos of our beautiful place and share them with you. We have been taking our time (after all we are retired) and trying to find a space for everything has presented some challenges.

This week we had an opportunity to go with our good friends, Maritza and Vinicio, to Golfito and check out the Duty Free Zone. This is where the old United Fruit Company's headquarters used to be. When they pulled out of Costa Rica, it practically shut down the town, and the local economy was collapsing. The government saved the town, by declaring it a duty free port with shopping restrictions. Golfito is a great place to buy small and large appliances, tires, tools, clothes, cosmetics, housewares, etc.

Instead of just helping the merchants selling the merchandise, the government setup a clever way to help hotel and restaurant owners too. If you want to shop in Golfito, you have to present yourself, with your cédula (national identity card,) or passport, to the office of Ministry of the Hacienda (Treasury) ONE DAY BEFORE you want to shop. The Treasury representative will enter your information into their system and give you a TAC (Tarjeta de Autorización de Compras (Authorization to Purchase.)) This is actually a sheet of paper that looks like a ledger. It lists your name, cedula (or passport,) and the amount you are allowed to buy for the current semester.

Today, residents are allowed to buy up to $1000* of imported merchandise, duty free, once a semester, January 1st to June 30th and July 1st to December 31st. In our particular case, we didn't take advantage of our $1000 allowance during the first semester, so it automatically rolled over to the second semester and each of us were given a TAC with an allowance of $2000. The allowance expires at the end of the year, but come January the allowance of $1000 for the first semester will become available again.

Note: This annual allowance has been changed. The new allowance is ¢1,696.000 per person. With today's rate of excange (21-Sep-2017), that is about $2,900 USD per year.

We decided we needed to take 2 vehicles so we would have enough storage space for our purchases. So, this past Wednesday, we followed Maritza and Vinicio on a long 5 hour drive, all the way down the Pacific coast, close to Panama. The drive is beautiful, with ocean views through the tropical jungle. Maritza, had made hotel reservations for us at a nice little place on the gulf that they have been going to for 15 years. The hotel is called Mar y Luna and it will become our hotel of choice the next time we make this trip

We checked into the hotel, then we drove over to the Duty Free Zone to get our TAC's and check prices on some of the things we wanted to buy. It reminded me of some the of the outlet malls in the States, but all of the stores were crowded with shoppers and very narrow aisles. We found a small LCD TV for our bedroom and a new gas dryer to replace the one we brought down with us from the States. The old dryer is giving us some problems with the igniter, in spite of John's best efforts to get it working right. The dryer is about 14 years old, so we've gotten our money's worth out of it and it's time to replace it.

After price shopping, we went back to the hotel for some dinner and then I got online to look at product ratings. I also compared the Golfito prices to U.S. prices. It turns out the prices are better than the U.S. on some things. The LCD TV was $20 less and the dryer was $150 less. Keep in mind that in addition to the items being duty free, they are also exempt from any sales tax. The TV and dryer we priced are also name brands, Sony and G.E, and they both have great product reviews.

Thursday, after breakfast, we went back to do our actual shopping. It's a very interesting process. As you go from store to store buying, they take your TAC and record the invoice number and amount spent. You can take your purchases with you, or you can leave them for pick up after you've finished with all your shopping. There are porters with dollies available for hire to help you get all the stuff to check out. The porters charge $2 to take something directly from one store to check out, or you can hire a porter for 3½ hours and he will follow you from store to store for $5. Not a bad deal.

When we were ready to check out, we hired a porter and he took everything to a check out lane that looks something like a TSA line at the airport. We loaded all our stuff (yes, we did buy a bunch of other goodies) onto the belt rollers and when it was our turn, we gave our TAC to the agent with all of our receipts. He validated everything and verified we had not exceeded our allowance. When he gave us the green light and we hired another porter to take everything (except the dryer) to our car for another $3. The dryer was delivered to a cargo company to be transported to us here in Atenas. They charge 3% of the purchase price, plus $32, as delivery fee. The dryer is supposed to be delivered to us sometime this afternoon.

We didn't even come close to using ONE of our TAC allowances. Unfortunately, you only get one shot at the check out line and you have to turn in your TAC. I thought of somethings we should have bought after we loaded the car, but now we have to wait a minimum of 22 days before we can have another TAC issued. I don't think we will be going back anytime soon, but it is nice to know what is available in Golfito.

Friday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel again, then we started the long drive back to Atenas. We got home around 1 P.M. yesterday, to find a couple of very happy dogs. This was the first trip we've taken away from home in over a year. We had a friend stay here while we were gone. He looked after "da boyz" and took care of things while we were gone. It was fun to get away for a few days.
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Health Warning! What happens to household goods in storage for a year!

A week ago I felt what I thought was the onset of a cold. I started taking the usual OTC meds, but this nasty bug immediately settled in my lungs. I had to sleep upright in a recliner just to breathe. By Saturday, John insisted I go to a doctor to get this checked out, and the search for cause and cure began.

When we first moved to Atenas, we were not yet covered under Costa Rica's national health care system, Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social (CCSS or CAJA). So we affiliated with a a local health care provider called "Linea Vital." They offers private English-speaking medical care for the Atenas community. Clinic staff provide home visits, emergency care and general medical services.

Saturday, I saw Doctora Candy and when she listened to my lungs she said, "Muchos Gatos" (or many cats)! She put me on 4 nebulizer treatments, gave me an injection for inflammation and sent me home with antibiotics, inhalers, and a bunch of other meds to try to assault whatever was attacking my lungs. She told me to come back on Monday and meet with Doctora Hernández, who would be filling in for here for a few days. By Monday, I was still the same, or maybe a little worse. Doctora Hernández gave me 3 more nebulizer treatments, another injection and changed the antibiotic to something stronger. She suspected pneumonia of some type had set in. Since we are now members of the national health care system all of our medical is covered, so she sent me off to the local CAJA clinic for blood work and x-rays. I was handed the results for the blood work in 30 minutes, but it would take two days to get results for x-rays. Yesterday, We opted to go to a private facility in Alajuela (about 30 minutes from us) and get the x-ray done and receive the results the same day. It took us about 3 hours and we were back to see Doctora Hernández with all the results. She diagnosed bacterial pneumonia due to the raised white blood cell count and some cloudiness she saw on the x-rays. So, she sent me back to the local CAJA clinic with an emergency referral for treatment.

At the clinic they took me right to the head of the line where I met with the intake nurse and doctor to assess the treatment so far. This doctor started thinking Asthma and put me on a course of 4 rounds of nebulizer treatments, i.v. drip and more injections. He called in another doctor to consult and they decided I still needed 3 more nebulizer treatments and another i.v. injection. Now, let me tell you during all of the this treatment, they have my blood pressure all over the map, the highest I have ever seen it in my life and I've got the shakes due to the drug induced tachycardia. My pulse rate was over 115. By 4 p.m., the local clinic was getting ready to close for the day, so the attending doctor check my status a determined there was still no improvement so they needed to transport me to the big hospital in Alajuela for treatment and off I go...

John went back to the house to take care of the dogs, pick up some stuff for me that I might need and arrange for someone to guard the house. During the trip to the hospital, I called my dear friend Maritza, an R.N. that recently retired from this same hospital. She wasn't home, so I explained what was going on to her husband, Vinicio. He said he would update her as soon as he could.

We arrived at the hospital emergency room around 5 p.m. and they immediately took me to the head of the line to see the intake nurse and attending physician. The doctor, reviewed all the the previous results, checked me out and decided I needed more nebulizer treatments, blood pressure meds, more blood work and antibiotics.

So, off I go to the "Sala de Asma" for nebulizer treatments, etc. I sent John a text message telling him where he could find me when he arrived at the hospital. As soon as he got to the hospital, they sent him right in to see me.

I met with another doctor in the Sala de Asma and it turns out he lives in my neighborhood of Atenas and knew me as the neighbor that had provided all the electricity and water for a recent fiesta in the plaza across from our house where they held bull racing, horse racing, dances, etc. He was bragging to all the rest of the patients about what a good neighbor I am. Small world.

About this time, Maritza called and said she was coming directly to the hospital. Maritza is one of those "take charge" kind of people, that instills the belief that everything will be fine. She holds several advanced degrees in nursing and retired at the pinnacle of career in health care. She has seen it all. I have known and loved this woman for longer than I have known and loved my children. She was born 3 days before I was and I consider her the twin sister I never had.

In walks Maritza, and of course all the staff members are delighted to see her, hugs and kisses for everyone. She talks to me, takes my blood pressure and then talks with my doctor. Suddenly she turns around to me and says she knows exactly what has caused this pulmonary episode. She said she was sure it was a combination of dust, mold, mildew and bacteria.

Maritza reminded me that we had just started to unpack all of our household goods that have been in storage for a year. In spite of all the care we took with everything, our stuff arrived in a sea container last August, in the middle of the rainy season and immediately went into a garage and attic for long term storage. We had to store everything while the new Casa was under construction. We finally moved in a couple of weeks ago and we have gradually been moving the stored furniture and boxes into the new casa before opening them. Bad move! All we did was release all the mold spores and bacteria into the new house.

Well the doctor pretty much concurred with Maritza's medial assessment and decided the nebulizer treatments weren't going to cure this, but he wanted to see the blood work first to see if the antibiotics where improving anything. The results came back and the white blood cell count was down somewhat. They finally cut me loose from the hospital with more meds and instruction to see my local CAJA doctor in a week, or sooner if I get worse.

Last night, instead of trying to sleep in what is probably a mold infested recliner, I opted for our bed with a large stack of super clean pillows, and I finally got some rest after a sleep deprived week.

So, the bottom line... I think I may be on the road to recovery. As a word of warning... don't ever think you can put all of your belongings in an storage facility where the environment is exposed to the elements of nature. Especially here in Costa Rica's tropical climate. The jungle will always try to take over and claim your stuff as it's own.
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INVASION!

It’s raining hard.  Not “hurricane-hard” but “Uh-oh ... there’s going to be street flooding-hard,” if this were in Houston.  This has been going on, steadily, for at least a half hour.
 
In the sky, there are tens of thousands of flying insects visible from the Rancho.  Their bodies are smaller than black flies but their wing span is greater.  That makes them easily visible to me out at least 20 meters – maybe more.  How are these little things staying in the air?  There can’t be that much space between raindrops.  They should be dropping out of the air like ... uh ... flies.

I’m going to revise the above estimate.  There are hundreds of thousands of them.  Where’d they all come from?
 
Now, in the rain, I see a few opportunist gnat catchers flying madly through The Feast.
 
Boink.  Rain quit.  Insects identified.  Termites!  And, that tells me where they came from.  There’s one big nest, larger than a basketball, affixed to the crotch of a stunted tree at the edge of the sports plaza, maybe 50 m from here.  I’ve found several other huge nests down in the lower tree lines.
 
They didn’t all survive the rain.  Hundreds are stuck to the stucco.  [Hey, is that were the name came from?!?]  Thousands of little bodies are floating in puddles – most of them with their wings knocked off.
 
And now the bug eatin’ birds are swarming!.  The sky is filled with them but alas for their tummies, most of the termites have gone to ground or back to their nests.  You’d think that the energy these birds are expending chasing “flying ants” is way more than they can gain from what they’re able to pluck out of the air.
 
O.K., scholars, here’s today’s challenge.  How many termites (average weight and height) does a gnat catcher have to catch and eat per minute to offset the energy expended by flight, plus having some reserves left over (to make it worth the effort)?  You may assume a relative humidity of 90% on an air temperature of 25C with calm winds, for your flight calculations.  The phone lines are open now for your answers.  The first correct answer wins all the termites off the side of the house and mirador.
 

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Casa Construction Report - Roofs, Floors, Lights, Etc.

Click to enlarge

On March 12th, we celebrated 8 months since we retired and moved to Costa Rica. We have settled into a daily routine and we're really enjoying our laid back lifestyle. Everyday, the construction team shows up about 6:45 AM, so we get up early, fix coffee and breakfast and move to the Rancho to oversee the construction. The Rancho has become our outside dining room, office and sort of an internet cafe. Being outside most of the day, we frequently enjoy visits from the local wild life. Yesterday we had this little visitor land in one of our hanging baskets, about 15 feet from me. She immediately began flirting and shaking her tail feathers at all the males flying nearby. Unfortunately for her, they all ignored her and she flew away without a mate.

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here and the progress on the construction is very evident. Last week we applied to the national water company, the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados for an additional water meter. This way the Casa water supply will be separate from the little Casita. Since AyA is a Government office, we knew we had to provide them with lots of paperwork, but this time I was well prepared with every possible document I thought they might need. The clerk that waited on us pulled out a sheet of paper listing all the requirements and started to go over them with me. It was kinda comical, because as he named a required document, I just pulled it out of my file and handed it to him. He had to accept the fact he was not going to be able to put me off until mañana while I gathered documents, he had to start filling out the paperwork right then and there. In the end he told me he would call the next day with the total amount we had to pay. Well that was on Thursday, March 8th, and you guessed it, he never called. Wednesday we went back to check on things and he told us to come back before 3 PM Thursday, March 15. Being good gringos, we got there early at 1 PM, and no, the paperwork wasn't quite ready. He did finish it up in a few minutes and gave me a bill for about $135 USD. This would cover the cost of ripping up the asphalt street, connecting a new meter, and re-paving the street. Just one problem, like all Government Offices, nobody is allowed to handle money. There are two choices when it comes to paying the bill he had just handed us. Go make a deposit to their account at a national bank, or go online and pay it as an electronic payment from our account to their account. Can you guess which option I chose? Internet banking, of course!

Even though we have water service from AyA, it sucks! The water pressure is so low, that if you wait to take a shower later in the day, you run the risk that the water won't reach the shower head, In addition to this, there are frequent interruptions in service, without any warning. Take for example today, while we were shopping for light fixtures for the casa, AyA came and installed our new meter. Needless to say we were shocked that it only took 24 hours to get a meter after making the payment online. It had to be a shock to our neighbors too, because they had no water service while we were being connected to the water main. So, to resolve the water pressure problem, we contracted last week to have a 2500 liter tank connected to a water pump with a 60 gallon pressurized tank. This will eliminate our water shortage problems for the foreseeable future.

The terraza roof and front and back porch roofs are now in place. We've had to make a slight change to their design so all the clay tiles will not be in place until some time next week.

The past two days the team has worked very hard pouring the concrete floors in all the rooms. It's amazing to watch them lugging these 50 KG (110 lbs.) bags of cement to the small cement mixer, then shovel in the rock and sand, load it into small wheelbarrows and haul it into the house and pour it into each of the rooms. Then the foreman smooths it out and levels the concrete to the preset marks on the floor. Tomorrow they will be here to float the floor with the finishing surface that goes below the ceramic tile. The tile flooring will be installed sometime next week.

We wrapped up the week with a shopping trip to find some of the finishing touches we will need for the casa. We didn't have much success this trip, but we did find this chandelier for the dining room. After we bought it, we noticed that it is from the "Charley Collection" and as many of you know, it is most appropriate.
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142: Dirt and Ditches

The construction crew has been busy all week digging ditches. Each one of the ditches represents the location of one of the walls of the house. We had been a little worried about how they were going to level the lot and had envisioned truckloads of dirt being hauled in to fill the slope at the edge of the property. Obviously, with the amount of dirt you see here, that will not be an issue.

The base for our Pizza/Bread Oven is finished and John started assembling the actual oven yesterday. It's a slow process with lots of components that have to cure properly before he can move on to the next step. He has promised the oven will be finished and ready for baking before Christmas, in fact it should be ready by my birthday.

We found a local cabinet maker and from the photos of some of his work, he might be the solution to all the cabinetry we're going to need in the new casa. We went ahead and contracted with him to make us some cedar cabinets to go under the counters in the rancho. If we like his workmanship, then we can get him to bid on the cabinets for the house.

We've been enjoying our days outside in the rancho. Today we had a rare treat when this White Hawk perched in this tree for awhile hunting prey. Hopefully, he caught that neighborhood rooster that wakes us up crowing every morning around 2:30 AM.

This week we hung bamboo curtains around the perimeter of the rancho to give us some flexibility for sun shade as needed. The weather has been spectacular this week, mid 60's at night and low 80's during the day. I think it's safe to say the rainy season is behind us. We should have dry weather for the next 5 months, or so.

Time for a nap in the swing...

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Retirement - Day 30: Hummers on a feeding frenzy!

The hummingbirds are really enjoying the feeders we put up for them. They have been fighting with each other all morning, establishing the pecking order and who gets to the syrup first.

These little guys are so fast, it is really hard to capture their beauty on camera. They sure are fun to watch!
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Countdown to Moving Day: 19 days and have I 20/20 vision again.

The cataract surgery yesterday was a complete success!  I went for a follow-up with the doctor this morning and I now have 20/20 vision in both eyes.  I will probably just need some reading glasses now.  I have needed glasses to see at a distance since I was 18 yrs old.  It will be so nice to be able to drive with just a pair of non-subscription sun glasses.

As usual, John is  taking excellent care of me.  He cooked dinner last night and then packed more boxes.  Today he spent  the day boxing up more stuff while I kept track of the inventory.  I swear stuff must be multiplying in the closets and cabinets when we're not looking.  I not supposed to lift anything more than 30 lbs for another week, so all the heavy lifting has been left up to John.  Maybe I'll get lucky and he will have everything packed before I go back for the final check-up with the eye doc.

Yesterday, we went ahead and booked our airline tickets on Continental for July 12th.  Tomorrow we are off to the vet to get the APHIS7001 health certificate for Randy, our dog.  The document has to state he is healthy and he has had all the required vaccinations.  Once the vet signs the document, we have to send it to Austin to have the certificate authenticated by the State.

Friends are planning a farewell party for us on July 9th and then we are off the Costa Rica 3 days later.
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Countdown to Retirement: 6 Days to go and I just found out I'm NOT going blind!

Back in December, 2007, I had cataract surgery in my right eye and the difference was amazing. I actually had 20/25 vision and required no correction in the right eye. Three years have flown by and in the past 6 months I've starting to think I was going to be legally blind before too much longer. The vision in my right eye has become very blurry and my left eye sees double images. It has gotten so bad I won't drive at night, nor will I drive in an unfamiliar area regardless of the time of day.

Now for the good news. It took 6 week for me to get an appointment to see my ophthalmologist. I finally got to see him yesterday. They ran a battery of test and discovered I'm one of the 30-40% of post cataract surgery patients that develope a cloudy posterior capsule and it makes it look like I'm trying to see through a piece of wax paper. As far as the left eye is concerned, the doctor wanted to know if I'd been using Miracle Grow since I now have a fully developed cataract in that eye.

Tomorrow, I'm going in for a capsulotomy procedure to restore the vision in the right eye. It's about a 10 minute office procedure and the results are immediate. Then, in two week, he'll remove the cataract in the left eye. It sure would be wonderful to have my vision restored to that of a teenager without glasses. Glad we can get this fixed, just in time for our move to Costa Rica.
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It's a jungle out there!

This past February I spent 6 weeks in Atenas getting work done around our casita. We built a perimeter concrete wall with chain link fencing, put in a sprinkler system, poured a driveway and added an electric gate. Then I came back with John in May, at the start of the rainy season, to plant the grass, trees and shrubs. We were really hoping to plant some sort of fast growing, climbing vine on the side of the house that bakes in the sun all day. We decided to plant Jalapa.


What a great choice! This is a photo in June, just after John planted the Jalapa. He built a framework of nylon string for the vines to attach themselves and start the climb to the top of the fence.

Here you can see how well it had grown by the end of August. Notice, you can still see through the fence.

And this is the amazing growth as of yesterday. Yea, we have shade and privacy, what more could we ask for in just 5 months.




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Random musings late on a Saturday night

I bit the bullet and finally committed to daily exercise of some type at least 3 days a week. In the past 2 weeks I've averaged 5-6 mile bike rides. I rode 4 days last week and 5 days this week. I even talked John into riding with me today.

Last weekend we did a little Geocaching on our way home from grandson's birthday party. Found 2 out of the 4 we went after. Today we went back to one of the caches we found on our first Geocaching adventure to replace a foreign coin we lost by accident (a coin fell out of the cache when we opened the container and disappeared in a pile of rocks.) Rule number one about Geocaching: Take what you want, but replace it with something of equal or greater value.

I must say, I'm becoming a pretty creative cook throughout this process. Last night we had chicken and veggies with a marinara sauce over penne pasta and a salad on the side. Tonight it was grilled pork brisket and grilled zucchini with herb roasted onion and potato wedges.... Total calories: 393, including the cup of 1% milk. Tomorrow night... Scallops in a white wine sauce over whole wheat linguini. If I had the money, I'd open a restaurant for folks wanting to eat really great food and still stay on a healthy nutrition plan.

We are planning our next trip to Costa Rica the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we'll be returning on December 6th. We can't wait for our Tico family to see how much weight we've lost since our April trip.
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Our Unique Wedding Anniversary Gift

We decided to give ourselves a unique wedding anniversary gift this year and take up geocaching as a way to get out and get more exercise. So, yesterday we bought a GPSr and we went out on our hunt this afternoon.

We found 3 out of the 4 caches we went after. Not too bad for a couple of newbies. There are only 886,668 more for us to find.

You can get info about geocaching at this link Geocaching

We still plan to go out and share a romantic meal at our favorite French Bistro later this week and then we can go geocaching next weekend to work off the extra calories.

This is going to a great way to burn calories and stay fit. We can do this biking, hiking and walking together anywhere in the world.
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I hate to exercise....

I have always hated to exercise, but there is no denying it does burn calories. John has started to wear a pedometer and according the steps taken, he is walking more than a mile a day at work.

I've started walking about 1.5 miles, or more, 3 or 4 mornings a week. It is so hot here in Houston, I have to walk before 9 AM or the heat will do me in before I can circle the block

I also managed to drag my bike out of the garage and talked a girlfriend into riding with me. I rode about 6 miles yesterday, but my riding buddy called early this morning to say she was too sore to ride today. She will try to ride with me tomorrow. I really don't want to ride by myself. Let's face it, I'm not a kid anymore and accidents happen. I'd rather be with someone, just in case.

Even though I hate exercise, I've come to terms with it and I'm committed to keep it up. Hopefully, my efforts will start to show up on the scale soon. It sure will be nice when summer is over and we get some nice cool weather for a change. It will make the walking and the biking a lot more enjoyable.

We took our measurements last week. John has lost a total of 22 inches overall and I've lost a total of 24 inches!!

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In my last post I mentioned John and I have lost 85 pounds between us. We have changed our eating habits and discovered we can eat just about everything if we limit the quantity and adjust some of the preparation methods. It's not rocket science, but in the past, neither one of us paid much attention to what we put in our mouths. We really enjoy eating, so it became paramount that we find a way to lose weight while satisfying our hunger with tasty foods.

Now that we have been committed to this since February, it has truly become a way of life and I don't think we could ever go back to our bad eating habits again. The price is just too high!

We have adjusted our calorie intake to an average between 1200 and 1500 calories per day. We eat 6 times a day, so we are never hungry. Since this calorie intake is so much less than what a normal body requires, we can't help but drop the pounds. I did a little research to back this up and here are the calorie requirements recommended by the "experts" at our goal weight:

Daily Calorie Requirement for MEN
Height: 5' 10"
Lifestyle: Lightly Actively
Desired Weight: 160
Calorie Requirement: 2000

Daily Calorie Requirement for WOMEN
Height: 5' 3"
Lifestyle: Lightly Actively
Desired Weight: 135
Calorie Requirement: 1600

I am now preparing meals that average 300-350 calories each. We supplement the meals with 3 snacks a day that average 100 calories each. The snacks are eaten mid-morning, mid-afternoon and evening.

We started this journey by joining the Jenny Craig Weight Loss program. In the beginning, we got all our meals and snacks from them and then gradually I started adding in meals I had prepared. Now, I prepare all of the meals and most of the snacks. We still go to our local Jenny Craig center every Saturday to weigh in and keep ourselves on track.

There is a link to our family cookbook at the top of this page. I am going to start sharing all of my low calorie recipes with anyone looking for a healthy, well balanced meal. I will add the letters "*WP*" to the title of each low-cal recipe. I also plan to go back and edit each of recipes I have already posted to add in the nutritional information.

Below the blog postings you will find a ticker tracking tool we are using to mark our progress toward reaching our weight loss goal. At the rate we are going, we expect to be showing off a new wardrobe next year.

Next, I will tell you about all the new recipes I have come up with that make it easy to stick to this lifestyle....
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Early 7/14/08: Yeeeow!

Whilst using the microwave to boil water for coffee, in the casita of Atenas, I decided to test the structural integrity of a certain polymer-to-glass joint which was keeping the coffee pot handle attached to the coffee pot. Several things were learned during this investigation.

Lessons:

• Coffee carafes that are filled to the brim with water are heavy.
• Coffee carafes that are filled with boiling water are hot.
• Heat softens polymers and the glues that bind them to glass – especially low-bidder polymers & glues, made in China.
• Softened polymer and glue joints will not sustain the load imposed on them by coffee carafes filled to the brim with boiling water.
• When held at an elevation of 16-inches above a stone countertop, glass coffee carafes are not strong enough to withstand a drop to said countertop when, due to heat-weakened polymer and glue, the handle departs from the Made-In-China carafe’s side.
• Boiling water refuses to hold the shape of a coffee carafe when the carafe is suddenly, explosively, removed from around the water upon striking a stone countertop.
• Even a possibly former CIA agent with the reflexes of a pissed off Jedi cobra cannot remove his 300lbs of lard from the suddenly expanding frontal area of boiling water, once said water is free to assume whatever shape and form gravity deems fit to impose upon it.
• Two quarts of boiling water, engaged in near-supersonic flight through the air, are able to saturate the front of “Outer Limits” jammie pants at an alarmingly rapid rate.
• Even former possibly world-famous CIA assassins don’t still have the strength to rip open BOTH jammie legs at once – only one; therefore, leaving one saturated jammie leg still attached around the world-famous possible killer’s left leg.
• Even former possibly international men of mystery and superheros cannot do the hippity hop dance into the shower fast enough to turn on the cold water quickly enough to chill-flood the affected left leg and avoid all injury.
• That much boiling water is able to convey a great deal of thermal energy into the leg of even the most possibly formerly hardened, evil, black hearted pirate, thus doing serious localized damage.
• Pat, with her fluency in español and her calm demeanor, is a great one to have around in an emergency to help you navigate the system at the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social and obtain excellent emergency medical care.

All in all, the second degree burns only covered the top of the left quad area about the size of my hand with spread fingers, plus a dinky area about the size of a credit card, below the knee. Uhhhhhglee! The right leg only had a big ol’ sunburn (1st degree) of about the same size.

I tell you what. This here burn stuff … it’s really fun. You get all kinds of cool goop to smear all over everywhere, and shots, and pills, and really really good drugs, man. Doesn’t hurt a bit when the drugs are good enough!

Maybe from now on, I’ll be avoiding the ol’ Hecho en China label whenever possible. Ya think?

Followup: Due to the excellent care of the CAJA clinic in Atenas and intense followup with creams, etc., by the end of July, the burns are down to looking like sunburn with no sign of scarring or stiffness. Oddly, the 1st degree burn area peeled and looked horrid, compared to the 2nd degree area, which doesn't look like it will ever go through a peeling stage. Maybe this is because all the surface skin that could have peeled away was burned away the first day? (The blisters washed away in the shower from about day 3 to day 6.)
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We've got wheels!

We received an email from Maritza yesterday morning with great news telling us Vinicio located a vehicle for us. He found a recently imported 1997 Jeep Cherokee in the Aduana (Customs) in Puerto Limon. The owner that brought it to Costa Rica couldn't afford the import taxes so he needed to sell it. If he had done a little investigating beforehand, he would have known the taxes can run anywhere from 40% to 70% of the value of the vehicle. This value is set and published by the Costa Rican Ministerio de Hacienda.

Vinicio had a mechanic check it out from top to bottom and they determined it's in very good condition. We gave him the "go ahead" to buy it for us this week and get it registered in the name of our S.A. (corporation).

So, the second item on the agenda, after we get their in July, will be to get car insurance. Of course the first item is to get insurance on the house. (It's covered under the builder's insurance policy until we take possession.)

It will be so nice to have our own transportation when we are in CR from now on. Rental cars were costing us anywhere from $450 to $700 per trip.

We don't have to have our Costa Rican residency to get a driver's license. If you already have a valid U.S. driver's license from any State, you don't even have to take a test. You just need a cursory medical exam for $20 USD, pay the license fees, get your picture taken and they issue the license on the spot. I hear it takes about 2 hours, start to finish, if you speak the language and can work your way through the paperwork.

That's all for now...

¡Pura Vida!
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Seeing is Believing

Having an eye go bad is pretty scary business. It's even worse when you get a cataract in one eye and it progresses very quickly.

Pat had known that she had a minor cataract problem. Then in early '07 we both noticed that her vision was getting really bad. Our regular optometrist told her that the slight catarct had rapidly clouded to a major cataract in less than a year (uncommon.) Together, we went to an appointment with an eye specialist and were dismayed to be shown that her vision had degenerated to 20:60, in her right eye, WITH glasses. Without glasses, she couldn't see anything, functionally.

The suggestion was to replace the cataract-damaged eye lens with a man-made plastic lens. They now do this with orthoscopic micro-surgery and it sounded like a simple procedure.

As of today, there are several different classes of lenses available for implantation and we had a difficult decision to make. The old-time type of lenses are fairly rigid, fixed focus critters. That means that you get one range of vision in focus: usually long distance is in focus; medium distance is a little fuzzy; and, close up (reading) is just a mess. The up-side is that there have been thousands and thousands of them implanted with a very low problem rate.

An alternate is a newer design that is soft/flexible so that the eye muscles can warp the lens and give the patient acceptable distance, mid-range and close-up vision. Even though they don't always give the patient perfect vision at any of the distance ranges, many people throw away their glasses completely if both eyes receive the soft implants.

Since Pat only needed a single lens replaced, that meant that she would positively still have to wear glasses (for the untreated eye).

So: more proven design; single eye repair only; probability that the old design will be around for years and years (in case a repair/replacement is required in the distant future) -- we selected the older design.

I was expecting quite a big deal for the ultrasonic disintigration of the old lens, removal of the many pieces, insertion of the new lens, positioning, and repair of the incision. They told us that the entire procedure would take 3 hours, including recovery.

So, I'm thinking, "This will take less than an hour in the operating room."

Wrong.

While Pat was being prepared for the operation, the nurse said, "Yes, the Doctor will take about 10 minutes to complete the procedure."

Ten minutes!?! Incredible.

And that's how it went. From when they rolled her toward the operating room until the doctor came out to tell me the procedure went perfectly, only about 20 minutes ticked away. (There was some time eaten up for the anesthetic to kick in.)

There was a bit of angst for both of us as we worried what the results would be. Pat had 3 kinds of eye drops to endure, every 4 hours and she said that it felt like there was a foreign object caught under her eyelid.

The next day, we were at the doctor's office for a post-operative check up. The nurse flashed an eye chart up on the wall and asked Pat to read the smallest line possible. She hesitated a second and then ripped through the little bitty letters at the bottom of the page. 20:20 vision!

Three hours out of our lives and Pat goes from barely being able to see with glasses to perfect vision without glasses. Wow.

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Balderdash!

The other day, I saw some Tiger Repellant Spray on sale at the hardware store. I bought it and brought it home. Later, I sprayed it all over my back yard. Ever since then, there have been zero tigers in my Houston, TX., back yard. This proves that the Tiger Spray is an effective repellant of tigers.

An Old Story

Last week, there was an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show dealing with autism. Oprah's guest brought up the topic of infants and the Measles, Mumps & Rubella (MMR) vaccine. The drift of the show was that there are sufficient grounds for worry about the MMR vaccine causing autism that parents should not allow their children to receive this vaccine.

Looking into the available, professional, published literature, from a large number of trustworthy and peer-reviewed sources, this fear appears to be scientifically groundless.

There are many amateurs and lawyers out in the world that are doggedly pursuing this issue but none that I can find have any proper science on their side.

Measles, mumps and rubella are all serious childhood illnesses. Fear of MMR, creating a wave of parents refusing the inoculation, caused an outbreak of rubella in the U.K. this summer that had multiple fatalities. It doesn’t seem like the risk of getting these diseases is outweighed by any evidence of MMR dangers – in fact, there is “no contest.”

HOWEVER …

I do take issue with the preservative still used in a few vaccines that might be injected into your children (and you.) The chemical in question is usually called thimerosal which is (unbelievably) the scientific name for Merthiolate – the antiseptic banned from over-the-counter uses in 1990. Thimerosal was formerly used in the MMR vaccine and there was some inconclusive investigation that it was thimerosal, and not the MMR vaccine, that was causing autism. After looking into this angle, I’m going to say, “Probably not,” but I sure don’t like thimerosal for other reasons.

As you can see from the following link, the U.S. government has pretty much decided that thimerosal is safe and not that bad; but, then they’ve simultaneously pushed to have it removed from most children’s vaccines. Huh?

http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

I’m going with my own interpretation. Thimerosal is a super-poisonous mercury salt. Mercury is bad in your system. Nobody REALLY knows what mercury might trigger nor do they know what human conditions or weaknesses might be particularly susceptible to mercury’s actions. So, a). bad shit; b). unknown dangers; c). give it to infants?

Nah.

Bottom line -- I’m not concerned about the MMR vaccine, as long as it is a modern batch that does not contain thimerosal.

And, I’m going to ask any doctor about to inject flu vaccine or hepatitis vaccines to certify that they do not contain thimerosal (many of those still do.)

Isn’t it amazing how little we know about things, even in 2007?

Have a pleasant day.

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