A-Fib Club, Escape from Canada, Pele Perks Up

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

7/25/24

 

Aloha  Everybody --

 

Well, just two days after my 80th birthday train trip in Canada, I joined the not-so-exclusive A-Fib Club.

We were starting to take a hike in Jasper National Park when I felt light-headed and passed out,  I recovered enough to get back to town, but later in the Jasper ER I did it again.  An EKG showed I was in A-Fib -- an extreme form of heart arrhythmia. I was also dehydrated and had contracted Covid a few days earlier, plus something triggered a weird allergic reaction in which my tongue swelled up and my hands and feet itched.  Sound like fun, eh? Both the allergic reaction and Covid symptoms passed quickly, but the A-Fib is still with me -- a surprise birthday present I'd rather not have received.

 

We cut our trip short after a few days in nearby Banff -- a stunningly beautiful place overrun with summertime tourists and unfortunately grey and hazy from wildfires in the area. It was also very hot -- 95d one of the days we were there. We realized that continuing to Utah was out of the question, given the even greater heat there, plus my ticker issues. We managed to cancel our arrangements and fly back to Kona directly from Calgary through Denver.  You may have seen the news about the wildfires in Canada, which just a few days after we were in Jasper burned though the town and caused evacuation of the National Park.  The ER where I received treatment just 10 days ago is possibly gone now.We definitely made the right decision to leave.

On Thursday I saw my doctor and another EKG confirmed my problem.  I'll spare you the details (of which many of you are probably personally aware), but I'm now on four additional drugs to control the A-Fib and prevent a stroke -- a blood thinner. a heart rate regulator, a diuretic, and a potassium supplement (the last two hopefully will be temporary once my BP is lowered to a safe level).  

All in all I'd say this hasn't been the best birthday I've had, but it wasn't all a lost cause.  We loved the several days we stayed in Vancouver.  It is a beautiful city with great architecture, art, transportation system, food, and excellent beer.  Also, my train adventure through the Canadian Rockies was just what I wanted, including having dinner as the scenery rolled by and sleeping in our own comfortable compartment. Oh, and I should add that even though both of us got Covid, the symptoms were milder than an ordinary cold and only lasted a few days, something we attribute at least in part to our recent booster shots.

Returning home may not have insulated us from nature's current global fury.  Kilauea activity has just recently taken a significant jump.Volcanologists have detected swarms of  hundreds of small earthquakes near the summit that have come in several pulses.  This is an indication that magma is welling up and recharging the system to the point that there may be an eruption soon.  However, the magma has moved from the summit caldera to a fault region just south and east, so an eruption right at the summit is less likely now.  Of course, the recent activity might also stop once the reservoir beneath the summit is drained.  Time to sing a lullaby for Pele ...

Ok, that's it for now.  Off to market and our beach breakfast picnic.  Carpe diem!

 

Guest, Fireworks, More Travel Plans

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

7/6/24

 

Aloha  Folks  -- 

Happy 4th of July!  We spent most of ours whacking a golf ball and feeding the course peacocks atMakalei.  For the first time in quite a while we did all 18 holes -- aspirationally, that is.  On a few holes

Kona's Little Big Bang

we cut the frustration short, but otherwise it was an enjoyable outing. We wanted to get in as much as we could because we'll be gone on our Canada/Utah trip coming up and won't play until we return.  Doing all 18 was rather tiring (remember, this represents A LOT of strokes for us duffers) but the effort gave us a sense of accomplishment. After dinner we made a quick trip down to the waterfront for the town fireworks display -- all 7 minutes of it.  Though very short, the display was surprisingly good, with a few giant ones that filled to sky above Kailua Bay.  This was certainly a low-effort outing.  It took about 10 minutes to drive to the Lowe's parking lot above town, then we managed to avoid any heavy traffic returning home after the show.  Round trip was about 30 minutes!

Earlier in the week we had a short visit from our friend from France, the expat we visited last year who moved to Nimes after the 2016 election,  She only stayed a couple of nights, but it was great showing her around a little bit.  We first met her when we crossed paths on our tour of Bhutan.  Like us, she had a guide and driver, and was going to areas less frequented by tourists.  The limited infrastructure of the country meant that we followed the same route and sometimes wound up in the same hotels.  She's an avid independent traveler, an approach to travel we definitely share.  We've stayed in touch all these years and it was great fun to compare travel notes from adventures since we met in Bhutan.

 

Speaking of travel, we are continuing to make arrangements for upcoming trips.  It probably sounds like a lot of planning because for various reasons we've found ourselves making plans for three trips at once --usually the planning is much more spread out. Our Thailand/Cambodia trip in November is nearly done.  We have decided to stay in a coastal resort area called Khao Lak, about an hour north of Phuket. Just off the coast there are a couple of National Underwater Parks that have highly rated snorkeling and diving. We've booked a hotel in Khao Lak and we'll soon book one in Bangkok for a few days upon arriving in Thailand.  Still left to do are the flights from Bangkok to Phuket, and from there to Phnom Penh and finally our international flights between here and SE Asia. Whew!  We're also going to be making our yearly quick trip to Ohio to visit friends in September, with a stopover for a few days in Colorado on the way back. This one doesn't require quite as much planning, but it needs to be done soon.

 

Ok, that's about it.  This may be the last missive for a while, depending on how busy we are during our trip. In the meantime, carpe diem and resist the gaslighting attempts all around us these days.........