St. Nick's Day

It's Dec. 6 which is St. Nick's Day in Denmark, I believe. St. Nick is also the patron saint of our nearby village, San Nicolas de Ibarra. It's 12:30 am and a band has been playing since midnight. Of course the church bells were ringing at 6:30 am, along with the rockets booming.  The rockets, ohh, there's go some now! have been going off periodically throughout the day. There's quite a few now. How does Carole sleep through all this? BTW, the celebrating goes on for NINE DAYS! She's probably awake now, thinking she'll wait them out, and that she doesn't want to get out of her warm bed. There's no heat here. We are using an electic/oil portable radiator space heater in the evenings. It seems to work now. We get a lot of sunshine/heat via our southern exposure in the alcove part of our living room ("sunroom") through our large expanse of glass windows and door. I think I've got it all figured out this winter. It's all quiet now...

We've been going with our close friend Sandy to her chemo treatments, which are every third Saturday. She has the most wonderful doctors. Our first time was when she went for her second treatment. Her surgeon was with her, talking to her all throughout her 90 minute treatment. Her actual chemo doctor came later and spent about 60 minutes with her and the other doctor. The two doctors are sweet caring people. Sharon introduced Carole and me and the doctors engaged us warmly. I am impressed. Last Saturday was Sandy's third chemo treatment and Dr. Salas, her chemo doc was there too. He spent about half of his time with Sandy and they also worked out her treatment so that she could go on the 10 day Guatemala trip that the four of us are taking this coming January.

Dr. Salas is a breast cancer specialist and last month was invited to participate in a cancer symposium in Austria. He spent about 30 to 40 minutes with Sharon, Carole and me and of course we talked about cancer issues. He showed us many pictures of severe breast cancer tumors on women that come to him for treatment. They have waited way, way too long. A couple of them I had to turn away from. Dr. Salas says these are the kinds of patients that he sees every day. I don't know how he does it.  He says it about educating the public,  and progress is slow but beginning to pick up. How does a woman or her husband look at that horrible cancer and wait as long as they do before seeing a doctor? I asked Dr. Salas if women were self conscious about seeing a male doctor about breast issues. Most doctors in Mexico seem to be male. He said that that was part of it. Education. The key to everything.

Most Mexican people are sweet and easy going. Then they get in their cars and they change! Almost everyone on the road is going to slowly for them. They will pass you in a second! Sometimes a little too close for comfort. Stop signs, speed limit signs...those are merely a suggestion. I'm retired. I ease over toward the side and let them pass me. Frequently at a non-signal intersection there are four cars in the intersection! It works out, but it takes awhile and a little courage before you get the rhythm, especially on narrow one way cobble stone streets. We know a couple of 90 year old drivers who are undaunted in local traffic. They even drive into Guadalajara regularly. They are braver than I am at the moment.

It's about 1:30 am now and it's still quiet...shhhh...I think I'll go to bed now.

Hugs and kisses