Children are being filed up to wash their hands repeatedly at school for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday to Me; candles are being lit; crowds avoided; and the sale of herbal and alternative medicine goes up. Without a vaccine for the next dreaded thing, the swine flu, Costa Rica is taking care on the home front.

When I approached CIMA hospital yesterday, I didn’t have to be told that the yellow police tape barricading the emergency room exit was because someone had been marked with the flu.

I’m kind of thrilled with all the new hygiene concerns. Perhaps thinking in the positive, is what we’re being called to do. Costa Ricans are even lighting candles and saying a prayer. A prayer for others has got to be good for the immune system. And designer masks are in the works just in case we need to raise level of fear to the eleventh heaven.

Incredible music by incredible people will also boost your immune system, right here on the ol’Internet. The world will thank you for your smiles. And be a lot healthier for it.

One thing I love about living in Costa Rica is it just takes a minute to see life from a new perspective. Though I live in a highly developed suburb with malls bursting at the seams, I can walk just 500 meters and see people living well below the poverty level. A simple drive into down town San José zaps me into another world where an order, and a function operates, oblivious to me.

I followed these two girls for a few blocks. The older girl was about eight, my daughter’s age, and the younger about six. They chatted and stopped at the red light, (which is really hard to see since at most corner’s it’s backwards and you can’t see if it’s green or red), and lugged their princess suitcases behind them, just like my daughter would do. Most likely, they made this trip to and from school every day and passed the homeless man sleeping on cardboard and the funeral shop and the used book store with the napping cat on their way. I would never let my child walk downtown until she could walk and chew gum and operate heavy machinery at the same time.

I would probably even worry about the cat: Will he run away? What if he gets hit by a car? Culture, geography, society, family, and all those “outside” things influence what we do and how we perceive it when we grow up. If I’d had been born in India, I’d probably be wrapped in a sari and hoping for a good astrology reading to find the right guy to marry. If I’d been born in Alaska, I’d probably have a constant craving for reindeer meet.

Changing all those pre-programmed dictates we are born with like language and location can open a whole new way of thinking. I can’t toss my fears aside and watch them disappear like bubbles in the wind, but I can keep trying this “different” culture and find new ways to think while still holding my daughter’s hand along the way.

The only Spam I knew came from a can. For a treat, my mother would purchase it on the weekends. I became proficient at opening the tin top and sliding out the gel-like meat. The consistency and appearance of the product should have been enough to warn all humans to stay away. But the taste was weirdly intriguing. And once on the plate, I ate it up.

The only other reference to Spam I knew was the spoof of Monty Python, which sang the laurels of the canned meat product in a three minutes sketch that thus, I have since learned, placed the use of the word spam in our daily electronic lives.

Today, we all get spam spam spam spam spam spam spam delivered in the hundreds to our electronic mailboxes. Behind the scenes of figuring out how to post stories and photos, I get sometimes hundreds of lurid, disgusting, ridiculous, and down-right stupid “spams” all mixed in with the comments left by actual breathing humans that care enough to spend a few minutes reading about our non-ending dramas in paradise.

In attempt to control all these “spams” buttons sometimes flash and blink faster and slower than I can manage. In the last few days, I’ve mistakenly deleted a few comments from readers as I was trying to speed up the process of plowing through the ploys to for me to buy sex videos of stars and drugs for pains that don’t yet exist. There’s also this new technique out there of sending spams that are almost as long as the page. As these are deleted, that’s when I get weird blinks and bobbles. I’m guessing that’s when I messed up. More than once.

Well as one of my dear readers said: Sh_t happens. It’s what we do next I suppose that counts. So I am really sorry for obliterating insightful comments and ideas because I know every one’s time is precious.

I’ll keep trying to do better and perhaps one day I can afford a snappier crew than these little elves that run my workshop.

(PS Just in case it’s been a long time since you’ve seen the Monty Python sketch,
take a few minutes. It’ll cure what ails you. I know it sends me.)

Twice a day, Addison needs a therapy to jiggle his lungs. If someone were to walk in on us, it would look like I was beating up on the child. In a matter of forty minutes, he laughs his head off and then eventually cries and screams. But, we always start first with the laughs.

I always wondered what I do if I got one of those “things.” The big C. Or the heart attack; or the tumor; or the……..Well here we are. We got that THING. One of those dreaded words. Researching the underlying problem Addison has called pulmonary heart disease could throw me under a bus. My goodness reading the prognosis of this THING was more terrifying than jumping off a cliff into a gorge with a pack of wolves waiting for me. No one does well with this condition. It’s not curable; It’s a life long burden. Says who?

Then, I remembered I’d been through this before. After Addison’s surgery after birth, we discovered he had two cysts on his liver ducts. (And how did we live before Internet searches??!!) First I had to figure out what the heck the bile ducts were. These tiny cysts existed on two little tubes that drain the toxins the liver expels directly into the colon. I didn’t even know we had these parts were let alone that they could develop cysts. The doctors said: another surgery in four months. If we didn’t take them out, CANCER was guaranteed. There’s one of THOSE words again.

You’ll have to read about the whole account here, but in a nutshell, the cysts went away all by themselves. Perhaps I helped with diet. I have no idea what happened except that the doctor’s said they’d never in their life seen a case like this before. All cysts, they said, had to be removed surgically. Or they would become cancerous.

I do remember back then, in the time of cysts, we laughed a lot. Norman Cousins wrote a book called Anatomy of an Illness. This was a writer, peace advocate, and professor wrought with health issues. According to his write-up:

Cousins received the Albert Schweitzer Prize in 1990. He died of heart failure on November 30, 1990, having survived years longer than his doctors predicted: 10 years after his first heart attack, 16 years after his collagen (arthritic) illness, and 36 years after his doctors first diagnosed his heart disease.

I remember hearing about this book years and years ago. One of the main principles was that Cousin’s believed human emotions were the key to affecting health. He applied laughter as one of his main medicines. I applied nothing of this wisdom when I struggled through my surgeries and illnesses years ago. For some reason, though I hadn’t seen the book in years, the idea re-popped back into my head when “THAT D” word was mentioned in the hospital about Addison.

So before I begin the “beating on the chest therapy” I always start with a good laugh. Blowing on Addison’s round belly gets him going; then we move on to the ticklish crook of his neck; and round out the laughter with nuzzling my nose into his ribs. When he gets to that super silly part, I ask him to sit up and then ask: More? He nods and says more. And so it goes on.

We try to carry this philosophy of at least smiling, throughout the day. My brother is a pro at making goofy faces. A talent I learned from him. And I know I fail more than I succeed. I’m the first to snip at my daughter or swear when Addison’s diaper contents have just smeared all over my favorite pants and belt and shirt. Yet, I even managed to dance in the hospital to High-Five, about the only highlight of mine and Addison’s day. And it is contagious, for one day the nurse walked in and though conservative and timid in her laughter, she started singing and even did a little hand jive.

I am no longer falling off a cliff. Instead I live as though I am always free-falling through the air. I took the leap and now must walk the talk to stay afloat and not let the wolves get me in the end.

The photo above was taken a few months before we found out the cysts had disappeared.

Addison was about five months old.

Managing a child is one thing. Special needs another. Attach the child to a hose and it just ups the entertainment value. Where ever Addison goes, so goes his oxygen line. Though he’s managing more hours a day without it, he’s not up to a level yet that will give us a good feeling that his heart isn’t being over stressed.

Down Syndrome children have a tendency towards heart problems. Addison didn’t. And we certainly don’t want to start anything. The hose sleeps with him; wraps around the toilet; follows him to the dining table; has green and blue paint on it; and can even reach out into the garden.

Addison even coils up the hose in his hands when he wants to go upstairs or move to another room. The nannies have gone to calling it the culebra (a term I find used more much often for snakes than serpiente in Costa Rica).

I got the machine from a company that rents medical equipment for the home: beds that crank up and down; make-shift toilets when the living room has to serve has a hospital room; walkers; and oxygen machines, including tanks. Funny thing, I’ve actually rented every single one of these things. The process of life doesn’t stop happening when moving to paradise. We keep on living, getting sick, and well, the unspeakable happens too.

We keep plugging ahead in the thick of living well and manage the bumps along the way. And we’re very grateful for the little snake that follows us in our footsteps.

Almost every night, my daughter and I struggle in what seems a battle to the death - metaphorically speaking of course. However in the thick of night air, we draw swords and begin the duel to get her to sleep.

The stress of living with a brother who has had more than his share of health challenges appears every night for Coco as monsters in the closet; noises under the bed; and wind rustling the roof tops.

Last night, a storm brewed over the Atlantic. The flash of lightening was barely visible behind a mountain silhouette through her window. She worried about the storm coming and blowing us away. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she then began to worry about everything else she could come up with at 9 p.m.

My initial reaction is to draw my sword and to battle, for I am tired. The night before last I was up with Addison until 2 a.m. as he threw up chunk-lets of papaya he didn’t chew. After expelling the fruits from his top and his bottom, we both finally collapsed into a few hours sleep. The last thing I needed, or wanted that next evening, was to struggle with the worries of my other child. I wanted to go to sleep. But I see the wear on my daughter as she has to face another morning with the “drama” of her brother. She has to go on secretly worrying and wondering if her entire life might explode and disappear as she knows it. (Still fresh from a divorce doesn’t help either.)

I do not know where I found the resources, perhaps it was that celery shake I’d had in the morning (then again maybe it was the coffee!) - but I caught myself. With my sword drawn, I could see myself, hear myself, and realized I sounded ridiculous and even a tad over-the-top. All I had to do was frizz out my hair and put on a cape and I could have easily gotten a part in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

I put down my sword and looked to the flashing light over the mountain. As Coco held her stuffed dog, I began telling her a story about a time we went to the beach. And soon, she put her weapon away. The night aired softened, and I could see her sinking into her pillow.

The power of story. IT never fails. So I tell you this story. I tell you this so if you are about to say something ridiculous; something you will regret; something that will cause pain and create an all around bad energy field that even the miracles of a magic ring may not repair, you can tell the story about a crazy woman with frizzy hair that lived somewhere in the depths of the jungle and worshiped the flashing lights beyond the distant mountain and put away her sword so that healing, instead, could rule as king.

If I make a mistake in Spanish, Coco is quick to correct me. The thing is - I asked for it. We were stuck in a traffic jam today and what is normally called a road was turned into one very, long parking lot. I needed another oxygen tank for Addison.

After not moving for fifteen minutes, I called the tiny shop that sells home office “human” repair supplies like hospital beds and oxygen machines and begged the young man to stay open a few minutes in case I was late.

When I said the word nadia to indicate no one was moving. Coco shouted out the correct form of nobody, which is nadie.

For some reason, my Spanish has taken an extra deep nose dive. I suppose it might be the overload of medical terms:

oxygen  -  oxígeno
level - nivel
thermostat - termóstato
temperature - temperatura
lungs - pulmones
phlegm - flema

Or perhaps it’s having to stare deeply into a medical professionals eyes and figure out basic life and death situations in a language I can’t even say I’m fluent in. But I’m getting better. I now longer call a carrot - zanahoria - a mosquito - zancudo. And if I ever get out of line, I have my own personal, shouting, exuberant instructor to correct me.

We’ve come to love our humming oxygen machine, purring away night and day. Addison has learned how to manage getting as dirty as ever, even with a hose attached to his nose.

His recovery plugs along and he is singing, dancing, and even running.

Perhaps we could all use that oxygen he’s getting. And splashing about in orange and green paint all morning is just a great way to start the day.

Happiness and fresh air - a great recipe for recovery.

To get Coco through a few tough days without her mother or brother in the house because we were at the hospital, I gave her a bag of chocolate gold coins. Since she never hesitates to share, Coco happily shared one of her coins with one of her nannies.

Later that day, the nanny took a bus home. As mentioned in the last post, the traffic jams here are getting thicker and heavier as the highway revamp gets near completion. As this nanny sat with a crowd of hot and trying-to-be-patient people, the bus driver flopped over this steering wheel in despair. He just had had enough.

The nanny took out her chocolate coin and said he needed a bit of gold for his hard work. He peeled back the foil and smiled in delight as the already “melty” chocolate dissolved in his mouth. He thanked the nanny and smiled and she said he looked so rejuvenated, it was amazing.

If we all gave with the heart of a child, with no expectations and pura vida - the world might just have a lot less car accidents and bar fights and pulsing fists in the air. I mean, a small gold coin of chocolate?! It couldn’t be simpler than that.

As the last weeks of the highway reconstruction plows on, tempers and patience wear thin. Today, I drove to a doctor’s appointment for Addison to gather yet another file and record and found myself turning around in a detour that popped up out of nowhere.

This is the norm in Costa Rica. When an exit or road is closed, you’re basically on your own. And I’ve lived here awhile, so I no where to go - most of the times. I remember the first trip I ever took to Costa Rica it took seven hours to get to the hotel in a drive that should have taken thirty minutes. Some of that was due to my inept Spanish, but 3/4 of that was to blame on the ripping up a many, many streets in downtown San Jose. Not a sign could be seen to lead us anywhere. The other thing about blocking a road is that there are rarely any good alternatives. And those alternatives become jam packed in times of presas - traffic jams.

If there was a sign, I could have looped right up to the exit and gotten on the autopista in minutes. Instead, I had to turn around at a dead end - like hundreds of other drivers - and “re-find” the proper exit. As one can see from the smashed road barricade, this was not a proper exit. It gets hot for all of us; it gets annoying for all of us; it can even fill some of us with rage. But drive up on a sidewalk on a freshly asphalted road that is there to serve an entire metropolitan population for years to come? Who’s that important?

Luckily, I didn’t have Addison* with me or we surely would have run out of oxygen, literally. I pushed on to find my way back and eventually my way home. I resisted the urge to follow the crowd and sought the safe way home.

*Addison is doing splendidly by the way!
 Thanks for all those who wrote in.