What have we become?

So you might be wondering why we have hooked up an air conditioner. I know we both are, but the reality of being stuck in the hot marina, with little wind and lots of humidity has driven us to it. Ok that, and someone loaned us one for the summer.

We justify it by saying Sherrell really needs the dry air to heal. And it has made a tremendous difference in how fast her skin is closing up. One day of AC has done more for her than a week of just resting in the humidity. She's almost closed back up.

In a weird sort of way, we prided ourselves as being the only ones without AC, but now we're looking at how to insulate around it with some foam we found. What a switch. Anyway, just to record this strange turning point in our lives in hopes that we haven't turned soft. I took a picture of it in the companion way when I first pluged it in and packed some towels and stuff around it to test it.

Email from the boat

If you're reading this we can now post our slog updates directly from the boat. How cool is that?

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4th surgery done

Hopefully this is the last.  We went to Guadalajara thinking they would just say, “Si,  Eso es una hematoma.  Que lastima.”  But no.  The surgeon didn’t like the looks of things one bit.  So we scheduled surgery for 2 hours later.  They removed the hard “mass” which the doctor described as a cocoon encapsulating blood and fluid.  He was eager to show it to me, but I passed to avoid passing out.

 

Only 2 days after removing the mass Sherrell felt better than before the surgery.  She didn’t realize how badly it had been bothering her.  The tests came back negative for bacteria and cancer and the doctors best guess is it could be related to a side-effect of radiation (and an old MCTD problem in remission) or the hematoma.  Anyway Sherrell’s doing a lot better and we’ll get our lives back yet.  She’ll have all summer to heal now!

Going to Guadalajara

We had a great time surfing with our friends at a beach about 76km north of Mazatlan.  But now we have to go back for some more doctoring.  The hematoma is still bad and the ultrasound showed it was pretty large.  So more fun for Sherrell.

 

In the meantime, we took a homeless cat (they keep getting dumped at the marina) to the shelter to get fixed.  We have to pick her back up today, but we think we’ve found someone to adopt her.  Now we just need to figure out what to do with the 6 kittens, and 2 other adult cats before they multiply.

 

Hopefully, things will go well and we’ll be back quickly!

Damn Doctors

We can’t seem to shake them. Sherrell returned from Guadalajara after a good scare. The doctor thought her soreness and swelling was a really bad sign, so they did some samples and found no cancer. Then before they cut her open for more tissue, she remembered falling very hard about 2 months ago. They took a closer look and thought maybe the problem was a hematoma. So they numbed her and took about 100cc’s of trapped blood, to everyone’s relief it was just a hematoma. But now she’s sore and we have to go back again in 10 days for another exam.

Also they took another look at Sherrell’s gall stone which shows up in the liver ultrasound and recommended getting it treated before it gets inflamed. So, it’s hard to tell what might go down in the next few weeks ahead. Hopefully we’ll get it all straightened out and Sherrell can stop seeing these characters.

We did get some work down on the boat. I scrubbed out our fuel tank and the bilge. Installed a new fuel hose. Cleaned the boat, again and again. It’s getting hotter and more humid.

Mexico’s already had the first stupid storm of the hurricane season but that’s yet another set of problems I don’t want to think about.

So we are going to try some surfing in a new spot with our friends before they head back to the US for a few weeks. There’s supposed to be a really nice summer wave at this place, Selistinos. We’re going to have a good time there!