On Saturday, May 11, we had a Celebration of Life service for my beautiful wife Leslie, who died of cancer on March 20 in Nashville. Our dear friend and retired United Methodist pastor The Rev. Michelle McKinnon-Young officiated. It was in the clubhouse of our condo complex in Ajijic, Mexico, with a reception in our home. I’m posting a video of that service because there are some followers who may want to see it. It runs a little over an hour.
My apologies for the poor audio quality. We had some difficulty with the sound system, and there is a lot of ambient noise because the clubhouse is wide open on three sides, so you hear chirping birds and other noises.
Many thanks to my good friend Kim Shelly for his excellent videography:
This is the end for our blog and it will probably be the worst post you have seen, because I’ve lost my editor. Leslie, my long-time traveling partner and my beautiful wife of 31 years, died Wednesday, March 20, of metastatic endometrial cancer at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville. The cancer came back, and it came back in a big and awful way.
Since returning to our home in Mexico in early January she had been growing stronger, hitting the gym four days a week to walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes. Then around February 20, she developed diarrhea. It got better, then came back. Then she started wheezing and had shortness of breath, as well as pain in the upper right quadrant of her abdomen, mostly after eating.
She was scheduled for her first three-month checkup at Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida, during the first week in March, and had several other appointments set up during that week, including with a primary care physician. But that doctor was ill and cancelled Leslie’s Monday appointment, so we went to the emergency room for the symptoms mentioned above as well as a distended belly. Doctors did a CT scan and diagnosed her with pneumonia and a large hematoma on her liver. They were stunningly wrong. And they did absolutely nothing to treat her.
Rather than go home at the end of the week we flew to Nashville, where Leslie planned to have all her future checkups. She saw a nurse practitioner in gynecology/oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The NP sent Leslie to the ER, where she got another CT scan. This one showed lesions in her abdomen, and the Vanderbilt doctors feared there was a mass on her liver instead of a hematoma. A day later, a PET scan confirmed a large, fast-growing tumor on her liver that was pushing upward on her lung, which caused the wheezing. There was also a buildup of fluid filled with “innumerable” malignant ascites. The doctor said this was like someone had thrown rice into Leslie’s abdomen and each grain was expanding.
Doctors were encouraged by a mutation in the tumor. They hoped immunotherapy might help shrink the tumor and buy Leslie some time. But she never made it to the first infusion. Early that Wednesday morning she slipped away peacefully in her sleep. Stephanie and I were by her side. We are heartbroken. Everything happened so quickly. In just three months, she went from being “in remission” to being a victim of a highly aggressive cancer.
We are grateful for the care Leslie received from the team at Vanderbilt. If you would like to honor Leslie, please feel free to click on this link: https://give.vanderbilthealth.org/give/246900/#!/donation/checkout Under the question “What would you like your donation to support?” please select “Greatest needs at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.”
The family held a party for Leslie on Tuesday, March 26, at Stephanie’s home in Nashville. Many of Steph’s friends and co-workers came. We ate food and drank wine. When I told some of Leslie’s friends we were doing that, three of them said, “Yep, that’s Leslie. She would love it.”
According to her wishes, we will be holding a slightly more formal Celebration of Life for Leslie in early May at our home in Ajijic. Our dear friend and retired United Methodist pastor Michelle will officiate.
It’s going to take me a long time to learn how to travel without Leslie by my side — if I’m able to do that. So I am closing out this travel blog. I will leave everything up for the rest of 2024, and if anything exciting happens I will post again. But I believe this is the end. Thank you for following us over the past eight years. Adios!
Leslie’s friends had so many amazing things to say about her. One said, “She lives on in the lives of those she extended herself to in love, ever changed because we knew her.” But everybody said she had the greatest smile! You can see that here.
The Braathen Center in Weston, Florida, home of Cleveland Clinic’s Maroone Cancer Center. Leslie’s infusions take place on the third floor.
I promised to keep everybody informed as Leslie and I begin this journey of chemotherapy. I just thought I would be writing something different.
At this point we expected Leslie would have breezed through the first two infusions of chemotherapy. However, the side effects from the first infusion hit like a speeding train. We anticipated nausea and vomiting, but it was minor. We anticipated exhaustion and loss of feeling in the fingertips, and those came as expected. We anticipated hair loss, and that is continuing.
What we didn’t expect was diarrhea so bad it caused extreme dehydration. Just a few days after the infusion, Leslie was taken to the Cleveland Clinic Emergency Department with dehydration and extremely low blood pressure. Doctors admitted her to the hospital where she stayed six days and came home weak and unable to walk more than a few steps — about what you would expect after being in a hospital bed for almost a week.
Back in our temporary quarters, she seemed to be improving. But after just two days at home, she checked her temperature one night and had a fever of 101.6F. We followed the post-infusion protocols which stipulated going to the ED for a temperature that high, thinking they would give her antibiotics and send her home. Unfortunately, the doctors couldn’t find a source of infection so she was admitted once again and stayed three more days, getting a platelet transfer to help her get through the second infusion.
The third day in the hospital was because Leslie tested positive for COVID-19. Of course, so did I. Neither of us had any of the traditional symptoms, except a bad cough. And this is when we were moving into more long-term quarters.
Because of the side effects from the first infusion, we were afraid of being too far from the hospital. So we opted against going to a friend’s condo in western Florida because it’s a 90-minute drive from the Cleveland Clinic campus in Weston. Instead, we got an AirBnB just 30 minutes from the hospital in a quiet neighborhood north of Fort Lauderdale.
Our temporary home in Fort Lauderdale’s Imperial Point neighborhood.
The second infusion was scheduled for July 27. Based on what happened after the first, her oncologist has revised the plan. Starting today (August 3), she will get one-third of a normal dose once a week for three weeks. Only one hour in the chair as opposed to three. So the schedule now is three weeks of treatment on Thursdays followed by one week off to let her body recover. Then three more weeks for Dose #3 and so on. Her doctor believes that will help prevent a recurrence of the side effects. The downside is we will most likely be here in Florida through Christmas.
Despite all that, Leslie is feeling positive and is focused on finishing the course of treatment to prevent cancer from coming back. She believes God has her in the palm of His hand. She’s getting stronger every day and is delighted to have a nice pool in the back yard of our temporary home to do some water exercises. She’s also getting regular visits from home health nurses and a physical therapist.
We’re looking forward to getting back home to México as soon as possible.
Leslie is doing physical therapy exercises in our pool.
Thank you for your comments about the new landscaping in the back of our house. Leslie and I are really enjoying the bright colors. If you saw the video, you may remember there’s also an herb garden. We’ve finished the green leaf lettuce Enrique planted there, and we’ve enjoyed several great zucchinis! It’s really nice to have fresh parsley, thyme and rosemary. And I love making pico de gallo (known as Salsa Méxicana here) with fresh cilantro and limes from our own tree.
But we both noticed that the front of the house had very few plants and was, frankly, boring. Then one day, Leslie went up the street to visit our Méxican neighbors, Norberto and Monica. She liked what she saw along the driveway leading up to their house and asked who did the plantings. Norberto, one of the most helpful people I know, arranged for their gardener, Francisco, to take a look at our front garden space. Francisco speaks very little English, so Norberto translated for us and we explained what we wanted done.
We were a little surprised when we came home the next afternoon and found Francisco had already started working on the soil! We didn’t expect such a quick response. Normally, things take time here in México! But he got to work and got the job done in just a few days. Here’s a video:
The new look for the front of our home. Turn the sound on — there is a narrative!
We’ve heard lots of compliments from neighbors who walk past the house on their morning constitutional or walking their dogs. In time, of course, everything will grow and fill in so that you won’t see the dirt. Again, lots of color but some different kinds of flowers. We’re very pleased with how it turned out.
What’s the next project? Stay tuned!
Here’s an amazing photo. On the morning of Aug. 9, Leslie and I were enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper on our iPads when I looked up and saw a water spout over the lake! These are rare but they do happen. This one apparently lasted about half an hour, but I just caught the end of it. I was able to get a couple of photos from our terraza before it faded away.
A rare phenomenon — a water spout, or culebra, over Lake Chapala.
It’s called a culebra in Spanish, and they can move onto land. If that happens it becomes a tromba, which can do a lot of damage. The local paper noted that in 1973, a tromba hit the east end of the lake’s north shore, killing 32 people and destroying many homes. Glad this one stayed over water!
Life is gradually getting back to normal here in Ajijic. Mask-wearing is mandatory only in health care settings and on public transportation. It’s optional everywhere else, and many people choose not to wear a mask. But we have two neighbors who recently tested positive for COVID, so we remain vigilant. We hope to be traveling again soon. One of our neighbors is suggesting a trip to Aguascalientes to visit a few wineries! And we definitely plan to be on the beach for Leslie’s birthday in October!
Yes, we’re still here and going strong. You just haven’t heard anything from Mexico since January, and there are some good reasons. The biggest is health issues — first for Leslie, then for me. I won’t bore you with details but we both spent some time in a hospital. Leslie was very sick in January and February. In mid-March — about the time she got significantly better — I got sicker than I’ve been in my life, and that lasted until early June. Now we’re both doing very well. We have some terrific doctors. Some are not-so-terrific, but you get that in the States too.
The other big reason I haven’t posted anything is because there was nothing to report! Nothing happened in the first few months because we were dealing with other issues. Now, however, I can show you our new landscaping, which includes a super little herb garden.
We hired Enrique and his crew to renovate the gardens, front and back. They put in a variety of flowering plants that should provide color all year ’round. He also reworked our front courtyard and it looks great. We wanted to replace the fountain in front because it was directly in front of the door and a few people almost fell into it when walking away from the door. Plus, it didn’t work anymore.
We thought about moving it and replacing all the tiles in the courtyard. Enrique had a better idea. His crew removed the fountain and replaced it with a tile medallion that gives the courtyard a whole new look while retaining the original tile and saving a lot of money. Enrique also moved a palm tree from the back yard to the front courtyard and added lots of color in the two north corners.
The herb garden includes rosemary, basil, thyme, parsley and tons of cilantro. There’s also some green leaf lettuce and two zucchini plants. I plan to add some jalapeño plants soon.
Here are some videos to show you what the new landscaping looks like. Turn your sound on because I’ve tried to provide some explanation, although I don’t know the names of all the plants. First is the front courtyard:
The new front courtyard. We hope to put some planters on the low walls on either side of the gate.
Next, here are two videos of the back yard. First is the new plantings, and second is a look at the new herb garden and our three fruit trees.
The back yard, including the newly painted fountain that looks MUCH better.
The herb garden and fruit trees.
Leslie and I are enjoying all the color. We’re especially excited that we’ll probably never have to buy cilantro again! We tried to grow it when we lived in San Antonio — too hot. We also tried when we lived in Illinois. No luck there either. It’s going great guns here — but you would expect that, wouldn’t you?
Our timing was excellent on this installation. Enrique’s crew finished just a few weeks before the rainy season began. We get rain here at Lakeside generally from mid-June through the end of October. Most of the time the rains come at night, but this past week we’ve had a few days when it rained all morning. Highly unusual. I actually turned our sprinklers off because we don’t need them right now. It may not rain every night, but there’s rarely a gap of three days between storms.
Some of the big rains come from feeder bands of Pacific hurricanes. Most hurricanes make landfall farther south or they stay out in the Pacific. Some drift north and hit the Baja peninsula. I’m very happy that Fabian and his crew finished sealing the roof before the rains came. We won’t have to do that work again for at least eight to 10 years.
And finally, a picture of Ziggy and Marley:
They’re all grown up now. Just hitting their first birthdays and they can’t share the kitty bed anymore!
I’ll close with some “before” photos of the landscaping so you can see the difference. I hope it won’t be six more months before a new post!
Hasta luego!
The front courtyard as it used to look, with a non-working fountain that was in the way.You can’t see the old fountain. It had horses on it, and didn’t look Mexican at all. Enrique’s guys painted it and now it looks great. Many of the plantings were overgrown and well over 10 years old.
The holidays were very good for us here in Mexico. We enjoyed a visit from our daughter, Stephanie, and we had a great Holiday Open House to show off the home renovations and let Stephanie meet some of our friends and neighbors. Ziggy and Marley liked the attention Steph heaped upon them!
Having the Open House also forced us to get the artwork on our walls. Now we can show you the finished product — part of it, at least.
Here’s a short video showing the living room (no sound this time). We are particularly pleased with how the fireplace turned out:
You may remember there was a lot of purple in the living room, especially on the fireplace. We decided to make the fireplace the same color as the walls and add a row of tiles from our local vendor of Talavera style pottery and art. We hope to put more Talavera artwork in the front courtyard and on the patio. Love the colors!
Here’s what our office/TV room looks like now:
And here’s the guest room and guest bath:
There’s more artwork to install. Deciding how to decorate the master bedroom comes next. But with most of our art on the walls, Leslie and I feel much more “at home” now.
What’s next? Landscaping and an improved front courtyard. We know the fountain in front needs to be moved because it’s right in front of the door and a few people have come close to falling because of its location. We’ll be working soon with a landscaper to develop a plan, ensuring that we have blooming plants all year round and a nice herb garden as well.
A few photos below to show our Christmas decorations. And we hope 2022 will be a better year for everybody!
Hasta luego!
The stockings were hung and the tree was trimmed! A great place for our olive wood Nativity set from Bethlehem.
The front of the house looks great in blue, but we have more work to do before it’s finished. At least there’s no more purple!
Lots of pictures and videos this time, not much text.
Leslie and I have a freshly painted house — inside and out! The painting crew, led by Enrique and Fabian, did a fantastic job. We were most impressed with the cleanup, both during the project and at the end. They even painted the propane tank blue to match the house!
So the outside is finished but the inside is a different story. Now we have to figure out where all the artwork goes. We may need to supplement our collection with a few works by excellent local artists. I’ll post interior photos when we get some of that work done. Hopefully it won’t be too long, but these are tough decisions!
We’re taking a short break from renovation now. Phase 3 should begin in the spring. That’s going to be upgrading the landscaping, much of which is overgrown, and renovating the front courtyard. Any large-scale planting will probably be done in May or June, closer to the beginning of rainy season.
Here’s the back of the house.A reminder of how the house looked when we bought it a little over a year ago.
Ziggy and Marley continue to grow and cause more problems every day. Ziggy loves to chew on our newspapers and on paper towels his fishes out of bathroom trash receptacles. And they both insist on playing with the laces on my hiking boots, which are on the floor in my closet. Do they have real kitty toys? Yes, we bought several! Oh, well.
Marley is definitely a lap cat, and Ziggy is learning as he gets older. They are still just three and four months old.
More next time! Hasta luego!
They just keep getting cuter every day.
Ziggy and Marley love to play-fight with each other. Of course, they’re kittens so they are easily distracted.Some neighbors up the hill threw a party Oct. 31 for Halloween. Several people got their faces painted in the “catrina” style popular here on the Day of the Dead. Here’s Leslie — who got a “glamorous” catrina — with our dear friend Esther.Our neighbors Stephanie (left) and Kate enjoy the Halloween party.
And finally, a whole-sky sunset from a few nights ago, panning from east to west from our “mirador,” a sitting area on the roof designed for exactly this.
We’ve missed sunsets like this one from a few nights ago. They are rare during rainy season, so this may indicate rainy season is over for 2021. Soon, the mountainsides will be turning brown.
The painting on our house is almost done, and soon we’ll have great things to show you. But the big news from here is the two kittens — los gatitos — Leslie and I have adopted! Both males, Ziggy is only about two months old, while Marley is three months.
They came to us as Ziggy and Azafrán — not litter-mates but “best buddies” according to their foster caregivers, Kimrey and Juan. We really liked the name Ziggy, and it fits him! Azafrán is Spanish for “saffron.” It’s a pretty name, but it’s a mouthful so we needed to make a change for him. Many thanks to those who offered lots of great options. Our dear friend Jo-Jo suggested Marley so we would have Ziggy Marley! Thanks, Jo-Jo!
Ziggy (right) and Marley pose in a rare quiet moment.
They are rescues and seem to love their new home. Of course, they’re kittens so everything is a toy! They come from the Lake Chapala Society, which has lush, beautiful grounds and a number of feral cats. These two are from litters born to those cats. Several other kittens were placed, and at least one of the feral cats has now been spayed.
Leslie saw photos of these two on Facebook and just couldn’t wait any longer to have cats in the house again. Marley reminds us both of our dear Max and Sam, our companions in Illinois. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching these two grow up, as we did with Max and Sam.
These little guys are constantly playing and wrestling with each other. Of course, that’s what kittens do! They take turns being the aggressor. I shot some video of them play-fighting, but it wouldn’t load properly on the Word Press image gallery.
I hope we can share photos soon of the house transformation. Then Leslie and I will live for several months (we hope) without any renovation going on. There’s still work to do done, but we need a break! We think landscaping will be next, but probably not until spring.
More good news. I have taken on a new volunteer role that’s interesting and doesn’t take a lot of time. I am translating Spanish news articles into English for local weekly newspaper Seminario Laguna. Okay, not really “translating,” more like “editing,” which is what I do best.
The Spanish-language paper has two pages in English. Along with several other volunteers, I take assigned articles in Spanish, translate them into English using DeepL (which is an outstanding online translation tool), then edit the result so it’s more understandable to ex-pats and other English-speakers. I may get a chance to do some writing also.
Finally, a shout-out to the Chicago Sky, who just won their first Women’s NBA championship! It’s a great day for Chicago sports!
More photos next time! Hasta luego!
Napping in the office chair.Sleeping on the couch.
It’s important to patch cracks in the walls before applying paint. This is an outside wall, so water gets into any cracks and creates salitre inside. This is normal in this area, but the repairs should last for several years.
Our home renovation in Mexico continues! Interior painting has started. In about another week, the master bedroom will be pretty much the same color as the new bathroom and the laundry room. That will make the master suite all the same color. The guest bedroom and bath will be a soothing light teal.
But best of all, according to Leslie, is that we’re getting rid of the purple accents in the living/dining room. The main area of our home will be much lighter and brighter, and will accommodate a variety of artwork.
Once the inside has been transformed, Enrique’s crew will start on the outside. We hope everything will be done before the end of the year. Then we’ll turn our attention to the front courtyard and the landscaping.
New front entrance. The doors are made of perota wood, which is beautiful and resistant to termites.
The second phase of our home renovation has begun. All doors and windows have been replaced and the front entrance has been transformed from black metal sliding glass doors to a standard double door with side panels that open to let the breezes through. The fixed panels are now etched glass with a pattern that matches the windows in the new master bathroom.
Here’s the old front entrance. Sliding glass doors. A friend came to see us once and said, “You don’t have a proper front door.” Now we do.
Now we can start painting the house inside and outside, which is the second half of Phase 2.
Interior painting should begin by early September. We have chosen a nice neutral color that looks great with our artwork and rugs. The guest suite will be a nice light teal color with darker teal trim. We’re still debating about a color for the master bedroom.
Exterior painting, a nice light blue with white trim, will have to wait until rainy season is over. That’s probably early November. So we hope Phase 2 will be over by Christmas.
We had several of these around the house, trying to decide which color to use. We went with the big square on the right for the living/dining area and the office. The exterior will be very similar to the small blue square, upper right.
What’s next? Probably landscaping. We have a lot to do in the front because all the large plants were removed for the addition of the new bathroom. We also need to redesign the front patio and move the fountain, which right now is in an awkward place directly in front of the main door. Plants in the back are badly overgrown, so we need to look at that too. At some point, I’m hoping to renovate the office area, which doubles as the family room, or TV room. Phase 3 certainly won’t happen until 2022.
More photos below. Hasta luego!
The guys had trouble getting the old doors removed, so they ended up working pretty late to get everything installed for us.New front entrance from the inside. More privacy, classier look.
Ex-pats in Mexico 