Earlier I posted on “Construction Begins on New Park” with photos of the construction screening and architect’s drawings – now it seems that they are going very slowly (Pura Vida!), but there is progress! In this photo they have cleared the central circle of the park of everything (trees, shrubs, benches, sidewalks) for construction of the Kiosk, Band Shelter or Gazebo which locals are calling “quiosco” o “kiosco.” It is the biggest item, so hopefully remodeling will go faster after that is completed but most expect it to be way into next year before finished. Everything is slow here.
You have to click the image at least 2 times to get an enlargement.
Yesterday afternoon I saw my Dermatologist who presented me the lab’s very detailed report with color microscope photos and the diagnosis en español:
“Carcinoma epidermoide bien diferenciado, invasor, de al menos 4 milímetros de diámetro mayor, que alcanza los márgenes de resección.” Or in English according to SpanishDict.com translation:
“A well-differentiated, invasive epidermoid Carcinoma of at least 4 mm greater diameter, reaching the margins of resection.”
The Doc assures me he can cut it all out by going a prescribed mm distance all the way around it (a big chunk of flesh!) and with several stitches will heal that part of my right forearm back to normal. That’s a $600 surgery or for $4,000 he can do a much tinier section removed while a separate pathologist is testing (continuous biopsy) every little bit of skin to make sure they get all the cancer without taking as much of a chunk! He recommends this for a growth on the nose, etc. where removing more is more obvious. Of course I’m doing the cheaper one which he assures me has always been successful for him and what he recommends. Just a little scar on my right forearm. It is scheduled for 19 November after my next trip which is to Palo Verde National Park 10-15 November. My doctors work around my trips and not vice-a-versa. 🙂
It is interesting that Dermatologists here say the same thing they told me in the states, that these growths that keep popping on my body in old age are caused by getting too much sunshine when I was a little boy. No one told us that back then! Or maybe I was not paying attention when Mom wanted me to use sunscreen? 🙂 The young are invincible and us old ones just smile at our little problems. 🙂
Since this is a retirement blog, I guess this kind of gory medical report is appropriate. Anywhere you live in retirement you must deal with these things and the medical services in Costa Rica are simply great and so much more affordable that I’m just using a private doctor again instead of the free public ones, which are slower but just as good and free! 🙂 I still use a public doctor to monitor my heart arrhythmia, but other things I’ve been happy with the quick responses of private doctors, like this Dermatologist, Dr. Gamboa.
And more specifically I pray that a huge majority of you will vote in opposition to the lying, hateful, racism that is destroying what used to be a great country. Your future as a country and your place in the world is at stake tomorrow.
When you lie down among the sheepfolds, You are like the wings of a dove covered with silver, And its pinions with glistening gold. ~Psalm 68:13
WWJD
Photo is of a Homing Pigeon in Alajuela this week. Beautiful and with a better map memory than humans. It’s the closest bird photo I have to a dove with glistening silver and gold! 🙂
POST SCRIPT: Based on the response to this post by my friend Leo (below) I am going to try to leave politics out of this blog in the future and just talk about my retirement in Costa Rica, the purpose of the blog. I apologize to anyone I offended and will try to keep this blog about my retirement here in Costa Rica. I’ll save politics for Facebook, though I don’t use it as much now.
Some youth in the city of Alajuela left a sidewalk chalk message for pedestrians the other day: something like “Be aware of the city and REDUCE pollution!”
That’s my new Kindle Fire HD 8 above beside a real book I’m also reading. It is my second Kindle ever and 1 inch taller which does make the print a little larger and easier to read, but there are some things I don’t like as well as on my old 5-year-old Kindle. First, the cover is simply not as good and does not stand up on my dining table as well as the old one. Inside it is more complicated and confusing to use electronically for this old man – beginning to show my age? But I will get used to it and love it eventually. 🙂
The Strange Juxtaposition of Two Books I’m Reading
Written in 1948, this is the autobiography of a spiritual mentor whose writings I like and who is of the same generation of my parents, Thomas Merton. He describes his “coming of age” as an adult and discovering who he really is from first the adventures of life and then the spiritual dimension of life and at 68% through the book (Kindle tells you that) he is still struggling with what his vocation will be but even more so with his relationship with God. Been there, done that! 🙂
REAL PAPER BOOK FROM FRIEND:The Gringos Hawk(not available digitally)
I’m only about a fourth of the way through this hardback book which is also an adult coming of age autobiography of a young man of my generation this time, published in 2001. Not as spiritual as Merton’s, yet more adventurous as American Jon Marañon ends up in southern Costa Rica on the Pacific Coast (where I love traveling) and as a 23 year old buys a tract of land on the coast at a bargain price. Then the problems and adventures begin dealing with government regulations, local farmers, and even a “witch” along with illnesses, injuries, etc. And that is as far as I am in the story now. But it is the kind of thing I too might have done in the 1960’s if I had not been, like Thomas Merton, highly motivated by what I considered a “calling” from God. Young men struggling with who they are!
I will report back when I have finished both bios and how I am relating to them then. It is funny how I identify with both guys of two different generations and two different worlds and somehow ended up reading both stories at the same time. 🙂
I took my camera out for a later breakfast today and though earlier is better, I did get shots of these three familiar friends. I include two of the dove because front view and back view is always different! Click image to see larger.
Tres amigos
Gray-capped Flycatcher
White-winged Dove
Melodious Blackbird
White-winged Dove
Hope is the thing with feathers
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard – And sore must be the storm – That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land – And on the strangest Sea – Yet – never – in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of me.
And as I very slowly move smaller and older photos from my old PBase galleries I am currently working on all of my Africa travel photos in a different location (Pre-Costa Rica TRAVELS) within my big SmugMug Gallery and today I’m working on my Gambia Birds Sub Gallery, which is interesting for the large variety of birds found there, though most of the photos are of poor quality. I Photographed then on a cheap old film camera without a long lense and later scanned 4×6 prints at too low a resolution affecting the quality more. Though I got half a dozen good bird shots on the 2009 revisit of The Gambia with my better digital camera. Just another part of my Birds Collection from the past. Later I will try to add what few birds I photographed in the states.
Also with the Africa Travel galleries are these with East African birds:
The other day I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl on my counter to cut up on a morning bowl of cereal and there was a chunk missing. I did not think Geckos ate fruit nor any insect was big enough to do that – so it is still a mystery or I was wrong about Geckos! For now my bananas are in the frig! 🙂
