Greta's Leg Amputation - 2 days after surgery

We picked Greta up from the hospital yesterday afternoon and it has been rough on all of us. She hasn't stopped whimpering. I cuddled her most of the night, and it seemed to have helped some. The vet put her on the fentanyl patch that comes off in a few days. She is also taking an anti-inflammatory pill once a day. I'm concerned that she refuses to eat anything. She is drinking water and she has actually gotten up and walked on her own a few time. I wonder if the whimpering is a side effect of the drugs, or is she really in a great deal of pain. I have confined our other 2 dogs to the kitchen and I'm keeping Greta with me in my office until she gets to feeling better.
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Greta's Leg Amputation

Back in early June we noticed our 11 year old Boston Terrier, Greta had a growth about the size of a nickle near the elbow on her right front leg. We took her to the vet about a week later when it became the size of a quarter. He suggested we watch it for a few days. We went back when it didn't go away and the vet referred us to a soft tissue specialist for animals. Now, 4 weeks later, it is the size of a golf ball and as hard as a rock.

It turns out she has hermangiopericytoma. It is a form of cancer, but treatable. The treatment options are surgical removal with radiation, or leg amputation. John and I have struggled with this decision for a week now and we've had several discussions with the veterinary specialist. Since this tumor is located on her elbow, it may be very difficult to remove it all during surgery. This is the reason radiation would be recommended with any surgical procedure. Recovery could be very lengthy due to the extended muscle damage and radiation to the joint. Radiation would be 3 times a week for 6 weeks and there is no promise they can get it all. Greta would have to be under anesthesia for each treatment. The only sure way to know the cancer is totally gone is to amputate her leg. We talked it over at length, weighed all our options and I've cried a lot. We think her best chance at a happy pain free life is to amputate her leg. The surgery is scheduled tomorrow morning and if there are no complication, she'll be able to come home on Tuesday. This has been such a difficult decision since she isn't in any pain with this tumor. I just can't imagine what will go through her head tomorrow when she wakes up from surgery and finds a leg missing. Sort of "what did I do wrong that made them cut off my leg" or "why did my mom let them do this to me." Who knows what they think.
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Open for Business

Our son and daughter-in-law, Dennis and Lara just opened the doors to their new BatteriesPlus store.

We know how much went into making this dream a reality and we want you to know the rest of the family is behind you 100%. We are so proud of you both.

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Jenny, our Honor Grad!

On June 16th, Jenny, our youngest, graduated with Honors from UCSC. She now holds a degree in English Literature and is about to start her working career with a charitable organization.









Congratulations Jenny, we are so proud of you!
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So much for starry nights...

The Texas Star Party (TSP) was a great idea, but Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate. We had some great skies the night we arrived, but the clouds and rain moved in on Monday. Wednesday found us still dry inside our tent, but the grounds were getting pretty muddy. The weather prediction showed no relief in sight for a week so we took advantage of a brief break in the rain to pack up our gear and hit the road. We left the TSP looking for drier climes and settled on a cave. Actually, we drove to New Mexico Wednesday afternoon and went to see Carlsbad Caverns on Thursday morning. Carlsbad claims they have 350 days of sunshine a year, we just happened to get there on one of the other 15 days. Lucky us, but we didn't see a drop of rain in the caverns.

Here are a couple of the photos John took inside the cavern.

We took a leisurely pace on our way back home, stopping in Fredericksburg and San Antonio for some good food and a little shopping. Needless to say, the dogs were sure happy to see us pull in the driveway Saturday afternoon.

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The stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas

Star Gazing in West Texas...

We are on vacation, headed to the Davis Mountains and the darkest skies in North America. We will be joining hundreds of other star gazers at the annual Texas Star Party where amature astronomers gather to spend the nights looking at celestial objects in the night sky.

We'll be pitching our tent and camping for the week. These photos are from last year but we'll post more when we get back.

Now, all together, sing....

The stars at night, are big and bright,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The prairie sky is wide and high,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom is like perfume,
deep in the heart of Texas,
Reminds me of, the one I love,
deep in the heart of Texas.

The coyotes wail, along the trail,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The rabbits rush, around the brush,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The cowboys cry, "Ki-yip-pee-yi,"
deep in the heart of Texas,
The dogies bawl, and bawl and bawl,
deep in the heart of Texas.

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A Change in Lifestyle...

We've decided we need to get in better shape. We plan to have an active lifestyle once we make the move to Costa Rica and we want to be fit. This means we intend to eat healthier. In January we changed our diet and started cutting out a few of our favorite things: sugar, white flour, potatoes, pineapple, bananas, tortilla chips and junk food in general. We've both lost 15+ lbs, but its slow going. They say slow is better. It will take us more than a year to get to where we want to be weight wise.

The second part of the plan is to get more exercise. We started out by walking the trails along Buffalo Bayou. This is a series of both paved and dirt trails stretching across 15 miles here in West Houston. There is an entrance to the trails about a ½ mile from the house. This is a favorite haunt for walkers and bikers. Since John's favorite form of exercise is cycling, we decided to buy me a bike so we could both ride.

Four days after we bought my bike, John tripped! He didn't trip exercising, he tripped over the handicapped curb at lunch one day. The x-rays showed a hair line fracture at the tip of the leg bone, where it joins the ankle. I suspect he also cracked the orbital socket bone of his right eye too. But my "tough guy" John, passed on getting medical attention for it. (See John's eye in photo with granddaughter Cali)

Needless to say, this put a crimp in the exercise plan for a short time. After 3 weeks of rest and being chauffeured to and from work, the doctor gave him the go ahead to get rid of the Velcro leg brace. The plan is to get back on the bike and ride with me this week.
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The end of another wonderful trip draws to a close

The time has just flown by again. I can't believe its time to pack up and return to the States tomorrow!

Monday we made the trek back to San Jose to see the Audiologist and picked up John's hearing aid. He now hears so clearly that we plan on getting another hearing aid for the left ear on our next trip.

After the doctor visit we checked out new SUV prices with a couple of local dealers to get an idea of what to expect when we move. The taxes run about 40%, so a small KIA or Nissan is going to run over $32,000. We've done a little research and, unless the import tax laws change, it will make more more sense to buy in Costa Rica rather than import a vehicle from the States.

Once again Maritza & Vinicio opened up their home to us for the past week so we decided to give them a gift. We purchased a wireless router so Maritza could use her laptop anywhere in the house and not just in Vinicio's office. Little did we know how difficult it would be to install! We finally broke down on Tuesday and got a local tech to come over to the house and configure it for us. Turns out ICE (the national Costa Rican Telephone & Power company) has a different way of providing DSL service than the States. This information will come in handy when we have to configure one for ourselves when we make the move. Would you believe the tech only charged us $12USD for a house call?

We spent our last day in our future hometown, Atenas, getting to know the area a little better. We had lunch in the little open-air restaurant, Tipico Camario, located across from the park. You can just barely see the steps to the restaurant behind the blue car in this photo.

After lunch we did some people watching and took a few more pictures. Take a look at this beautiful blue sky that is so typical of a summer day. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Atenas and taking every hi-way and bi-way we could find. We found some interesting sights, but many roads were just gravel roads to nowhere. We are headed back to Texas tomorrow to get back into the daily grind.
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