Following this post will be some updates of a more regular
kind, including photos and travel descriptions. But first I think it
appropriate to explain my absence from the blogging world for the last 2
months.
Unbeknownst to me, life had some stuff in store for us over
the Christmas holidays that we least expected. As a result the blog became
stuffed into the back crevices of my mind and focus switched abruptly to
dealing with life ‘writ large’.
It all started happily enough and truly, until New Years
Eve, all was ticking along merrily. We left South Carolina, on Dec 10th excited
about spending a month in Niagara on the Lake and then continuing our journey
on Jan 11. The plan then was to take our time time getting to Texas, travelling through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, stopping to explore various cities and sites along
the way. The upshot is we left Niagara on the Lake on Feb 3rd, raced
down to pick up the rig in South Carolina on Feb 4th and then had a
marathon drive through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana
and Texas, with short stops for quick sleeps and one 2 hour stop to visit an
interpretive centre on the Montgomery-Selma Freedom highway. I will now explain
the reasons.
On Dec 31, while Derek was planning to go and pick up some
new specs, I thought I would walk into the village of Niagara on the Lake for a
bit of retail therapy (as if Christmas hadn’t been enough!!). As I walked
along, a piece of ice, unseen through a light covering of snow, caused me to
accomplish an unplanned Olympic-style double back flip, but I didn’t quite
stick the landing. Instinctively I furtively looked around for unwanted witnesses. Phew, not a soul in sight. I am unsure to this day how I managed to stand
up and 'try' to sweep myself of snow., when I realized that my arm was not
co-operating, and my mouth was twisted in an agonized yelp… a quick stagger
home to our rented cottage and a painful, but swift drive to the hospital
(thank goodness Derek hadn’t left the cottage yet!). The upshot was a break in both the
ulna and radius near the wrist, which were displaced, so they knocked me out and re-aligned
the bones. … OUCH!! Cast from fingers to elbow. Travel plans in danger… I was
not a happy camper to say the least. Especially as Santa had bought me new golf
clubs!!!!
Life was not finished with me yet however. A few days later,
a call came in from my doctor. Some routine skin tests that I had not been in the
least concerned about, and which I thought frankly to be unnecessary at the time had
revealed that I was now going to have to deal with a malignant melanoma on my
neck. Sometimes things actually do happen to you that you think only happen to
others, and quite frankly it sucks!!
It is amazing how, and I know many of you will have already
have experienced this, one’s philosophy on life changes when cancer decides to
take ride on your body. I am fortunate. This malignancy had not spread, as far
as they could tell, and local surgery later that same week appears to have removed it all.
It is only recently, and since arriving in Texas, that I
have fully digested what happened and, quite frankly it is scary. I would like
to take a moment to encourage all of you reading this to go to your doctor if
you have any marks on your skin that are new, or changed in any way, don’t hesitate. While many skin cancers
do not spread readily, malignant melanoma is the worst kind, and is very
aggressive. It spreads easily and
quickly. So please take my advice… don’t delay!!!!
Now back to the arm… one of the unfortunate realities is
that, along with such a bad break, one has to deal with damaged and torn
ligaments in the hand and wrist, so driving is out of the question. I am now
over six weeks in and the pain is still impressive, but far improved. After 4
weeks in the cast we explained to the surgeon that we were hoping to get back to our
‘condo’ in South Carolina, so he agreed to remove the cast early and put a
removable splint on instead. And so it remains… slowly healing. I feel so very lucky,
and indeed I am. Poor Derek has had to cope with me - a caged type-A
personality, while he is driving, cooking, dressing me and dealing with my mood
swings (well .. he is used to that part, I guess!!!).
So the Christmas holidays were quite an eventful time. The
wonderful part was staying in a fabulous cottage in Niagara on the Lake and
spending lots of time with two of our boys. We also had the opportunity to see
many friends and are so grateful for all the support we received during some of
the tougher moments. We did in fact have an extremely joyous time in so many ways.
I am going to start on the blog again now, and will compose
some updates, which will describe our travels, with a few photos, from when we
left South Carolina on Dec 10th until we arrived here in Texas on
Feb 6th. So check back over the next couple of days and you will see some
postings dated earlier than this one... but they will be new posts. In the
meantime stay in touch everyone.
“start today, use what you have, do what you can”.
Great day sightseeing. Five of us left late morning and we stopped for a photo-op at a bridge over the Padernales to, once again, show in photo form the extent of the drought conditions here in this part of Texas. Docks are now on land instead of water and litter the banks of the water-starved river. 
After the photo-op we headed straight for the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, Tx. Breila and Mychael wanted to see Longhorn cattle, so we did a drive around until we spotted some. They were across a field, but we stopped for a few photos before continuing the drive around the ranch. Derek and I will be coming back to spend more time here in the next week or so, and will describe it in more detail then. We bought the CD driving guide which helped us appreciate the history and feel for the ranch. What a place to have called home. 
