On the mend

For the last couple of weeks, we have been battling a cold. It started with Karissa and a snotty nose then went to Jillian...we passed it around a few times. We finally went in to the clinic last Friday to get the kids some medication, especially since Jillian had developed pink eye. We thought that was all that she had wrong and that Karissa was worse since she spiked a fever Thursday night and complained of a bad stomach ache. I was really hoping that it was not appendicitis. The doctor checked the kids over and told us that Jillian had an ear, throat and eye infection. Her pulse was like a humming bird at 160 beats per minute. That child never said a word about feeling bad. She is a tough cookie! Karissa had an upper respiratory infection and had to get blood drawn to make sure she didn't have anything else wrong. The doctor called later in the afternoon and said her white blood cell count was 13 (normal is 4-10) so we knew she had an infection. The doctor wanted her to come in on Saturday morning just to make sure she was doing well.

After the kids were checked out, Wes asked if there were something he could take over the counter since he is allergic to penicillin. The doctor looked in his throat and wrote him a script for a Z-pac and gave me one also. We are now on the mend physically. Financially, that was a spendy endeavor. Wes spent around $300 on medications! Now, that is in EC, so that translates to around $140 US.

We had an unexpected e-mail from a church family member in the states who had sent us some money. This person had no idea we were all sick, but this blessing could not have come at a better time!

Our upstairs neighbor is "dog sitting" a female dog who recently was fixed. She was evidently in heat when she underwent the operation and the vet said she couldn't be around boy dogs for a while or her surgery would be compromised. I'm not exactly sure why she continued in a heat cycle after surgery (I will have to ask my niece Jennifer), but she still gave off the "come on over" signal to the guys. Consequently, we awoke to a visitor on our steps for 3 days. He was kind of cute...in an old fat dog way. He was a short, squatty dog that the girls named Skittles. It was funny to see Wes cringe every time he opened the door and the dog was laying there, wagging his tail. Wes wouldn't let the girls feed Skittles, or really pet him for that matter, since he is an Island dog and has lots of fleas. Skittles always gave you a sad face when you closed the door and wouldn't let him in. Kind of heart wrenching. But, he must have wondered on his way because we haven't seen him lately.

Well, hope you are all well...we are now on the mend! God Bless!

Allow me to vent a bit...

You can skip this blog if you don't want to hear me complain, but there are a few things here that are driving me crazy.

For starters, I'm not sure if it is the students, the locals or a combination of both, but the litter here is insane. I am always coming out to the deck to study and the students eat lunch out here and leave their junk on the table or on the ground. I don't know if they are just from priviladged families that have maids to pick up after them or maybe they just feel that they are above putting their stuff in the trash. Whatever it is, I would really like to think that these people will fail out of medical school, because I don't want that type of person being a doctor. Maybe that is a little harsh, but I see doctors as being servants of others...and if you can't pick up your own trash, you cannot possibly serve other people.

Next on my list...facilities here. Wes was calculating the money that this school brings in and there is no reason that the restrooms are second to hiding behind a rock! Not sure where all the money is going because they are not upgrading anything here. Maybe they are funneling the cash to the Bahamas since they are now creating a school there and will probably eventually have all the students there instead of here. Hope the Bahama students appreciate the sacrifices we are making here!

Ok, last on my list of rants...my house...or shack...whatever you want to call it. I am wondering if it will ever be fixed. Just when you think progress is being made, things come to a stand still and no one will show up to work. We call it "Dominican Time". That is how things roll here. We have a new leak in our ceiling, the tile is still not fixed in our bathroom from the repair guy breaking it while fixing the last leak. Our toilet leaks...still. Even after lowering the level of the water in the tank (that was the solution from the landlord before), we still end up with water on our floor. I think it is the actual valve from the floor to the tank. But no one will fix anything until something explodes and there is an emergency. Furniture here is the most uncomfortable I have ever felt. I would kill for a recliner at this point. If you are wondering what our couch is like (if you want to call it a couch), just take a rough sheet and spread it over a nice soft rock. That seems to be what all furniture here feels like. Not sure what they use for cushions, but it reminds me of dead cockroach shells...

Anyway, I am done complaining (for now)...just needed to vent a bit. I am glad that I am here in school, but I really am looking forward to a nice bed to sleep in along with other ammenities that we took for granted back in the states. I guess the silver lining is, this is teaching us to appreciate the little things in life...like comfort. We will be a much more thankful family in the long run...just today...we were thankful that the bread for our sandwiches was just hard and stale and not moldy yet.

Here is a lovely picture so you don't think it is all bad here... :)

Critters in our Neighborhood

I thought I would give you all a glimpse of the wild life in our neck of the woods. I know there are quite a few people who do not like bugs, an I am one of them; however, there are a lot of bugs around here. We have a gap all the way around our door and there are nights that a flock of flying ant looking things swarm under it. I think they may be termites, but am not sure... They pour in under our door when it rains so I think they are looking for shelter. I only give them the can of Raid. In the morning, it looks like an insect massacre happened at our front door. Wes has discovered that we have a cockroach problem as well. They come through the big holes in our ceiling. They are really nasty and enormous. (I put the sunglasses there for scale.) I am always feeling like things are crawling on me in the middle of the night. Eewwhh!


We have an iguana who lives in the tree out in front of our house. He is really large. We have lots of smaller ones running around as well, but we like having them since they eat the bugs! Every once in a while we find one in our house. Jillian thinks we have a pet lizard that she has named Rainbow.

On our way to school we look for the iguanas on campus. Some of them have numbers painted on their sides. I'm not sure if this is some sort of research project or if some students thought it would be funny to paint them. There are even a couple that I have seen that have small beads in their head spikes. They remind me of the Friendship beads we had in school so long ago. Maybe the iguanas gave them to each other...

We also have a herd of cows that roam the island, or at least around our part of town. I don't know who they belong to, but evidently this is a free range community. There are days when the cows are in our yard and other days when they are frolicking on campus. (Now there is something you don't see everyday in the states!) It kind of makes me nervous walking right beside a big bull, but I haven't heard of anyone being gored or trampled as of yet.

(This is actually on campus. The school is just on the right side of the picture.)

Ok, aside from all the critters we have around, I have a couple extra pictures I just have to share. The kids have started the "Summer Program" at school which includes lots of arts and crafts and field trips. They swim every day after lunch, so they are pretty wiped out. After the first day, we picked up the kids and had extra cargo to pack home (care package from Grandma Dolly! ~ thanks again) and Jillian was whining that she was tired before we left the school, so we decided to get a cab home. We had to make it to the street to hail the cab and while we waited, our poor baby couldn't hang on any longer. She fell asleep on the sidewalk. Good thing we were getting a cab anyway, we couldn't have carried her up the hill!

Wes has finally had enough of the heat and decided to shave his head. We all knew it was coming sooner or later, since he is follicley challenged on his head. So, we shaved his head last night. Karissa and Jillian thinks he looks funny...they say he looks like the daddy of their friends at school who is bald. Anyway, I just had to share since most of us have not seen him like this ...at least not since the Navy!