Sunsets to Islands to Yachts to Pottery and Old Glass found under water

Posted on June 8, 2013 by kerryhucul

Here I am all ready to put up a quick blog entry, only to find that instead, I am far behind in editing personal pictures, so I have to do that first.

My mother will recognize this, we looked at it in a store when she was here and a couple weeks ago it came home with me. Followed me actually !

Pretty new duvet cover. Of course it has something to do with the sea!

My husband was about ready to gnaw off his arm after waiting with no food for about 30 hours because of yucky colonoscopies etc. Good thing Richies Diner is right next door…

Bazza at Richies Diner

Picture of the masts from when we were down at the Tortola Yacht Show a few weeks ago…I have pretty pictures from treasures found underwater there that I have to edit! The boat pictures are all done and they aren’t going on this blog

Masts at Village Cay Tortola

I see I did manage to clean up a few of the pottery pieces though!

Pottery Pieces

And my favorite part of being in the islands was going scrounging for things!

See the smile on my face when I am going scrounge diving?

And some of the scrounged things..

There is a cannon ball here and also a lead line for when you are checking out the depth of the water…

And I don’t even think these have all been cleaned up or thrown back yet!

All kinds of bits. Chad found an awesome old onion bottle that we are going to try and save…They are so old, it is crumbling!

Pottery, buttons and a steel stopper from a bottle

Guess that will have to do for today. It is about the most exciting pictures anyways! I still want to put up the pictures we took going up to Red Rock though.

Lucky Bazza…or not, depends on how you look at it, he is getting ready to go down to the islands again this week as Promenade has its Haul Out and Surveys. I decided my love and want to NOT be away from his was NOT as great as my HATE of being anywhere near a boat yard, especially with no water and air conditioning and long ladders to climb up and down. They will probably be out 4-5 days anyways.

So, I will stay behind and after that is done, the boat has been cooled down and is clean again, then I will head down to the Islands for a few weeks or more myself. Hoping to get more SCUBA diving in

I just on this Wednesday got the 6 week check up from my surgery. It was funny. They tell you, No intercourse for 6 weeks…OK, not like it was high on my list. Then at the follow up, they say “well, if you can wait until two weeks it will be nice and healed by then” I am sure they say that as saying 8 weeks afterwards sounds like a long time!

I am A OK. I get pelvic exams, Pap Smears and Cancer Blood tests starting now every 3 months. Better then the alternative!

Few pictures from sunsets…

The summer is my absolute favorite time in the islands, except for when those whirly things that start with H come, so looking forward to that! Let’s see if it lasts….

A short trip over to Tijuana Mexico..

Posted on June 2, 2013 by kerryhucul

Lets see if I can do a good old fashioned blog here with story and pictures..Because looking at another hour of work this afternoon just sounds too dreary for words. Not to mention that I have not blogged for awhile so I seem to have a bit of a back log of stories to do.

My sister came down from San Francisco for the “weekend” I have to put that in parenthesis, because by the time she leaves after work on Friday, gets to SoCal long after we are in bed, we have Saturday together and then Sunday it is time for her to make that fun drive back up the I5 again.

Just in time for Mexico, a new camera came in the mail for me! That ALWAYS makes my day.

Friday I had presents in the mail, yes I do think it is about my 5th one of these. Lets see how long it takes me to flood it! I did not want to carry my big camera around Tijuana (go figure) so this came in handy.

Baz, Syd and I were out of the house about 930 maybe…our clever plan was to park on the US side, and walk over to the Mexican side. I want to point out that ME, who couldn’t/didn’t walk for so many months volunteered the idea to WALK over to Mexico. Obviously I am feeling better!

So we parked…

Syd and Baz, US side parking lot

Looking over at Tijuana

Taking pictures like tourists

It was not too bad of a walk actually! Seemed fairly easy… Although getting closer to the border we felt like cows being funneled into the slaughter house. The concrete pathway became narrower, the barbed wire became more prominent and then turnstiles appeared saying “Mexico” Looking a bit like a prison I thought…

Mexican Border at San Ysidro

We all had our passports out thinking they were going to check them or something, but nope, we walked through the turnstiles, went past a few men with machine guns and voila! We were in Mexico….and immediately noticed that it was NOT QUITE that easy to walk back into the states as it was to go into Mexico…

The line up of pedestrians that was miles long, was a little..offputting as we wondered exactly how much time it would take to get back into the states. I shall tell you later, but I think we should have researched a bit better!

We decided to be really brave and got a cab driver to show us the sites, out to see the Bull Fighting Ring, The Border Fence, Rosarito, and just driving around..

Mexico looked like I remember it from 20 years ago in many parts…

Mexico Landscape

Don’t know!

Our taxi driver spoke no english…and our spanish consists of ordering beer, ice, washrooms and TOPES. Don’t ask why we know the word for speed bumps so well, lets just say it is from back in the blurry years in Cozumel…

Friendly animals

The squirrels, chipmunks (whatever they are) and birds are much friendlier then the ones up the road in Huntington Beach! The long wall out into the water was sobering. We were all upset, it seemed like we were in Berlin. Lots of people on the Mexican side, nothing but Border Patrols on the US side…

Border wall with Mexico

Taking pictures of Syd

We took the obligatory pictures..

vendors

Tattoo Place

The stadium…

And then continued on down to Rosarito which supposingly is Spring Break central.

We managed to avoid all the horses that were waiting to take eager tourists for a run on the beach, although we were able to smell them quite nicely through our open windows..

We also managed to avoid getting taken in by all the men in sombrero’s yelling at us “Corona” every time we slowed down in Rosarito…Cuz we look like their demographic I suppose, who is going to start chugging Coronas at 1030 AM. Nice to know we still look like spring breakers!

Back To Tijuana, for a drive around the center…mostly we learnt something new. If you are wearing clothes that had to be sprayed on, and shoes with 5 inch clear acrylic heels, then you are a sex worker. I was absolutely amazed at how many were out trying to turn tricks in the noon day sun. Every flavor of heels with a chunky girl poured into too tight clothes (reminded me of Puerto Rico) and the other brand was the “school girl” look. Plenty of those too! Seemed like every girl had a guy on the sidewalk near her shining shoes??? Maybe it is a cultural thing, have sex and they shine your shoes in the meantime? What do I know.

Tijuana

Hotel

Also saw plenty of poor donkeys painted as Zebras on Revolution Road. I just felt sorry for them and certainly did not want my gringo picture taken with them!

Donkeys? Zebras? You decide…

It was all very colorful anyways, and we had a good tour around. We probably paid through the nose for it, but that is ok!

We really did not linger, remembering the line up that was at the border to get back to the US. We were deposited at the end of the pedestrian lane, which I believe had gotten longer…and tried to figure out how we were going to make this shorter. There is no line for “white pale people” here it is GENERAL PUBLIC, of which we were.

We weighed our options, looked at the line…

At the end of the line

and decided there was probably a reason that right where the line was there was a tour company that promised to take you across quickly for $10. a person. At that time we thought double that would have been a bargain, so we signed up to get our tour tickets!

Buying our tour tickets to the border!

Waited 15 minutes for a little bus, and then, found out that although we were actually in a separate lane to the right, along with another billion tour companies doing this, but our wait to get across the border was TWO hours. We knew we were in trouble when they stopped the bus and turned off the engine and the driver picks up a newspaper. Multiple times! Without a word to us, but we could tell from the mutters from the Spanish people after his speech that THEY knew we would have a two hour wait.

Ze…Bus….

By the time we arrived at the border, he finally said in perfectly good english that the tour was over with at the border here and if we “enjoyed it” we could tip the driver! We passed on that one. Don’t feel sorry for us though, apparently the pedestrian line was over 3 hours and the car lines up to 4 hours!!!! Good information to file away for next time hey? Busiest border crossing in about the world people!

After that we needed FOOD! And what does any self respecting diabetic do when out and looking for something to eat? Well, no they don’t find salad cuz that they cannot eat raw vegetables, they find protein.

And our protein just happened to be in the Gaslight district of San Diego and was a Brazilian all the meat you can eat deal! Not as good as Texas De Brazil we found, but still darn tasty, and with the nice crab legs that were sliced down the middle for us as an addition, we all ate our daily calorie allotment in protein. Didn’t even go near the salad bar!

Dei do Gado Brazilian Steakhouse

Bacheloretter party?

Walked a bit to watch the fun and frivolity..Obviously a few bachelorette parties wandering around from the veils I saw on women! Can’t quite see the point of having to PEDDLE to get your beer though personally!

Balboa Theater San Diego

Jacaranda Trees

The Jacaranda Trees every where were in full bloom. My mom would like them

There was an interesting musical theater on at one of the theaters, Mix Tape, but not playing last night otherwise we would have stayed for that. We were perfectly satisfied with our day though and made our way home…

A good day and there is my story for the month….

Travis Meadows- Old Ghosts and Unfinished Business

Posted on May 7, 2013 by kerryhucul

So, I downloaded Travis Meadow’s new album yesterday..I love his music, it is so honest and he writes straight from the heart. The album has quite a few songs that the words make me smile, but the stand out song for me has to be Nice Girl. Unfortunately it will never be a radio song as it is “explicit”. However, I smiled every time I hear it and you can feel the bitterness and anger toward an ex coming out in his words. I am sure there is a man or two who has sang it about me way back when….Powerful stuff Travis!

I can also say that the picture on the album cover could be my father on the horse! Really look at my fathers picture here below:

Here is a Dennis Tudor’s copy he took of it live and put up on Youtube…

Follow up to Surgery

Posted on May 3, 2013 by kerryhucul

I feel pretty damn good. In fact, I feel better ten days out of surgery then I felt for the entire year beforehand. The worst part is the waiting!

We went over to see the worlds best Gynocologist! Dr Rittenmaier at GOA. Well of course I am going to say that! But truly, I have felt like they were top notch from beginning to end. Appointments were prompt, surgery was prompt, follow ups were prompt, and he has a great manner of speaking that is blunt and to the point. He is not going to give you more information then you need, but he is very sure about what he says.

I had some discontiuous areas of FIGO stage 1 endometrial cancer. The largest piece was 4 CM. The pelvic was clear, the lymph nodes were negative, there was no cancer except in the uterus. It weighed about a half pound. It should be a total cure, however, I do have to do the following:

1) Go for pelvic exams every 3 months for 3 years. At that time they will also do the CA-125 blood test. The risk of doing scans is more then the risk of the nice and early cancer returning so none of those. After three years, I go every 6 months for a further two years.

2) Pap smear once a year, which surprised me, since I thought without a cervix that may be a moot point. But apparently they take a swab of the top. Guess I shouldn’t get too greedy and expect no reproductive organs and bleeding as well as no pap smears at the same time!

3) Listen to your body. Get your regular mammeograms once a year, and blood pressure etc checked every year. The normal things. Watch for unusual things.

4) Get a colonoscopy every 5 years. Wow, this is getting even more fun!

He also put on what he called his dog and pony show. This was on HRT.

Use the first one for two weeks, the patches. Then use the spray on your arm every night once for two weeks. Then use the rub on your arm for two weeks. See which one you like the most and come back and they will give you a years supply. I was glad to see those as I was already crying at Kitten Pictures on Facebook, and crying through a WW 2 movie, so I definitely wanted my hormones to even out.

He also gave me some excellent plain talking observation notes that he gives to his patients on cancer, HRT etc. If you are interested in them let me know, I can email.

IF I CAN BE ONE OF THOSE ANNOYING WOMEN TO MY FRIENDS FOR A moment AND SAY GET YOUR YEARLY TESTS! I will never be able to explain the relief I felt at having cancer, but it being in something that they could easily cut out of you (and it was a part most women my age don’t want anyways!), AND that it was stage one, well contained, I don’t think I will ever forget that feeling.

They are very adamant that you not have sexual intercourse for 6 weeks. It is repeated over and over, for gods sake, I bled forever, sex once every 6 weeks would be a bonus to my husband over the last couple years I would think!

We stopped at the Meathouse and Mothers in Newport Beach on the way home to pick up some meats and “health food” type things. Never thought I would see the day I was in those! Mother’s was LARGE, i was impressed! Anything to keep my glucose levels down nowadays people!

I have been put on “crap” “medical food” for the diabetes by my doctor. Sigh. I hate protein type drinks of any kind. They may call this Dutch Chocolate, but to me it tastes more like cardboard…with yucky lumps! Metagenics has brought down my blood glucose levels an average of 20-30 points overall, which is pretty good. I have tried it blended, mixed with ice and coffee, and other ways. There is no dam way I can convince myself it is a moccha frappucino! I think them saying they have patients who always take some with them out because they like it so much they use it for dessert is plain old marketing.

I have found the best way is to put as little liquid in it as possible, get my husband to mix it really good and down it quickly. Hence the shaker in the picture. And my family will appreciate that I can never, and I mean never, make a can opener, electric or not, work. I did buy a new one today though to try it one more time!!!

I continue to feel better and better though with the diabetes control. I am down 25 lbs and I am starting to think that I may make it down for a couple months to the boat in June, after I am finally cleared. But first I have to built myself up so I don’t need a nap every time I walk through costco (Like today)

I think I have rambled enough. I just wanted to let everyone know how I was who have been so kind sending thoughts, letters, (chocolate! No one sent chocolate!) and keeping in touch with me.

Pathology came back :)

Posted on April 27, 2013 by kerryhucul

The oncologist called me this morning. He asked me if there was someone else to put on the phone as well so more then one person could hear and I thought “uh oh”

But it was all good! It showed, mostly in his words, a small volumne of cancer that had not gone into the muscles, and there was no lymph gland involvement, so I do not have to have either chemo or radiation at this point!! The surgery should be a total cure, although I do have to go every 3 months for a few years and then every 6 months until year 5 for an exam and follow up

Made both Bazza and I very happy, as believe me, I am tired of me being sick!!!! When I see him on Wednesday this week we will go over HRT. Feeling quite blessed today, everyones thoughts and prayers made a big difference. Thank you.

Weird feeling, though, the tops of my thighs down to my knees are either numb or have pins and needles…

thief goes to court yesterday..

Posted on April 24, 2013 by kerryhucul

Here is a link for those interested about one of the teenagers who robbed us in February being in court this week. The story on ALL the web pages here has quite a few discrepanies, and I would have though that the prosecutors would have talked to us first…
http://www.bviplatinum.com/news.php?page=Article&articleID=1366743405

However, I will be in court in June to watch this person “who is defending themselves”

I wonder if it cathartic that this one out of the 3 went to court the same day I had my operation….

Operation over and done with..Yucky picture at end if you don’t like body parts!

Posted on April 24, 2013 by kerryhucul

I have more pictures to add to my photo collection of me on every gurney or table they can find. This is at HOAG yesterday morning (BTW, the womens pavillor there is very nice. It looked like a hotel check in, not a hospital. In fact, althe receptionists had blue blazers and nattily tied scarves around there neck.)

Getting ready for surgery, but not quite time yet…

Everyone was very nice, it was quite efficient and one of the nurses I had before I went into surgery loved SCUBA diving, so I will able to keep my mind off of it for awhile. I did however, as it got closer have a bit of anxiety and tears, but that went away once they gave me valim as they were about to roll me into ER. You can see my eyes shimmering here…

Just about ready to go to ER.

First time I have ever been somehwere that did these two things: 1) After I weighed myself, the nurse took about a lb and a half off for my clothes! I liked that. After spending the previous day doing bowel prep I was feeling very slim! But of course surgery put it back on 2) When they took me back to do the pre op stuff, they told my husband to wait outside and they would come back and get me. The reason they do this is they ask you if you are in physical, or emotional danger at home, if you are being abused and if there is anything they cannot talk to you about in from of your husband. Probably a good idea, I wonder how many people actually say they are being abused? I woke up a couple hours later with some nausea etc, and insisting to have a bed pan cuz I felt like I had to go pee, but it was just from the catheter. In my groggy state though I must have laid on it for almost two hours, refusing to let the nurse take it away “just in case” She finally just took it from me. Maybe she was scared I was going to break it under my new svelte body? I then went back to sleep for another few hours. They gave me methdone for the pain yesteray (and believe me, I did not feel a thing happily) and also put on a scopamine patch for nausea for a few days. Then I was allowed to go home, which was even better. They did laprascopic surgery which was a bonus!!! 3 little holes, the two you see and one down by my groin area. Although maybe they had 4 cuz it kind of looks like they also went in my belly buttom too.!

Laprascopy holes. 3 little ones!

They took out uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix and some lymph glands for pathology, and my Dr (Rittenaier) told me when they got pathology results he would call me whether it was 4 in the morning or 4 in the afternoon. That is nice to know. Well, as long as the results are good.. In this picture below you can see my parts sliced open vertically, and the horizontal stripes, cut marks are where they opened up to see possible how deep it was I think. Apparently part of the cancer is the things that look like bubby fat cells in the middle. My husband talked to him not me, and Bazza is never big on details! Pretty achy inside, and really just been sleeping for the last 24 hours and I will go back to bed after that… GREAT to have just a few little holes on the outside. He also said to “listen to my body” if I have pain take pills, if I am tired go to sleep, but other then that he only has a couple rules. 1) No driving at all for two weeks 2) No sexual intercourse for 6 weeks 3) No carrying anything over 10 lbs, or anything I have to pick up with two hands. That means my husband gets to go grocery shopping whether he likes to or not.. So, I am sure this is riddled with mistakes even though I proofed it… but, all is well..and I am a happy girl to finally have these out of my body after having problems for quite awhile… That uterus is not exactly petite!

Female parts!

So yeah, endometrial cancer is out! We will just wait for pathology now and that will determine if I have to do follow up chem or radiation.

Wonderings & Musings of a BVI Charter Captain

My life, under, on & above water

Author Archives: kerryhucul