Thursday, December 30, 2021

Recovery Day #188!

Last night I went to bed at 9:15, got up every two hours finally getting up for real at 5am.

I left just after 6am and arrived at Torre Medica #2 in El Tesoro by Didi. I was in the general waiting room next to his Consultorio 1865 by 6:30. The secretary arrived at 6:45 and Dr. Santiago Gomez at 7:10. I went in about 10 minutes later.

He spoke perfect English and was very easy to understand. He looked at my ultrasound result and told me I need a laparoscopic ventral hernia repair with rectus diastasis. It would be a 1 ½ hour out-patient surgery.

He did a physical exam then reported the hernia is larger than the ultrasound revealed. Now it will be a ventral hernial repair followed by a REPA surgery. It will be a 4-hour surgery and may be in-patient if I can’t handle the pain afterward. They will use a 20cm x 20cm mesh to support the area and I will have 1 or 2 drains that will be removed at my second visit 16 days after surgery. It will be 2-5 days before I can start walking and 6 months before I can start exercising. The total cost (on the high side) will be 16,000,000 – 18,000,000 pesos ($4000-$4500). He said there is no problem if I delay my surgery until February. And no taking Omega-3 or Excedrin (aspirin) the last eight days before my surgery.

He gave me his business card: general surgery – gastrointestinal – obesity - advanced laparoscopy

Consulation room: 529-9239 & 320 748-8390

Personal: 311 356-6423.

Since I got out early, I arranged to meet Glenn for breakfast at Ganso y Castor at 9:15. I ordered a Didi car and arrived at the restaurant by 8:45. I had coffee while waiting for Glenn and Bianca to arrive. We had breakfast while discussing various expat problems.

I returned to the apt and a couple minutes later Teresa left to meet Laura and Lenny in El Tesoro.

I closed my online Paypal account and later I’ll open another with my other email address and my brother’s cellphone number.

I left the apt just after noon and walked to the mall. I scanned onto my USB drive my CSC address change request and my Charles Schwab Account Signature Card. I had a burger and fries at Chef Burger followed by a café con leche in Todo Fresa.

Nobraskja texted me that I have two packages and a document to be delivered for 87mil. We agreed I would leave an envelope in the porteria by 7pm.

I bought a couple things in Exito and returned to the apt by taxi. It started raining as I got out of the car.

I uploaded the files from my USB drive to their respective websites so now I’m done with those.

When the rain almost stopped I made a quick trip to the porteria and dropped off the payment envelope for Envios Market.

Lenny, Laura, and Teresa returned at 5:30 and we left again at 7pm to have supper in Wilson’s bar. While there Teresa’s whole family seemed to appear: Vicky, Daniela, James, and others I don’t know or remember. Plus Esmeralda and Alejandro. 

The family...

Laura and Alejandro...

They were all going to take a chivas bus ride to see the Christmas lights but I took a Didi car back to the apt.

The portero handed me my mail as I entered the porteria.

I had 4 pieces of mail:

1)  A Social Security change of address confirmation for my previous address in Weston, Florida.

2)  A notice from General Dynamics that my CSC pension will now come from MetLife sent to my previous address in Weston, Florida.

3)  A book I ordered from Barnes & Noble sent to my new address in Miami, Florida.

4) An Amazon order was sent to my new address in Miami, Florida.

I went to bed at 10pm.

 

The New York Times’ 7-day average of new daily infections and deaths has the US with 267,305 ð 301,472 ð 346,767 new cases and 1,243 ð 1,207 ð 1,275 new deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of yesterday, Colombia has a total of 4,306 ð 6,326 ð 8,436 new cases with 35 ð 33 ð 35 new deaths. Medellin has 1,184 ð 1,419 ð 1,933 new cases from December 29^th to 30^th. Envigado has 89  ð 101 ð 146 new cases from December 29^th to 30^th.

 

T-shirt of the day

I’m not saying I hate you, but I’d unplug your life support to recharge my phone.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Recovery Day #187!

Last night I went to bed at 11:15, got up twice during the night finally waking at 6:30 (from a truck unloading at Exito next door) and getting up.

I left the apt and walked to Los Porteños arriving by 8:30. I ordered a small café con leche and started reviewing some chess notes. I was loving their music today – oldies from the 70s. David, my waiter, saw me with my chess notes and mentioned he plays chess. Maybe we’ll get together for a game someday. Glenn arrived with Bianca by 9:15. He suggested I set up a new Paypal account with a different email address. (I agree but it has to be done with a US cellphone number.) We discussed our Sunday breakfasts, and he mentioned he misses Sere’s French toast. We decided we will go there next Sunday and probably again the 1^st Sunday of each month. The other Sundays we’ll frequent our local Ganso y Castor. We also discussed how we could share a MS Office account in the future.

I picked up a head of broccoli and lettuce on my way back to the apt.

I still have a few ADs from my last package so I’ve been wearing them at night. On our trip to Santafe de Antioquia I brought only MPs which I wore for 24-hours only changing them with my underwear in the morning after taking my shower. That seems to be working well so I will continue that after I finish my remaining ADs.

An overcast cool day; only 76 degrees when I left the apt at 1:30. I walked to the mall and printed some things at Auros. I also had a laminated color copy made of my new cedula. Outside Exito at the zapateria (shoe repair) I dropped off my Teva sandals to be repaired and one of Teresa’s that was missing whatever you call the pin that fits into the holes. I understood they should be ready in 7-10 days and I paid 51mil ($13) in advance. Just then a rainstorm started. Inside the mall I had a café con leche with an almond croissant at Santa Leña. When I left I checked Cine Colombia but nothing had changed. In Exito I picked up a large container of eggs and was heading for the dairy dept when a couple young girls pushing a cart tried to give me a small package of what looked like cheese crackers and a small bottle of water. I understood they were complimentary, but I said, “no thank you”. One of the girls replied in English that they were a way of saying, “thank you”. I told her I would like to but I have too many things to carry. I picked up 2 bags of milk and a bag of tomatoes and checked out. I had the eggs in one hand and my notebook plus the grocery bag in the other.

There was a short wait for a taxi to return to the apt.

Wow, I saw we broke 4,000 pesos to the dollar.

In the afternoon I did some work on the computer as well as watching a couple episodes of Seinfeld.

I have a 7am doctor’s appointment in El Tesoro so I went to bed at 9pm.

 

The New York Times’ 7-day average of new daily infections and deaths has the US with 267,305 ð 301,472 new cases and 1,243 ð 1,207 new deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of yesterday, Colombia has a total of 4,306 ð 6,326 new cases with 35 ð  33 new deaths. Medellin has 1,184 ð 1,419 new cases from December 28^th to 29^th. Envigado has 89  ð 101 new cases from December 28^th to 29^th.

T-shirt of the day

It’s me, Mario.

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Recovery Day #186!

Exactly 6 months from my surgery. You’ve come a long way baby!

After breakfast I started working on my Microsoft problem. I tried everything: clearing my cache, restarting my computer, even changing my bank address to my brother’s address. Nothing worked. I texted Glenn asking where he was and if he could help me. He replied he was having breakfast at Ganso y Castor. I asked him to wait for us and Lenny and I soon left the apt and met him there. After talking over my problem he suggested I set up a VPN so whoever I contact with my computer will think I’m in the US.

When I returned to the apt I purchased a 1-year subscription to his recommended VPN, Express VPN, for $99.95. I turned it on and tried to purchase MS Office 365 again but got the same error. I rebooted and tried again with the same result.

I texted Glenn again and this time he recommended I try a different browser. I remember Inter-Col and the US embassy recommending I use Google Chrome so I tried that and this time it worked. I bought a 1-year Microsoft Office 365 Family subscription for $99.99 and gifted one of my licenses to Juan.

I guess I needed the VPN and Google Chrome but not sure if I needed to set my account to my brother’s address. I’ll try changing that later and see what happens.

At least now I can use Word & Excel again. I’m back in business – now to update my bank account purchases and my blog.

Lenny and Laura left about 4:30 to check into the Dann Carlton.

We took a nap for about an hour.

About 5:30 Laura invited us to join them for dinner at the Dann Carlton. That would be Tony Roma’s which she said opens at 7pm. I told her I would love too but I didn’t want to be eating too late.

Teresa took a shower and did her nails and we left at 7:15. Our Didi driver took us to the Dann Carlton hotel in little traffic. In the lobby Teresa ran into a girl she knew from the gym named Adriana with a gringo named Steve from, based on his accent, somewhere in the south. We chatted a bit then Lenny and Laura met us in the lobby waiting area.

They took us up to the 14^th floor to show us their room which, although not very large, had a great view of the lights of northwestern Medellin.

We went up to the top floor to Tony Roma’s where we were not allowed in because we didn’t have a reservation. We went back down to the lobby to an Italian restaurant. They gave us pasta menus and also Mexican menus because that is their theme of the month.

We returned to the apt by Didi. Teresa was taking off her new dress when she discovered she still had the tag on. She told me a story of Vicky getting all dressed up and going out. She got quite a bit of attention only to find out later that she had her dress on backward or inside out (I couldn’t understand which).

After doing my exercises and some reading I went to bed at 11:15.

 

The New York Times’ 7-day average of new daily infections and deaths has the US with 267,305 new cases and 1,243 new deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of yesterday, Colombia has a total of 4,306 new cases with 35 new deaths. Medellin has 1,184 new cases from December 27^th to 28^th. Envigado has 89 new cases from December 27^th to 28^th.

 

T-shirt of the day

Today has been cancelled. Go back to bed.

Monday, December 27, 2021

Recovery Day #185!

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, fell asleep quickly, got up once during the night, woke up at 7:30, did my Kegel exercises, and got up.

We had our usual breakfast buffet downstairs by the pool. This time I had calentao with scrambled eggs. Teresa had breakfast earlier with her mother.

When Teresa came down about noon she told me Wilson has already packed my stuff. I told her I didn’t like someone else touching my things. I went up to our room and sure enough almost everything was packed but behind the front door I had 3 pairs of used underwear and shorts that were missed. I repacked some things and brought everything down to the pool area. I asked Teresa where my keys are to our apt. When I last saw them before breakfast they were sitting on the table. She went through my bags and didn’t find them but she found her set of keys. I told her that’s enough we’ll look again when we return to the apt.

Lenny, Wilson, and I separately paid our bills for things we had charged to our room. Mine was 254,500 pesos ($64).

Carlos, our English-speaking driver, picked us up at 1pm. At first he seemed to get lost trying to get out of Santafe. I turned on Waze and by then we were following instructions in both English and Spanish. We heard his car “bottom out” whenever we went over any kind of bump. I suggested he add some air to his tires but he insisted it was something else.

On the way back we stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. I helped him screw and glue his back bumper back on. We had a decent lunch and were back on the road.

Somehow I mentioned that I was trying to get a visitor visa for Teresa. He mentioned that he has a cousin (niece?) that works for US immigration in Boston. Maybe she can help speed up our process.

Traffic was heavy once we entered Medellin.

Back at the apt I asked Teresa to carefully go through all her bags because my keys have to be somewhere in our stuff. I finally found them in a pocket of my tech bag. I know she put them there because if I did the packing the keys would obviously go in my pants pocket.

For supper we used Rappi to order chicken from Frisby.

 

T-shirt of the day

Normal people scare me.

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Recovery Day #184!

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, fell asleep quickly, got up once during the night, woke up at 7:30, did my Kegel exercises, and got up. Today Teresa was up just before me and headed out to visit her mother.

Obviously it rained overnight as everything around the pool area is wet.

I logged into Chess.com and found this message, “You may have as little as 30 minutes remaining in one or more of your Daily Chess games and because you are a Premium Member your account has been automatically set to "Vacation". Please login soon and continue your games!”

I thought I had finished all my games and purposely hadn’t started any new ones. My best guess is one of my opponent’s challenged me to a game but I have yet to accept it.

I checked out the area around the pool and found additional electrical outlets in the pool room and the other side of the swimming room.

I connected my laptop and received this “Product Deactivated” message when I entered my Word file for this year’s blog notes.

Same thing for my Excel spreadsheet I use to monitor my checking account. Drat!

My Microsoft account was set up 2 years ago by my Spanish teacher Juan Cardona. He had a license which allowed him to give me a free subscription.

I was heading to our room when I almost tripped when the soul of my left Teva sandal separated.

For lunch we went to El Porton which had the walls decorated with lots of paintings:

I’m not sure of the meaning of the words at the top of their menu. Lol.

After our late lunch I headed back to the hotel while the others went on to walk more around Santafe. I got my laptop and set it up on the far side of the pool and logged into NFL Game Pass. I enjoyed the game because the Bears beat the Seattle Seahawks with their 3^rd string quarterback in the last minute 25-24.

 

T-shirt of the day

I’m happy when you talk to me.

Saturday, December 25, 2021

Merry Christmas!

Recovery Day #183!

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, fell asleep quickly, got up once during the night, woke up at 7am, did my Kegel exercises, and got up.

First challenge was trying to figure out how their “suicide shower” works.

http://johnnyvagabond.com/travel-tips/survive-suicide-shower/

This one was neatly set up but I couldn’t figure out their instructions for setting the correct temperature, but I managed with whatever I did.

Even though they had the instructions in English it didn't work exactly as they claimed it did.

I was heading downstairs to setup my laptop to work on my blog when Teresa told me MT was hungry, so I volunteered to have breakfast with her. Downstairs they had a nice buffet set up. Not sure if this is for every day or if it’s a Christmas special. I was previewing various stations: eggs cooked as you like, fruits, different breads when I noticed a waffle station and mentioned to MT that I’ll have to get one of those. We picked up coffee and sat down at a table. About 5 minutes later a waitress brought me a waffle – she must be a mind reader.

Lenny and Laura arrived a little later and Wilson and Martha a bit after that.

There were a couple of pretty yellow birds searching for a drink of water:

When everyone had finished eating and our table was cleaned up I finally set up my laptop and logged into the hotel’s wifi which has a decent speed of 30+ Mbps.

I wanted to send Lenny a screenshot of an article about overbreeding of French bulldogs but first I had to download Whatsapp to my computer. I’m so proud I figured it out on my own. 😊

We had lunch at Jumaye in "downtown" Santafe.

Lenny made a trip to the restroom and got one of his first introductions to Colombia: 1. He had to pay 500 pesos to use the restroom, 2. There was no toilet seat, 3. There was a roll of toilet paper but it was outside the stalls - so you better predict how much you need correctly.

After returning to the hotel Laura caught me in an unflattering position.

This historic hotel has a lot of antiques on display.

We hung around the pool area all afternoon but no one went to take a dip.

Lenny and I played a game of 8-ball which he won on the last ball when we were tied. A couple of young girls were hanging around our table, talking and just generally getting in our way. One girl even grabbed one of our moving balls. Later she asked Lenny if I was her grandfather. Snotty nosed kid. I got even by beating Lenny in ping pong 21-17.

Late afternoon we took a quick walk “downtown” to Santafe's plaza and returned to the hotel.

Early evening we walked to the same restaurant, Jumaye, in a slight drizzle. All the inside tables were taken but they set a large table up for us outside and by then the rain was just occasional drops.

Lenny and I shared a pizza, and Martha and Laura did the same. The others ordered a la carte.

We returned to the hotel by 10pm and just hung around the pool some more, the others talking and Lenny and I mainly looking at our phones.

We finally returned to our respective rooms by 10:45.

The New York Times’ 7-day average of new daily infections and deaths has the US with 188,469 ð 190,486  ð 187,990 new cases and 1,656 ð 1,503 ð 1,447 new deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of yesterday, Colombia has a total of 2,475 ð 3,060 ð 3,414 new cases with 54 ð 46 ð 42 new deaths. Medellin has 370 ð 373 ð 412 new cases from December 24^th to 25th. Envigado has 20 ð 43 ð 36 new cases from December 24^th to 25th.

T-shirt of the day

I’d love to go but my dog says no.

Friday, December 24, 2021

Christmas Eve.

Recovery Day #182!

Last night I put on an AD, went to bed at 11pm, fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, my alarm went off at 7am, did my Kegel exercises, and got up.

We had packed most everything the night before. Our taxi driver picked us up at 10am. Most of us brought a large gym bag. I had mine plus my laptop in its bag, my travel chess set and my regular tech bag.

This was our first trip to Santafe de Antioquia in a few years. The roads were in much better shape than before; more like highways than roads although you can still see some construction. We stopped about halfway to use restrooms in a small restaurant. Lenny went into the one marked “ellas” but luckily the place was empty so it didn’t matter. We arrived at Hotel Mariscal Robledo, historical center, by noon but our rooms weren’t ready yet. Wilson, Martha and MT were already there so stored our bags in their rooms.

They were having lunch and we soon joined them.

This hotel is very interesting as it displays a lot of antiques. Sewing machines, cameras, etc.

After lunch I beat Lenny in ping pong 21-18, after he started with a 4-point lead.

About 2:30 we checked into our nicely air-conditioned room, and I changed into my swimming suit. I was hoping I could get to the pool without any signs of dripping, but it didn’t turn out to be a problem.

Lenny and I swam in the pool. Teresa and Laura don’t swim although Lenny plans to get Laura lessons at the YMCA this winter. The water felt great and this is the first exercise I’ve had in a while so that felt good.

We all changed into shorts, light tops and sandals and walked “downtown” to the town square.

Teresa got in the dancing mood and danced with Lenny and even coerced me to dance.

A peek inside an interesting restaurant

Back at the hotel they had a special dinner menu and they had a band that played a mix of Christmas carols and Colombian songs. They weren’t that good, more like a high school band, but the effort was appreciated.

We exchanged gifts for secret Santa. I gave Laura a cute t-shirt and a stand for her cellphone. She gave me at least a dozen pairs of socks. I was happy to see the gifts were mainly inexpensive items.

The beer was flowing pretty good but I went to bed at 10pm and Wilson, Teresa and Martha stayed up.

For the first time I didn’t change the MP in my underwear and went to bed. I wasn’t very comfortable with the hotel’s duvet. It was very thick and heavy. So, my choices were: it was either a little too warm with it or freezing without it. Nevertheless, I quickly fell asleep and didn’t hear when Teresa returned.

 

The New York Times’ 7-day average of new daily infections and deaths has the US with 171,380 ð 188,469 ð 190,486 new cases and 1,348 ð 1,656 ð 1,503 new deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of yesterday, Colombia has a total of 1,931 ð 2,475 ð 3,060 new cases with 52 ð 54 ð 46 new deaths. Medellin has 285 ð 370 ð 373 new cases from December 23^rd to 24^th. Envigado has 19 ð 20 ð 43 new cases from December 23^rd to 24^th.

T-shirt of the day

It’s only fun when everyone will come out to play.