Is it a freak “Dry Season” once-off rain or a very early starting of the “Rainy Season” this year? We will see! The Jigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush (CR National Bird) has been singing his heart out recently and indigenous tradition is that they are the ones who “sing in the rain!”
It is generally said for the Central Valley (where I live) that Rainy Season is May-November and Dry Season December-April. My first few years here we did not see our first rain until mid to late April and not a lot until May. Last year the first rain was March 24 and this year now March 22, so is it starting early? Almost certainly not daily afternoon showers now (usually by May) but at least I do not need to water the garden for a few more days! 🙂
Always Trying to Capture Rain in a Photo!
And never very good at it! 🙂 The featured photo at top shows the dark cloud this afternoon shower came from and some of us hope it will be regular now (though very early)!
First Darkness – Then Rain!
The first drops on an Elephant Ear plant.
Vertical white lines are blurred rain drops.
Vertical white lines are blurred rain drops.
Raindrops bouncing off driveway.
I’ve always preferred the rainy season because it is greener with fresher air and the wind quits blowing! And most of the time we get rain only for an hour or two in the afternoon. Lowland rainforests along both coasts get more rain than we do here and it can be year-around, especially South Pacific and South Caribbean. For more weather information, check out your favorite weather channel or these websites:
And to let you know that this first rain is a real rain, since it started I have loaded and processed the photos to web-size, prepared and written this blog post, all in an hour or a little more AND IT IS STILL RAINING – HARD! 🙂 Love it! The tropics! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
Yes, it is a Blue-gray Tanager (e-Bird link), but my first impression of the photo was “Blue on Blue” with him against the blue sky, while sitting in my Cecropia or Guarumo Tree, then flying away in that feature photo at top. A common bird in Central America and northern South America.
I’m back to sharing nature from my garden again for a while and this morning the first thing I saw from my terrace was this Variegated Squirrel (Sciurus variegatoides) is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus, the most common squirrel of the 4 or 5 species of squirrels found in Costa Rica. He can be seen at many elevations and is more numerous than any of the others and varies somewhat in looks and color combinations with black, white, gray and reds or oranges.
This Variegated one is found only in Central America from Southern Mexico to Panama and is the most common throughout Central America. For anyone really into squirrels, the 4 others said to be in Costa Rica are the Central American dwarf or pygmy squirrel, Microsciurus alfari LR/lc; Deppe’s squirrel, Sciurus deppei LR/lc; Red-tailed squirrel, Sciurus granatensis LR/lc; and Bangs’s mountain squirrel, Syntheosciurus brochus LR/nt.
A lot of you asked that question, and the answer is sort of a “figure of speech” or a euphemism for an asymmetrical smile or lopsided smile or even a sneer or smirk. 🙂 Possibly the name “Texas smile” came from one of those old cowboy movies my doctor saw, who knows? But that’s what my Costa Rican surgeon called it when, because of the cut nerve, I cannot lift the left side of my lips when I smile. But I’m not sneering! 🙂 Just not functioning normally and hopefully with some exercise we can call up some other nerves to help left that side a little more than now, but no promises. Same hope for blinking and closing my left eye which is burning most of the time now because I cannot blink or close it. In fact that is even more important to me! At night I now use an eye patch and put an ointment in my eye. My two big challenges before we even find out if the tumor was a cancer. Hopefully I will not permanently be “the sneering, one-eyed Charlie!” But if so, I’ll make the best of it! 🙂
The scabs on my lip are where the dermatologist removed growths earlier and they are just slow to heal. And of course I can’t shave on my left side with cheek and neck swollen and sore, so I’m an ugly mess! Like an old house or old car, everything breaking down at once! 🙂
Drainage Tube Removed Tomorrow
At least I have that to look forward to! Tomorrow afternoon the doctor sees me again and says he will remove the drainage tube which is a real bother. Then I think I will have one other post-op visit in another week when I will learn if cancer or not and what else we need to do. So seemingly always something else, but we are getting there – step by step.
Drainage tube from my neck to a little plastic bottle until tomorrow afternoon.
Dinner Delivered to My House Every Afternoon
The ladies of Roca Verde have been wonderful! Delivering a “soft” food dinner each evening that will continue into next week. I’m really getting the “royal treatment” from my neighbors! And its looking like enough leftovers for more extra meals than I will likely need. This is the life of being “Retired in Costa Rica!”
Plus Prayers from Around the World!
I’m so thankful to have so many friends and family around the world who believe in prayer and have assured me they are praying for no cancer and a quick and complete recovery. Wow! I’m a fortunate person in so many ways! 🙂
It is Wednesday afternoon and I got home about noon today from Hospital La Católica in downtown San Jose, our big, busy congested city and National Capital, about an hour and half drive in reality, though most people say about an hour. 🙂 I have no car and thus use my regular drivers here for the hospital trips.
Total Parotidectomy
A parotidectomy is the surgical excision (removal) of the parotid gland, the major and largest of the salivary glands. The procedure is most typically performed due to neoplasms (tumors), which are growths of rapidly and abnormally dividing cells. Neoplasms can be benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous). ~Wikipedia
Note that this was the official surgery but the growth extended into the lymph nodes in my neck which were also removed. And I came home with a drainage tube coming out of the left side of my neck.
The best specialists for my problems
I am convinced that I had the best cancer surgeon for this job in Dr. Christian Hernández who specializes in only cancers in the head an neck. He also used a super gerontologist for my pre-op exams and then when we developed a side-affect with the severed nerve he brought in a lady ophthalmologist who may be the best in the country to help with my left eye problem which I will try to explain below.
A Nearly 7-hour Surgery
He said more than 6.5 hours or nearly seven hours and was very tedious going the full length of the left side of my face. He did the kind of thing you might expect from a younger doctor, while explaining it to me he pulls out his cell phone with brilliant blood red photos of what he found in the parotid gland, pointing out a section of the facial nerve that was surrounded by tumor and could not be saved. (No, I don’t have the photo to show.) Then he followed the tumor down to the lymph nodes which he said is a common occurrence. He believes he removed every bit of it but can’t say for positive that it is or isn’t cancer until the biopsy report next week.
A Bad Photo of what I look like right now
Face after removal of salivary gland & lymph nodes.
Cancer? Probably – Know with Biopsy Next Week
He has seen enough of these to believe it is a cancer and one of two types, but will not know for sure until the biopsy report he will explain to me next week. And if what he thinks it is the additional treatment will not be chemo but radiation therapy called radioterapia here. Thus I will know more specifics next week. In the meantime it is what it is.
How do I feel?
Is what everyone asks and it almost seems like a “loaded question” to me, but I will still try to explain. With that long a surgery I was in and out of sleep all day Monday and into the night when I think I became more aware of things and that my left eye would not close. The only pain I’ve had thus far has been what feels like a “sore throat.” Pain medication has kept me from hurting.
Tuesday I slowly got back to “normal” or at least eating soft food and having bodily functions. I felt pretty good when they wheel-chaired me to the adjacent office building to see the ophthalmologist though she did a couple of things to my eyes that hurt a little, she was finding out that the only nerve in my eye that seems to be not functioning is one of those that helps control the eyelid and we may be able to work with other nerves to get it to close naturally again.
The other problem is the facial nerve controls the left side of my mouth and smile, so Dr. Hernández said I now have a “Texas Smile,” with the lips turning up only on the right side, or maybe a one-sided smirk? The surgeon says that some mouth exercises may help left the left side of my smile and help with managing the food in my mouth which I now can’t control on the left side, making it slower and more difficult to eat! Got to fix that! 🙂
And of course the left side of my face is swollen now and for a few more days.
But I’m generally in good spirits and hopeful for a more functional recovery of everything. And I will keep you posted on this blog.
Something I’ve always enjoyed is catching a bird with live food like this Anhinga with a fish at Caño Negro Reserva on that river in the feature photo at top.
Anhinga fishing in Caño Negro Reserva, Costa Rica
If all goes according to the doctor’s plans I am today at home still recuperating from surgery and hope to give more “live updates” in the next 2 or 3 days. Thanks for putting up with a week of “pre-scheduled” blog posts! I hope to be current again by the end of this week.
While I’m still in the hospital recuperating from surgery today, please take a walk through my garden via a slideshow of flowers that were blooming last Wednesday, 10 March.
Red Ginger
Maraca Plant
Torch Ginger or El bastón de emperador
Bougainvillea
Desert Rose
TriquiTraque
Blue Plumbago
Heliconia
Crown of Thorns
Golden Shrimp Plant
Nance
And if you like flowers, check out my gallery: Flora & Forest.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
– Audrey Hepburn
¡Pura Vida!
By Wednesday or Thursday I hope to give a report on my health. This was another “Pre-published” blog post done before I went in for surgery. I’m not home with my computer yet.
That is what I said about this particular pix when the way the Montezuma Oropendola perched in relation to the tree limb with both in focus is not always the way my bird photo come together! 🙂 But this one did!
And since this is the morning of my serious 6-hour surgery to remove a cancer from the left side of my head, I am praying that this surgery too “will all come together” for a successful removal of all cancer! Thanks for your prayers! No updated posts on my health for probably 3 days or more! 🙂 But here is where I will post it first!
