gall bladder – Ex-pats in Mexico

Costa Rica, Living overseas, Retirement, San Diego, Travel

UPDATE 5, last in a series!

Gotta give credit to James, the American Airlines agent who re-booked our cancelled trip to Costa Rica at no additional cost! We’re all set to fly from San Diego to San Jose on Tuesday, March 13, and get this show back on the road where it belongs.

Leslie has almost fully recovered from the ordeal that landed her in the hospital last month. Many thanks to the nurses and other staff at Sharp Urgent Care and Sharp Memorial Hospital, especially those in the Emergency Department and Acute Care 7-West. We deeply appreciate Dr. Watt, who runs a great ER; Dr. Ghafourian, the incredible hospital-based internist; and Dr. Bench, the skilled surgeon who removed Leslie’s gall bladder.

Our extended time in San Diego has been terrific because we’ve been with our daughter Stephanie for a little over a month. We’ve been to some excellent East Village restaurants and Stephanie has enjoyed quite a few home-cooked meals.

Leslie and I have also had time to talk about the rest of the journey. We plan to be tourists in Italy for a few weeks, then live in southern France for six weeks or so. But now we think there may be time to sneak in a few weeks in Portugal, which wasn’t on our initial list but sounds like it’s worth a look. The original plan was to return to the Chicago area in the summer to see family and friends, as well as several physicians, and decide where we will live from now on. That may still happen, but we’re also re-thinking Uruguay. We might just head down there in November and December to check it out, and push decision-making to January 2019. We’re nothing if not flexible!

Next post from Jacó, on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.

*The downside to leaving is saying good-bye to Lewis (right) and Piper.*

Living overseas, Retirement, San Diego, Travel

UPDATE 4

Good news! Leslie saw her surgeon today (Thursday, Feb. 27) for a follow-up. He says she is “good to go.” Her recovery is actually a bit ahead of schedule, as he sees it. She’s really looking forward to a glass of wine with dinner tonight!

Now we can reschedule our Costa Rica trip and get this show back on the road. It’s just a matter of working with the airline to find a good date for heading south, and I will do that soon. We have accommodations lined up beginning March 10, so we’ll be shooting for something between now and March 9.

I’ll post when we have a departure date. Thanks again for your prayers!

Retirement, San Diego, Travel

UPDATE 3

Leslie was pretty out-of-it the day after her gall bladder removal, but she was better the second day and is making steady progress. There was some minor pain at first, which we expected, but after the second day she did not need the prescribed pain pills. She’s being a bit more careful about meals now, but we were already following a fairly low-fat diet so there won’t be any dramatic changes.

She has a follow-up appointment with Dr. Bench on Tuesday, Feb. 27. That’s when we’ll know how quickly we can resume our search for a place to retire.

Thanks to all who posted comments, especially those who’ve already been through this process and had the surgery. It was comforting to hear from you. Leslie and I appreciate your support and prayers.

Next post after the medical follow-up!

One of the big benefits of living in San Diego County: On a Saturday afternoon in mid-February, we were able to join these folks and their best friends at the Del Mar Dog Beach. We had no dog, so we just enjoyed watching. The good people who now own our former Westmont home probably had to shovel snow.

Living overseas, Retirement, San Diego, Travel

UPDATE 2

Tuesday, Feb. 13. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow, but Leslie has already given up her gall bladder for Lent.

The surgery went about as expected. Dr. Bench used a robot to remove her gall bladder laparoscopically. The procedure took about 45 minutes. He said the gall bladder definitely needed to come out, since there were some gallstones still in there waiting to drift out and cause more problems. After she spent a couple of hours in recovery, Stephanie and I brought her home. Full recovery in about two weeks.

In that time, we will work on getting back on track. We should be in Costa Rica by March 10, maybe sooner if everything falls into place.

Thanks for all your prayers. More to come…

Living overseas, San Diego, Travel

UPDATE

In the last post I said Leslie was tentatively scheduled for surgery on Saturday, Feb. 3. Didn’t happen. Her surgeon, Dr. Bench, didn’t like her test results, He preferred to wait until she recovered more fully from acute pancreatitis, which is what landed her in the hospital. And by the way, Dr. Bench was busy saving someone’s life in the ER for most of Saturday morning.

So Leslie was released from Sharp Memorial Hospital on Sunday, Feb. 4. We’re bunking with our daughter Stephanie temporarily. Leslie’s gall bladder removal is now set for Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 13. If there’s no further delay, we should be able to resume our travels in early March.

Another update post-surgery…

*With Leslie out of the hospital, we were able to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary Feb. 6 at Bluewater Boathouse Grill on Coronado Island. She looks great, doesn’t she?*

Europe, Living overseas, Retirement, San Diego

A slight delay

“Mom, if you wanted to stay with me longer all you had to do was ask,” said our daughter Stephanie as she and I hovered over Leslie’s bed in the emergency room.

No, we’re not in Costa Rica. There’s been a slight delay and we’re still in San Diego. But while I’m staying in Stephanie’s guest room, Leslie is a patient at Sharp Memorial Hospital on the city’s north side. I’ll try to make a complicated story as concise as possible.

After suffering with abdominal pain all day Monday (Jan. 29), Leslie asked me to take her to Urgent Care on Tuesday morning (Jan. 30), just to make sure she was OK to get on an airplane to Costa Rica the following day. Urgent Care did some tests and sent her to the ER at Sharp Memorial, where she was admitted with acute pancreatitis — probably caused by passing a gallstone Monday (hence the pain) — as well as pneumonia.

*Just one of the devices Leslie has been hooked up to. She would not agree to pose for a photo.*

Since then they have pumped her full of antibiotics and other meds. As of Friday (Feb. 2) afternoon, her condition has improved to the point where a surgeon may be able to remove her gall bladder Saturday morning, tentatively at 9:30 a.m. The gastroenterologist who treated her in the ER said her gall bladder was “full of sludge” and she might have more stones in the future. We agreed that doing the surgery now will help avoid the possibility of throwing another gallstone while we’re on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!

There are some positives here. First, we’re in San Diego where Stephanie can be with her mom, and where doctors and nurses speak English. Second, Leslie’s room is on the seventh floor of the acute care wing with an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean. Well, it’s several miles away, but you can see it if you look closely. And the sunsets are super!

Sunset-2093 — *The view from Leslie’s hospital room. That’s California Highway 163 in the foreground. Across the freeway is the Kearney Mesa area of San Diego, and the ocean is in the distance.*

We have cancelled the first part of our trip to Costa Rica, the house in Atenas, but everything else is unsettled. We hope to rearrange accommodations in the beach town of Jacó so we can arrive March 1 and leave April 10. That way we can still evaluate Costa Rica as a possible retirement location, but give Leslie plenty of time to heal and still take the cruise to Europe.

More to come…