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| Better days with the Muffin |
If you read up on nasal carcinoma in dogs, by all rights Freida the Muffin should not even be with us. The first signs of her cancer began last October - so it has been four months that we know of. And although it wasn't until January that the cancer was detected by specialized scans and an MRI, Dr. Beth Gordon did everything right, ruling out all other possibilities of Freida's nose bleeds. The prognosis is just not good at all, we have elected not to put her through radiation (which has serious side effects particularly the "definitive treatment") and chemotherapy which we believe she could simply not tolerate. In her case because the tumor is so large it would mean treatment everyday for three weeks. Dogs that do go through the radiation and chemo with less severe nasal tumors only last maybe six months after treatment for this particular cancer. Freida is almost 11 years old, she barely made it through her spleen being removed, she has arthritis, cushings disease, a heart murmur and allergies. She takes several medications including mitotane, prednisone, prevecox, apoquil, shots for allergies and adequan shots.
So what we have here is a cancer patient and that is what I have been doing for all this time, taking care of her. She has mostly good days; she eats, drinks (insists on pineapple coconut water) wants to play, still loves her bathers, meanders a bit outside with Mike, snuggles at night with us, helps in the garden, watches her favorite TV shows (Murder in Paradise and Endeavor are her now favs). But there are bad days when she sneezes blood which is always upsetting and disturbing. Good days or bad days, I cry just about every night after she is tucked in bed. During the day, we act like nothing has changed (except I don't blog anymore, but you should see my garden wow...a lot of bulbs), and during the evening we stick to our routine, it is after she falls asleep when I break down. She was also thrilled that Bernie Sanders took New Hampshire. We can't get her excited and need to keep her calm because the barking will aggravate the sneezing. For Valentine's Day she'll be getting her favorite - marinated grilled swordfish with a splash of soy sauce.
All of the doctors have told us that it is impossible to tell when the final days will come, every patient is different. Dr. Silva has offered to come to the house when the time comes, and he is completely overwhelmed now with his wife's condition - just last week they went to the City of Hope in Los Angeles. He told us they are all scared in his family and he knows what the future holds. I'm not scared anymore (I was), but this is very difficult. I do put Holy Oil from Padre Pio on her little head everyday and pulled out the Chimayo Holy Dirt and ordered a special rusted tin crucifix from the New Mexico History Museum, made by Bobby Garcia from the old 1922 tin roof of the Chimayo church which was torn down (which BTW are originals and signed and way less expensive than any on ebay or etsy and I noticed one for sale at an auction house called Worthpoint something where you have to pay or join to bid - but they are giving out mis- information, they are saying that no more of these crosses exist most likely to drive up the price; but they do exist at the New Mexico History Museum shops the link is below and they are not expensive - nineteen dollars and some change, with postage our came to about $24.00). Just in case.
As far as Mexico, we still want to leave. Were we stupid for moving here? Well, we were naive and not informed, which seems really strange since I began visiting Mexico nearly fifty three years ago - with the intent of the majority of those years to surf. But nothing in that respect has changed as far as informing the English speaking public at least on a local level of the violence and drug war; I did a search this afternoon for violence in the different Municipalities of Baja on Google and there was not one report from any of the local Mexican news sources, not even Zeta...just all USA hype, sugar sweet "it's just so safe and wonderful" blogs about Baja and PR plus the icing on the cake, promoting themselves as crack investigative reporters- terrible bullshit, these guys OWN the freaking internet. Their only goal is to insure the status quo continues, to keep the machine churning and they will tell you anything to get you to come down here and spend money and invest in what they claim is a "democracy" despite knowing the facts. One blog went as far as to minimize and explain away the recent (last month) massacre in Ensenada, as though it were an anomaly. As far as San Diego of which I am native born and raised, even Mike's doctor told him she came here from Jersey in the early 80's and considers it now to be just like Los Angeles (it is). She also told him we might be "safe" from the sprawl and congestion out in Warners...for awhile. We constantly hear this from other intelligent people, along with remarks from professional Mexican nationals who have fled to the United States who tell us they want nothing nothing to do with Mexico.
I promised some links for you and here are some, Mike just came home so I'll be back with more and a few updates.
National Events: Noticed that Proceso and Zeta have changed their formats, and Proceso is no longer listing the " 1,000 + days of impunity " on the right sidebar, and I am not sure why they took that down.
Proceso
www.proceso.com.mx - check out organized crime category for drug war events.
Aristegui Noticias
www.aristeguinoticias.com
Both National and Local: - check out what is happening in Mulege, sure glad we didn't go down last month. Reportajez on the sidebar.
Zeta
www.zetatijuana.com
Local:
Frontera:
Frontera Policia
https://twitter.com/frontera_pol - Keep in mind when you are reading the arrests in the policia reports that most of these guys are never convicted, they are released. Of course you will see many drug confiscations, but these are just the tip of the iceberg as far as drugs which easily make it across the border, same applies to clandestine airfields located mostly in the Ensenada area.
El Mexicano: You can usually count on El Mexicano to not only cover what is going on TIJ, but they are inclusive of the other Municipalities:
El Mexicano Policiaca
El Sol de Tijuana: Always brilliant coverage, including collaborative reports from Rosarito Beach's very own, Carmen Olsen:
El Sol de Tijuana
More on the way......
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Also at some point will be adding latest INEGI polls on the violence, will be adding the 2015 stats; so far in January 2016 there have been 65 executions in TIJ including a decapitation, a rash of burned bodies and encobijados in Rosarito, of course the recent Palenque massacre in Ensenada. And, according to Daniel de la Rosa Anaya, there are no armed commando groups in Baja California.
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P.S. If you are interested in the Bobby Garcia art work go here, where you can find and purchase the original crosses he made from the 1922 Chimayo chapel roof which are signed :
New Mexico History Museum
http://www.nmhm.shopmuseum.org/category-1197/Wall-Art/Crosses or
http://www.nmhm.shopmuseum.org/product-223/Rusted-Tin-Cross?category=1197
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