{"id":433,"date":"2011-02-25T05:33:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T09:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/?p=433"},"modified":"2011-02-25T05:46:04","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T09:46:04","slug":"february-2011-back-in-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/?p=433","title":{"rendered":"FEBRUARY 2011- BACK IN HAWAI’I"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I packed our suitcases in our Tijuana hotel room I couldn’t help remembering the feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, when I had stood here doing the exact thing.\u00a0 It was almost 4 months ago that we had left the Stella Maris Clinic for the first time.\u00a0 We were so full of hope at that time, wanting to believe that the cancer that was ravishing Lennie’s body was being destroyed.\u00a0 This time our feelings of hope have been replaced with knowledge:\u00a0 the knowledge that we know<\/em> that the cancer is being eradicated.<\/p>\n

Three days before we left Lennie had his final MRI to see how much of the cancer had been destroyed and what was going on inside.\u00a0 The MRI showed no traces of metastasis with the exception of the two lymph nodes that still had involvement, but to a lesser degree.\u00a0 The main tumor appeared to have been diminished by about 85%!\u00a0 It is still there in his colon and the fatty tissue behind it, but it is now less than 1\/4 of its original size.\u00a0 What the doctors did remark on was that his heart seemed enlarged and there was a very small amount of fluid in the outer lining of each organ which they said could be due to congestion as they also noticed that his heart was enlarged – I guess that is where the term ‘congestive heart failure’ comes from.\u00a0 Dr Alvarez said that he should have it checked out with his cardiologist.\u00a0\u00a0Being an American without any health insurance,\u00a0he doesn’t even have a general MD.\u00a0 When he told Dr Alvarez that exact thing, he set up an appointment for him.\u00a0 This was on Friday afternoon that we got the report and he had an appointment for the next day – Saturday at 1:00 (what specialist\u00a0 in Canada works on Saturdays?).\u00a0\u00a0Dr Alvarez\u00a0drove us himself to the cardiologist and went in with Lennie.\u00a0 The\u00a0Cardiologist did an EKG and a cuff pressure check.\u00a0\u00a0I had made him have his heart checked out\u00a0with these same two test shortly after meeting him as I knew he was not completely\u00a0healthy.\u00a0 The doctor at that time\u00a0had said that he actually had a very strong heart.\u00a0 The doctor said about the same thing this time, but she wanted him to come back on Monday for an echo-cardiogram.\u00a0 The bill for the EKG and cuff-pressure test and<\/em>consultation looking at the MRI report and images was $73 American.\u00a0 Do you believe it?\u00a0 Only $73.\u00a0 Dr Alvarez charged us nothing for driving us there and going in with Len as the cardiologist did not speak good English.\u00a0 Then he drove us back to the hotel.\u00a0 When we went to the silver store here that we like, the owner, Raoul, said that he also has an enlarged heart, but it is due to him training for diathalons (running and biking).\u00a0 Lennie’s could have always been enlarged or enlarged from swimming so much or it could be due to his depleted iron for so long, which would explain the fluid around the lungs and liver, right? – Not good.\u00a0 The good news is his heart is strong and his blood pressure has always been on the low end of normal throughout this ordeal and also his resting pulse is not ever below 60.\u00a0\u00a0 Monday morning we went to the clinic to get our supply of the oral versions of the IV substances to take home with us.\u00a0 Dr Alvarez said that we were going back to the cardiologist\u00a0for an echo-cardiogram to check out his enlarged heart.\u00a0 Once again he\u00a0drove us there, sat in the waiting room with us and went in with\u00a0Lennie.\u00a0 This new specialist\u00a0was happy with the results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The following morning we were up at 2 A.M. to get ready for the long trip back to Hawai’i.\u00a0 We had argued about what time the driver should pick us up… 3 A.M. or 4.\u00a0 Lennie argued that there would be no traffic at the border at this time in the morning.\u00a0 I wanted to be safe.\u00a0 I won and we left at 3.\u00a0 We did not get anywhere near the border before we hit the line-ups.\u00a0 I would estimate that there were about 800 cars in front of us.\u00a0 We lined up at 3:15 and crossed through at 4:55.\u00a0 We got to the San Diego airport at 5:15 for out 6:20 flight.\u00a0 Just in time.\u00a0 We landed in LA and had an hour and a half layover.\u00a0 Lennie was tired and grumpy and we actually fought over how I should have saved 2 dollars at one of the food concessions by ordering my breakfast items separately.\u00a0 Two dollars.\u00a0 After the amount that we had just spent it seemed so petty.\u00a0 Once on the plane he slept.\u00a0 I watched the movies and was so exhausted I don’t even remember them.<\/p>\n

We have been back in Hawai’i for almost a week now.\u00a0 The weather is in the low 80s in the day and the low 70s at night.\u00a0 I lost a couple of fish in our pond, but Lilipuna, our cat, was healthy and happy to see us.\u00a0 One of the Navy guys here was looking after her and she patrols the property as if it is all hers.\u00a0 Lennie has started back at the ‘Bragg exercise class’ on Waikiki Beach.\u00a0 This is the class that was started by the late Paul Bragg over 30 years ago.\u00a0 The class is free and anyone is welcome to join in.\u00a0 After that he does the Pilates portion for an additional half hour and then swims for at least\u00a020 minutes\u00a0in the ocean.\u00a0 He could not do more than 10 to 15 minutes of the first class the last time we returned and would have to swim on alternate days.\u00a0 He has had a couple of ‘down’ days since our return and I attribute it mostly to him over-doing the exercise and swimming on the days that he feels great.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday was an interesting day, weather-wise here in Hawai’i.\u00a0 Not the monsoon-type rain, but the thunder and lightening.\u00a0 Both thunder and lightening are a rare occurrence here in the islands.\u00a0 Flash flood warnings kept coming over the TV and radio telling people to get to higher ground.\u00a0 The rain was so heavy at times, we could not see out the windows and the thunder and lightening was extreme for even the mainland.\u00a0 Lilipuna (our cat) was oblivious to it all as she is totally deaf.\u00a0 There were a couple of strikes where the house actually shook and at those she would turn her head and look around.\u00a0 The storm kept up through the afternoon and well into the night.\u00a0 Driving home from Honolulu we could see verticle rivers of water\u00a0 that looked like liquid silver cascading down the mountains.\u00a0 A beautiful site in the rain.\u00a0 Today there were pools of water everywhere where it could not run off and I fear that the mosquitoes will start to breed.\u00a0 Usually mosquitoes are more scarce here in O’ahu and were totally unknown until 1826 when they arrived in the whaling ship the Wellington<\/em>as sailors washed out barrels of stagnant water.\u00a0 The mosquitoes carried with them an avian malaria that was fatal to many species of birds on the island as they were not genetically equippedto deal with this disease in their systems.\u00a0 The extinction of Hawai’i’s birds did not start with the Europeans though.\u00a0 It was the arrival of the Polynesians to the islands who started to clear the low lands where many ground dwelling birds lived.\u00a0 Not only were their habitats being devastated.\u00a0 80,000 birds of one now-extinct specie were\u00a0killed to make one of King Kamehameha’s cloaks in the late 1700s.\u00a0 Today 75 percent of documented floral and fauna extinctions in the U.S. have occurred in Hawai’i. \u00a0170 of its endemic plant species are listed as endangered (35 percent of the U.S. Endangered Species list of plants), many with 100 or fewer individual plants\u00a0left, and some in which only a single plant remains, according to a 1994 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) report.\u00a0 Sadly over half of the island’s tropical rain forest is gone with many birds just hanging on, on the verge of extinction, due largely today to one species of mosquito.<\/p>\n

So as I sit here late at night I must remember to tell the guys to close the doors at night as I am covered in mosquito bites.\u00a0 Hopefully the hot Hawai’ian sun will dry up the pools of water left by the storm.<\/p>\n

Kathryn<\/em><\/p>\n

www.kathrynsmith.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I packed our suitcases in our Tijuana hotel room I couldn’t help remembering the feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, when I had stood here doing the exact thing.\u00a0 It was almost 4 months ago that we had left the Stella Maris Clinic for the first time.\u00a0 We were so full of hope at that time, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-lennie-and-kathryn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}