Category: Charlie Doggett

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Living Alone but Never Alone

I have been receiving support from so many people around the world that yesterday’s article in Washington Post motivated me to say something here about it. The article is titled I had ovarian cancer, was single and living by myself. But going through treatment, I was never alone. – dated 23 May 2021.

Though everything about us is different (age, sex, location, cancer type, treatment, etc.) – we both experienced the marvelous good nature of most people and both of us enjoy living alone though appreciating the help and concerns of other people. 🙂

Some ladies of Roca Verde are still bringing me meals even though I told them it is no longer necessary. Several have shared their experiences with cancer, and sometimes it feels like everyone in this little farm town of Atenas knows I have cancer and lovingly ask me how I’m doing and offer to help. I know most of the taxistas here and they are all so caring and helpful. The wonderful, loving people of Costa Rica are a big part of the “Pura vida!” I’m so fortunate to live here.

Likewise through the internet, my blog and its links to Facebook plus emails I feel like there are literally thousands praying for me around the world and staying in touch, from old friends to never-met new ones, as is possible on the internet.

I am at peace and believe the Lord is watching over me just like all these friends and neighbors or is it God working through them? I believe so and I’m optimistic about the future with many more nature trips around Costa Rica with my camera that I can still use, even with one eye, and the trip I have scheduled 5.5 weeks after radiation concludes will have given me time to recover some from most side-effects and now gives me something to look forward to. . .

. . . I will be flying to the southern tip of the Osa Peninsula, near Panama border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the mouth of Golfo Dulce where you sometimes see whales, while also hiking around the southern end of the largest protected rainforest in Central America. What could be better than that? And I’m still alive to enjoy it! 🙂 Bosque del Cabo Rainforest Lodge is west of Puerto Jimenez at the village of Cabo Matapalo, south of Corcovado National Park. Places like this are the reason I moved my retirement to Costa Rica! 🙂 For photos of other places I’ve already visited here see: My Costa Rica Trips Gallery. And you’ll know why I’m “Retired in Costa Rica,” the name of my blog and website.

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. 

Proverbs 16:9

¡Pura Vida!

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Age 107 and “My Abandonment” – Related?

This and Feature Photo at Top are Sunrise from Hotel Banana Azul, Caribe, Costa Rica

Many days an older women in a wheel chair is treated at Radioterapia just before me. The other day I asked the therapists how old she was and in unison they said, “107.” She’s obviously a fighter, still battling cancer at this age! And always smiles when I speak to her, though I don’t have her name or photo yet, I hope to one day.

In Costa Rica many people live to be over 100 years of age. Five areas of the world with a high concentration of people living past 100 are called “Blue Zones” (Wikipedia link), including one in the Nicoya rural area of Costa Rica.

The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.

~Philip Sidney

This 107 year old woman reminded me of the many motivations that led to my radical decision to move to Costa Rica in 2014 – including health and old age – while many Americans were questioning me “abandoning” the security, safety, and richness of the U.S. (though I had trouble “making ends meet” living there). 🙂

I spoke to this in my December 21, 2014 blog post (just 3 days before arriving in Costa Rica) sharing one of my favorite Thomas Merton poem-prayers which I repeat here as one example of my Costa Rica Adventure being as much about faith as it is retirement in nature:

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Halfway!

Yep! Today, Wednesday, 19th of May 2021, I am halfway through my cancer radiation therapy and already on the downhill side of the mountain! 🙂 I will get 33 treatments and today was #17, a half treatment over the hill! 🙂

The photo is of the computer screen where I check in each day with my patient electronic card that I swipe over that little black box’s red screen that pulls up my name and appointment time, etc. This info also goes back into the treatment room where the therapists are thus notified that I’m entering the second waiting room for patients only.

Patient check-in station, Twenty-first Century Radiotherapy, San Jose, Costa Rica

For those not knowing Spanish, “Por favor, aguarde a ser llamado. Muchas gracias.” means “Please wait to be called. Much thanks.” They call me in over a PA system when ready. Depending on who calls, they call for “Mister Charles.” or “Señor Charles” or “Don Charles.” These young therapists are very professional, kind, friendly and helpful in every way, making it a much more pleasant experience.

Now before any of that, I walk up to the outside door and wash my hands at an outside sink with a hand soap dispenser. Then I am allowed in where my temperature is taken and of course I am wearing a mask – all part of the national Covid protocols. I will be doing the above electronic check-in just 16 more times now! 🙂

On the walk back to hotel today, two parakeets squawked congratulations to me from a telephone line! 🙂 Too high for good cellphone photos, but here’s a try:

Continue reading “Halfway!”
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Skilled Technicians

And I almost added “young” to the headline, but then everyone seems young to me now! 🙂

Every day they help me get on that table and screw this mask over my face to the table. Then they carefully position my body in perfect alignment with the machine’s image of my head, then the computer does the rest of the work in two 30 second scans of the left side of my face and neck targeting certain programmed areas with cancer-killing radiation.

And by the way,

Costa Rica Beats the USA in Soccer (Again!)

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Tired and Tasteless

Well, that second adjective is probably not used correctly, but I like alliterations! 🙂

By the end of the third week of radiation I am more tired than ever. And none of my food has a taste or very much of one. Over the weekend a neighbor brought me a spicy soup that had more flavor than most things now. And this is perfectly normal as radiation progresses. But they say in 5 or 6 weeks after completing treatments I will regain my taste. And I’m also sleeping later and later every morning with even nap in the day.

The photo was made by the technicians (their photo coming tomorrow) of me right after I completed the treatment Friday and put my shirt back on but no mask or eye patch! Just the one-sided smile! 🙂

Me in front of the big radiation machine by my treatment mask & table.

And you may have missed the post with me getting the treatment.

¡Pura Vida!

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“I love it when a plan comes together!”

Back when there were some really funny sitcoms on TV, one had a military (I thinks) team with unusual problems to solve in funny ways as a comedy. (May have been “Hogan’s Heroes?”) And after a quick, bizarre and hilarious way of solving their problem, they always ended with the Captain, Colonel or whatever saying “I love it when a plan comes together!”

I earlier told you about the plethora of “little problems” that were driving me crazy, one of which was my CPAP machine breaking down and the problems of ordering from the states and getting “medical equipment” through Customs here. Then I remembered my new favorite doctor, a geriatrics specialit, Dr. Coto. He had already solved a couple of problems that other docs were not helping me with, so why not the CPAP machine? There has to be a way to get one locally here in San Jose where I’m stuck for awhile. So Monday I checked his online appointments schedule and he had one vacant spot Tuesday which I took. Scheduling docs is quick and easy here! 🙂

He asked what brand I preferred and typed it in his computer, then where to get in San Jose, all in Spanish of course! He got to the screen of Anca médica with phone & web address and told me to photograph with my phone. This morning I called them and the receptionist transferred me to the salesman who spoke English (I can do in español but slow and painful for all). Francisco got on the phone and to make a long story short he delivered my new CPAP machine to the hotel by 4, bringing a therapist to adjust everything for me to get back on it tonight. It costs more than in the states because of Customs taxes, but it is them and not me having to deal with Customs! 🙂 And I will sleep better tonight! 🙂

My latest CPAP Machine from a company in San Jose

Dr. Coto also quizzed me about other health issues and he solved another problem because of his knowledge of practical things. He is not close to where I live, but he is now my new GP Doctor. 🙂 Yes! A geriatrics doctor as my main doc! It’s what I get for being old! 🙂

“Sometime things have to go wrong to go right. “

Sherrilyn Kenyon

¡Pura Vida!

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Crimson-fronted Parakeet

Yes, they look like parrots and are as big as some parrots, but are officially parakeets. We have this Crimson-fronted Parakeet (eBird link) and an orange-chinned one in Atenas and I have photos of them at my house and on a nearby country road, but they are usually higher up the hills and always in the tops of the trees, generally in flocks. Very difficult to photograph. See my other photos in my Crimson-fronted Parakeet Gallery.

Here they are in the top of the hotel’s big tree and even from the 4th floor they are hard to photograph as they come through just before sunset in poor light, snacking on the berries before going uphill to their night roosting tree. A colorful addition to this colorful garden!

Crimson-fronted Parakeet, San Jose, Costa Rica

And more photos . . .

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Finished All Poirot Stories

Way back whenever I first started reading Agatha Christie books, it was always paperbacks. Then I got a Kindle and read so many more electronically – until I got to the last two books or stories about Hercule Poirot (33) and when I downloaded the last two of his mysteries, neither would open up on my Kindle (the only 2 books I’ve ever had trouble with electronically).

So the cumbersome effort of calling Amazon Help and finally getting a live person then the wasted time of several efforts to make the books load, none of which worked. And finally given credit for the electronic books which they removed from my bookshelf. Soooo . . . to complete my goal of reading all the Poirot books (including that book of short stories), I order the last two books she wrote as paperbacks – back to how I started his stories! Poetic justice to modern electronics! 🙂

Agatha Christie’s last two Poirot books.

And bear in mind that this is not as easy to happen with a U.S. company when you live in another country! But finally I receive and finish the last in the Poirot series, Halloween Party and Curtains, and of course enjoyed these old-world England stories as much as the first two back whenever.

I’m still experimenting with other types of books that sound good or I think I may like – most of which I don’t. And if I don’t enjoy a book after a few pages or chapters, I now just quit reading it. Like I just started reading (again) All God’s Creatures Great and Small and then remembered that I had tried it once before and just did not enjoy his detailed description of birthing a calf with his arm up inside the womb of the cow and will probably drop this book again. I report on most of my book reading through Goodreads.

Along with Poirot, I did read some of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books and may next try to finish that shorter series. Of course I saw most if not all of the TV series “Murder She Wrote,” based on the Miss Marple books, but that is never the same as the books. The same with the TV series on Poirot.

When on my only trip to London, I did get to see Agatha Christie’s play, The Mousetrap, the world’s longest running play. Cool! A great British experience!

And I’m afraid my reading will be slowing down now with only one good eye. Though I can read for short periods with my left eye uncovered, it soon starts burning and watering and I cannot continue long. One-eye reading is possible but not as good and soon that eye gets tired too. Just one of the many side-effects of my cancer and the loss of a facial nerve. You just do the best you can with what you have in life. 🙂 And at 80 I no longer expect all of my body to work perfectly! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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More Hide & Seek Birds

At breakfast the other morning the wind had stopped and these two birds came to my Cecropia Tree, though reluctantly showing themselves, hiding in the glare of morning sun.

Yigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush, My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica
Red-billed Pigeon, My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

“Birds learn how to fly, never knowing where the flight will take them.”

-Mark Nepo

See also my Costa Rica Birds Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

I will be doing separate posts concerning my radiotherapy, though I hope for more nature to share from my month-plus hotel nearby! 🙂