Easter In Samara Beach

I can't stop looking at my feet! They are actually uglier than my wretched post-chemo hair style with their patch-sized red blotches that look ready to blister or bleed at any moment. The redness on my shoulders and left knee cap are like beacons to the wandering eye of people approaching. What has that woman done to herself? Or maybe they think...man, that's gotta hurt. Which it does.

All this after a two hour session on the beach. That quick hose-down with the alcohol-based spf15 was a disaster, shield wise. Big holes in my protective armour. The insides of my arms, a swath on my belly and now my ears don't match my body anymore. I have un-accessorized myself.
The sunless tanning lotion I used the week prior to arriving has worn off in patches, the marshmallow white skin poking through that glorious rich brown shade. The hot springs at Arenal, here in Costa Rica, chipped at it enough to let the sun in. I figured I was good-to-go and today can barely stand to wear sandals. Or a bed sheet. Or a smile. Of course the pavement and sand are too hot to go without shoes, so I'm not going too far. Good thing there are lots of beach restaurants with chairs beneath wide palm tree branches. There is a place in heaven for everyone.
A decision has been made to get back into the rental vehicle that sits collecting iguana pooh and dust at $57 a day. A town only 5 km away has an excellent two table restaurant named El Dorado we are prompted to visit. Sounds a little too small for us, but what the heck. It can only go one of two ways. We get food poisoning for the few days we have left here or we don't. As I said, I can't go too far with these feet, so what else were we doing?
You must cross a riverbed that still has a river running through it to get to the restaurant or else travel another 21 km up a mountainside to come at the town from the other side. El Carmen. Population 10 by our eye count. To get there you pass by the next beach south of Samara called Playa Carrillo. The sides of the road are lined three deep with cars, vans, three wheelers, quads, tents and people everywhere. It's Easter in Costa Rica. No liquor sales at the store, restaurant or bar for two days. It doesn't look to be a problem with the stacked coolers between all the tents. A very white sand stretch with minimal surf is choked with bobbing bodies, kids running, dog's tails wagging and everyone is happy, happy. As they say here, Pura Vida! (Pure heaven)
We think we are lost a few times as we travel up and up and twist and wind around impossible but astoundingly paved roads until we reach an intersection we can't agree on. We back up to the sign hidden behind the shrub to try and read it again. Go straight, I say, so he turns right. This is Barry's new "rule." Do the opposite of what Deb figures. Unfortunately, I am beginning to see that he is right and the rule does seem to work? I don't really care how we get to where we're going as long as we get there. I do, however, care about that smug look on my husband's face.

We pass people soaking lazily in the river we are following and more flower and mango-treed properties. We ask directions of a carpenter building a house and he's never heard of El Dorado. A younger man tells him something in Spanish to which he replies in Spanish, "that's its name?"
We round two more corners and spot the sign hanging off a blue stucco canteen. An open air eatery with bright green linens draped over solid wood tables. The menu boasts mostly seafood but accommodates everyone with even a hambergesa con papas (burger and fries). For me, it's the best and biggest bowl of seafood soup I have ever seen. A whole fist-sized crab, an entire lobster tail, a 6 inch strip of dorado, a dozen or more clams and mussels, sliced octopus and calamari and two of the largest shrimp we have seen in Costa Rica. For 4000 calones (about $8). Well worth the drive and the smug face, we profess over and over. Best part is the mother and daughter team of cook and waitress try to communicate with our broken Spanglish and never once laugh at my silly touristy red blotches on my body.
On the way home, we braved the river bed after watching a dozen vehicles much lower to the ground than ours, roar through. We made it easily and were back to the hacienda within minutes.

The second best thing we did while in Samara Beach was go on a nature hike with a young man named Alvaro Teran who took us up the mountain behind Samara to his Grandfather's Werner Sauter Biological Reserve. Alvaro picks you up at your accommodation and drives you to the start of a two hour trail he has hand cleared through a dense forest of typical Costa Rican trees and plantation. He knows a lot about everything you see. The tour climaxes at a spectacular viewpoint of both the Carrillo and Samara bays. Alvaro offers fruit and cereal bars before guiding us back down the far side of the mountain. He fills up our bags with fresh mangoes and mangas from the field before returning us to the Bambula.
It was a good climb up in that heat- all part of the master detox plan. Get that fresh air in and sweat all the toxins out.
I spent a good ten minutes letting the shower water run over my head before I could get out. It was a coincidence, I'm sure but I suddenly realized I needed to comb my hair for the first time! It had somehow grown enough since my last shower to need to be swept to one side or the other so that it didn't stick up. (no, it's no-where near my eyes yet! It's still only an inch at the longest part.)

We settled in for a home made seafood pasta dinner on the deck, clinking glasses of wine in celebration of the combing mile-stone. We didn't bother to run the air conditioning to try and drown out the noisy frogs, howler monkeys, cicadas and iguanas that try to drown each other out every night. With all that fresh air and exercise we slept extremely well!

Blue Feathered Parrots and A Brown Haired Deb

Our rental car is mini shredded wheat size, but it's a 4 wheel drive at the touch of a button which within hours we have to use. The highway pavement disappeared somewhere around a corner we had to take to get to the Cloud Forest Reserve area better known as Monteverdi. Word on the street says the government does not maintain this portion of dirt road because they don't want a flood of people on it. In truth, if we hadn't been meeting Barry's daughter we might have been dissuaded by the teeth rattling three hour bounce. The posted speed limit of 25 km is a joke- you can't possibly go that fast and not end up a vegetable from shaken adult syndrome!

When we can tear our eyes from the potholes and washboard we see beautiful terrain with large gathering slopes like railings to our right. Lush and deeply scented, dotted with canopy shade trees and wooden box-shaped homes with dark skinned people fanning themselves from chairs on porches that face the view. After miles of this we spot an oasis. Pavement! Can it be? Out here in the middle of nowhere? We have arrived in Monteverdi and the tires once again feel round instead of square. We are driving on pillows.

You never stop to think how good you've got it until something is taken away!
It is such a big thing to remember as we travel through our lives.

We enjoy our one night stay to the max, sadly waving farewell to Lindsay and Richard as they head south and us east on our separate holidays.
We continue to bounce and bumble to the "swinging bridge hike" within the reserve where we spot black cats they say are jaguars. Exciting. Even more exciting is the grinding noise our rental now makes every time we turn the wheel slightly to the left. Try that on hairpin, "don't look down that steep bank" turns. It gets you to worrying about the brakes as its all downhill from here! Literally.
Something is very, very wrong with our vehicle.
We decide to try and keep going as we'd rather be held up at the hot springs versus the Cloud Forest.
We reach pavement two hours later with audible sighs and continue to the next hotel which is the amazing Arenal Lodge. Here the sight of the Arenal Volcano is all encompassing. It fills your sight, your head your dreams and you can't stop looking at it. It hasn't had a lava flow for six months now but it will again from this side only, they tell us. We can't stop looking at it. Our room isn't ready so we get upgraded to the cabins on the highest ridge. The entire front of the room is glass, filled with the majesticness of the volcano. A couch and easy chair face the giant "A" so you can sit and stare to your content. Bright green and blue parrots fly past which reminds me it is finally time to do something about this grey hair! They advised me to wait a minimum of two months and I think, as I eye up the cabin's dark green towels, that the time is close enough.
There are two ground level hot tubs on the lawn in front of the reception/restaurant area. They are surrounded from behind with fragrant privacy bushes and both face the volcano. It reminds me of our hot tub with our view of the Telkwas. Each wonderous in their own right.
The next morning we find a much younger (and happier) looking Debi with patchy brown hair ready to attend the free nature hike with our guide Miguel. We see a butterfly farm, a deer, a hidden tarantula hole and an ant that removes a sliver Miguel has jammed into his thumb for us. Amazing. They use these same ants for closing wounds during ancient times, he tells us and shows us how the ant clamps onto his skin and won't let go until he manipulates her mandibles.
Our second rental vehicle seems to have the same problem as the last rental, but not yet to the same degree. As we only have a twenty minute drive to the next stop at the Baldi Hot Springs in La Fortuna, we decide to chance it. What the heck. I now have brown hair and feel like a million bucks.
What more could possibly happen, right?

Contact Your Doctor ASAP

(Watching the sun come up at the Houston Texas airport. Part of the 29 hour trek to Costa Rica)

My eyes are crossed from lack of sleep and there's a large kink in my neck. We have been travelling all night but here we are in San Jose, Costa Rica. The heat slams you like a hot wall the second you step out of the plane. We become sheeple following the persons in front through the customs line-up, afterwards to the suitcases, then to the line-up of taxi drivers and shuttle drivers with names written on white sheets of paper they flap in the air like flags. We see our name and feel the relief. We meet Jose from Hermedia who packs us into his van before whisking us off to his hotel for the next two nights. We whiz past palm trees and flowering bushes, past signs in Spanish and I feel the flood of words from past trips to Mexico come back to me.
Jose is a good guide and sends us down the street to the university quarter for cheap cervazas and seafood cerviche once we get settled in.

Tomorrow will be an all-day tour which includes a coffee plantation, a waterfall park with a zoo filled with long, nasty snakes, poisonous frogs and white-faced monkeys and the highlight- a hike to the live and smoking Poas Volcano. This is a dangerous and exciting country.

My lap top refuses to co-operate and give me my mail so I use the public computer supplied by the hotel. I see a letter from the technician at the Finlandia Pharmacy where I had the thermal imaging done on my breasts two days ago. The results must have come back. I don't realize I am holding my breath until I read the words "please be advised that you should contact your doctor as soon as possible." The air trapped in my lungs comes out in a loud "ooof" like I have been hit by a baseball bat. I bend over for a second, wondering if I am going to throw up.
It passes. My brain starts hollering I knew it, I knew it! This isn't over. The nightmare continues!
I fire off a letter to my girlfriend, the doctor. It reads "panic, panic, freak-out, distressed, over-stressed, what now, why me, panicked and frightened. Love Deb."
I then fell apart.
What did they find? Has the cancer spread? Is it in my bones, my brain, my organs? Will it be quick? Should I go home? Should I go to the hospital here? Will I have time for a shot of tequila? Do they have tequila in Costa Rica?
My husband thankfully points out I should calm down a bit, possibly with a glass of red wine in my hand?
It takes more than a glass.
Okay. Back to the world of cancer. So what am I afraid of? They've already put me through every thing they could dream up, except a torture rack, which maybe will come next. So I'll be taller. But thinner, I quickly add!
Come on, Deb.This will be dealt with the same way as last time. Analyze, cut, poison and nuke. I can do this. I will do this. In fact, I absolutely refuse to go anywhere, if possible, before I have grandkids. And at the rate our kids are moving, that may take years. We will just have to deal with this. I'm almost back to full steam again. I have enough energy to kick some more cancer butt!
And look at the positive side. Here is another license to go ahead and eat multiple pounds of chocolate bars again. Yeah! Like a five-year-old. What...go through all that cancer crap again? But I can eat lots of chocolate again? Okay!"
And just like that, as I prepared to hit the little mini super beside the hotel, a message appeared from Sandi. Like two arms coming from the sky to wrap around me and whisper, "shhh, shhh, it will all be okay." Sandi went searching for more information on thermal imaging and told me that any results the imaging company had was not a diagnosis. Only a biopsy after a mammo, ultrasound or an MRI could give me that. And there were lots of false negatives and positives with thermal imaging, not to mention my breasts were still healing from surgeries and radiation. Healing promotes rapid cellular growth which would look similar to a cancer growth. She assured me we would book more tests after my holiday. She also said she was sure there wouldn't be a recurrence that fast. Along with other very re-assuring things.
The breath comes out. The breath goes in.
The chocolate stays on the shelf at the store.

I have been back in Canada for two days now. The test results from the Thermal Imaging was in the mail, and contrary to what the tech wrote, it says that the findings seem to concur with the surgeries and radiation. It welcomed me to return, no charge, to establish a base line from which future thermal imaging will be compared to. There was a list of vitamins to consider which I see I am already taking. Again it said to try and keep an alkaline rather than an acidic body and to drink plenty of fluids at all times. Cancer likes acidic, dehydrated bodies.

Not to create a panic, but I think I'd like to head out and find some seaweed to chew on. I can follow it with a big glass of BC's finest water. And possibly a teaspoon of baking soda just to be on the safe side. Those grandkids seem like a really long ways away.

Holidays Start With Some X Rated Photos

Booking a holiday on points at the last minute has its problems. But they seemed small in the face of my life, lately, so it was with this frame of mind I booked the nine times we would take off and land seated in the very back of a weaving overgrown metal bread box. Welcome aboard Air Canada, Continental Air and United Airlines. Go straight to the last row of seats, get as uncomfortable as you can, try to ignore the spontaneous regrowth of the line-up to the bathroom in the aisle beside you making the claustrophobic noose even tighter. Jump at the sonic sound of the toilet flushing fifty times an hour. You got this flight for free and we are going to make you very, very sorry about that.
But at the time, that sweet moment after you've booked everything and all you can imagine is the white sand between your toes and the smell of palm trees and salted green water, deciding what to wear seemed the hardest thing I faced. What can a 3000 watt woman wear for 28 hours of travel? From snow covered tarmac through an eight hour stop-over in Vancouver before three more airless seating procedures, the blazing sun through the secure airport windows in Oregon, Texas and Costa Rica, through the shuttle and suitcase-dragging ordeals? A bathing suit would be my first choice, a space suit with regulated air conditioning a high second. Yet it was my hiking zip-off pants with socks inside sandals (yes, I know, how gauche but at least I wore some the same color as the pants), that finally won, with a base tank top beneath a sweat-wicking long sleeved t-shirt. About as sexy as a grave-digging uniform. To combat this, I put on the "good" new underwear. I bought a softer, more forgiving sports bra with yes, an underwire, but it's well padded and does not rub anything the wrong way as the rest of my old bras still do. Add some matching bikini wear and at least I feel a little less manly (as I absent-mindedly pull at the visible growth of white peach fuzz on the sides of my jaw!).

Vancouver was only beginning to see a few daffodils and tulips popping their heads from their dirt beds when we got scooped up by a best friend who whirled us downtown for my appointment with Finlandia pharmacy. I was booked for a 3PM thermal imaging of my breasts- the first test I have had since surgery in August. In luck with a half price special on ($142.), I was seated in a small room facing the thermal imaging camera, told to strip to my waist and instructed on how to pose, arms over head in five different positions. My own porn shots for Barry. Good enough for a Fathers day gift, although the final photos are very psychedelic in greens, oranges and reds? The camera picks up any hot spots which may indicate a cancer growth as cancer accelerates and grows so fast that it causes friction and heat. This will show as a certain colour on the final imaging which will be sent to a specialist who can properly read the the photos and send the findings to us.

I am very emotional during the entire procedure. Possibly because I am terrified they will find something. This comes from the past year when every test I took seemed to end with more bad news. I have no faith in anything and so wait with bated breath for that carpet to once again be pulled out from beneath me. I'm like a beaten dog that cowers at the sight of a raised broom, at another professional administering a "test."

The woman helping me explains she was a doctor in her country (which I think is Latin America) and indeed wears a white lab coat and doesn't flinch at the sight of my battle-scarred breasts. Her English is passable but loses credibility after she spends twenty-five minutes asking me questions about the surgeries and treatments- some that do not make sense. After she hits the wrong button on her lap top and loses everything, I offer to help and together we re-fill in the on-line form. Reading the information myself helped me realize what the form was needing so it was a much more detailed and accurate second attempt that was eventually sent away with my photos. The results would be mailed to me but I explained I would not be home for the next three weeks and would be holding my breath with fear for as long. I managed to extract a promise from her that when she received the results, before mailing them out, that she would read them and send me a personal e-mail on the bottom line. Clear or not.
It turned out to be a very silly thing to do. It almost ruined our holiday.
But that is another story for the next blog!

I Resemble That Volcano

I never thought about having anything in common with a volcano before, but this picture is proof. We are both smouldering hot! The smoke behind me is actually leaking out from beneath my armpit. Between the hot flashes and the humidity of Costa Rica, I could give the phenomenon in the background a run for its tourist attraction ratings.
I am writing this on my new lap top. I got my wallet out after three weeks being incommunicado on holidays. My previous lap top was so jammed full it couldn't even defrag. At 6 years old it had developed Alzheimers and getting more memory was going to be a battle for something so "obsolete" (I still wonder if the salesman was talking about me or the computer?). I couldn't pay for a new one fast enough after having dragged that ten pounds of useless metal on and off of nine flights. It's a wonder it didn't take a flight of its own, except that I am currently able to use the two lap tops at the same time here at home. Maybe now I can get some work done! Once I get all the bugs out of the new guy who doesn't seem to want to publish the blogs I write. Sigh.
Costa Rica is a fine country. Extremely laid back. We never saw one calendar, only a few people wearing watches and even less free computer use. Phoning home required the deposit of a first born child, so when in Rome...I sent postcards that might reach my friends and family next month, with any luck?
I went to Costa Rica to put the past eight months behind. To regain my strength, renew my spirits and get ready to come back swinging (or typing as the case may be). So I rested, relaxed, ate, swam, hiked, thought, remembered, cried, mopped up and came out eager to get my old life back. Correction: my old life with some very important changes. More water, less booze, more anti-oxidants, less red meat, more stretching and yoga classes, less pounding myself into the pavement jogging three times a week.
The new pill I was given two days before we left (Zoladex which stops the production of estrogen) hit me hard at first. It is a small pill that is injected beneath the skin over my abdomen and it works on a slow release over a month before having to be replaced.
The initial reaction feels like I haven't slept in days. It's all I can do to stay awake! This morning I received my second shot. I drove home and as soon as I reached the driveway and put the truck in park mode, I sat there for a minute and before I knew it, I was waking up! I had fallen asleep. Now that's scary!
If I can recall this right, the next thing is a drop in libido, which is a listed side-effect. Of course that didn't last once in the land of palm trees, king sized beds and half naked bodies walking around everywhere. We'll have to see what happens with this second dose. At the moment it's not like I have anything against doing "the nasty", I'm just not sure I can stay awake through the whole thing. I'm writing as fast as I can so I can hit the sheets and finally close my eyes.
This might have something to do with us arriving late last night and not getting to bed before 11 pm. Then up at 6 for circuit training before running with Sandi at 7. But no, Barry remembers I went through this the last time. I am totally exhausted. Not like the old me. Not even like the "new me" which I guess I am still finding out about.
Hopefully I get the blogs caught up this next week. I'll take you through the highlights of the past 20+ day's adventures and hair growth as quick as I can without boring you to death. I need to get a new schedule going of writing the blogs and repairing the books. It's going to take some diligence, and a bit of ignoring the Skype, FaceBook, e-mails, phone and house cleaning (not that I have any problems with that!) Let the dust bunnies roll! Just don't leave any dust bunny poop behind on the carpets where others might see, please.
Now I really do need to go to bed. At least I got this done. Score...one for Deb, none for procrastination.

One small step at a time!
It's good to go away, but it's also good to come home!

As The Hair Grows...

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go, I'm standing here outside your door...sing it any way you like but that's me, finally! On our way to Costa Rica Tuesday morning and I've never been so ready for a holiday. A holiday from what! you might be wanting to ask. Okay, fair enough, my days have been pretty lax besides getting some sort of daily exercise in, packing or unpacking from the ski hill weekends or trying to remember how to run the vacuum cleaner after all this cancer crap. But one still needs to get away from it all, even if it was nothing. A change of scenery. Now that the cancer is on the "back burner" I'm able to get the whip lash concerns from the November 2009 accident into centre focus again. Back to the amazing Mike for physio and this time something very different. Mike teamed up with an anesthetist who injected three areas of locked-up muscle near my shoulder blade with a local anesthesia which instantly relaxed them. Both guys went..."Whoa!" as the injection was applied. Guess each time the muscle spasmed in a big way! "What that tells me," the Dr. said, "Is that you will be one of the people this will help." My low expectations soared! It's still tender enough to try and get squeezed in to see my fave registered massage therapist, the cutey-pie Robyn Mulder. Robyn can stretch the muscles and work out all the big knots that form in there. She's also great for the tightness around the surgical scars- the fascia layer seems to stick and she can loosen the area up way better than I can by myself. I also had Robyn deal with the "cording" that appeared on my midriff about two weeks after the second surgery. Long thin vines appeared from below my cancerous breast down my middle to just above my belly button. They were hard and rope-like beneath the skin. Robyn stretched them apart and we both heard then snap as they broke. They disappeared a few days later, thankfully and have never come back. We're not sure if it was from improper lymph drainage or from something else? Anyways, I am counting down the days for getting the hair dye on this grey swirl that adorns my skull. Yes, grey hair is better than no hair but it doesn't go with a thing in my closet? Suddenly the lime green washes me out, the browns don't accent the gold highlights in my hair and the black makes me look aged. What do you wear with grey, besides more grey? My friend suggested turquoise. I stubbornly suggested hair dye. But with seven days to go, I might just end up with another scarf or hat yet. If I see one in turquoise, that is. I'll try to keep up the blog while on holidays. Have a wonderful pre-spring everyone!

Debi's Detox Plan In Action

Today is day seven of my own concocted Detox regime.

I questioned my radiologist and oncologist about performing a detoxification right after my treatments ended, but neither felt it was necessary. There is a lot of information on the Internet and in health food stores that say otherwise. I figure, what can it hurt?

The basic fact is my organs and skin have been exposed to some pretty traumatizing elements. Between the chemo, radiation and who knows what I was exposed to when passed out on the surgical table...twice, (there wasn't a list attached to my toe when I woke up) I can only assume there are lingering issues that should get flushed out somehow.

Between the CT scans and sixteen radiation treatments alone, I am amazed I don't glow at night. When I called to make an appointment for the breast thermal imaging at the Findlandia Pharmacy in Vancouver, the clinician suggested I soak for an hour in 2 kilos of aluminum free baking soda and 2 kilos of sea salt mixed in a warm bath to help neutralize the effects of all that radiation. My husband worried about our septic field (which I checked on-line and it seems both are great for your septic!). I worried my skin would turn even whiter. I already look like a marshmallow and am determined not to use the sun tanning booths before our upcoming holiday to Costa Rica. I soaked without incident and it felt good enough to do it the once a week for a month that was called for. As I said, what harm?

The second thing I did to detox was omit dairy, processed foods and wheat from my diet and limit sugar to absolute necessity (OK, there were four drinks in there which I am ashamed of because on a scale of one to ten, they were only a six in needi-ness). But you get the picture.

For two weeks I'm taking First Cleanse capsules first thing in the morning and then right before I go to bed. This system says it cleanses "the entire body" and after my morning ablutions this first seven days, I believe it!

I am flushing the pills down with a quart a day of organic apple juice. Apple juice and apple cider vinegar have long been used as a natural liver detox program. You can google this and get your own three day regime to follow. Nothing but juice and vinegar for three days. A bit too intense for me, not wanting to inflict any more pain than is necessary on myself for a good long while. Enough is enough already.

The final part of my Detox plan is three one-hour infra-red sauna sessions. My friends have one so they turn up the heat to 100 for me to start in and it rises gradually to max 120 while I sit in there and sweat and sweat and sweat. I brought my Gregarian Chillout CD and listened to a Divine Light Invocation as well to help enlighten my mind as well as my body. (Can't hurt...)

They say a healthy mental state is as important as a healthy body. I plan on absorbing as many yoga classes in Costa Rica as I can stand the week we are at our all-inclusive (no de-toxing that week!)

I will be finished this regime by Wednesday of next week. So far my skin feels silky smooth and I have more energy than the past month. That might be from the detox or the new vitamin plan I have been on since the radiation ended. Either way, I plan on keeping up this list of essentials for at least the five years I am on Tamoxifin, if not for the rest of my life.

This includes:

Natural Factors women's multi-vitamin

NF Hi-potency B complex NF wild fish oil (anchovy and sardine)

Jarrow Formula Bone-Up (calcium/magnesium supplement)

Vitamin D 300 IU

NF Mixed Vitamin E 400IU to be taken with the following:

NF Green tea extract 300 mg (each capsule is like drinking 30 cups of tea)

And one teaspoon of Trophic's Green Essential with Anti-oxidants (contains spirulina, kamut juice, goji berry, acai berry and beet juices) mixed into water.

Practical or not, , its the mere thought that I am helping myself that puts me way ahead of the game.