Skin Cancer

So I'm going to be like one of those people who have had a tracheotomy due to throat cancer and stand up on buses to warn people about the dangers of cigarette smoking.

When I was in New York last summer friends (applying sunblock for me) noticed an odd looking bit of skin on my back. Just above an average sized freckle this piece of skin is about 6mm x 4mm and looks like a fresh scar. Before I left NY it seemed to have faded so I stupidly ignored it instead of going to a decent specialist in New York at a time when I had health insurance. Anyway a few months ago I became aware that the said mark was still at large. I didn't like the look of it so I went to see a local doctor here who'd helped with my chest infection. His best guess was a fungal infection. 10 days, a course of fungal cream and $90 later this was ruled out as a cause.

After much searching I found a dermatologist in Cozumel. Her diagnosis was, as I feared, pre-cancer cells. She prescribed a 30 course of 5% Fluorouracil cream. This is a topical anti cancer agent (chemotherapy cream).

I was not convinced by this doctor. She had many certificates on her wall but did not use a light of magnifying glass or any of the usual doctor tools to come to her diagnosis. I find these things comforting. Anyway I came home and did some research on the internet. I'd been avoiding this so far because I did not want to scare myself. It looks like I probably have a Actinic Keratoses legion. Only 10% of these ever become squamos cell carcinomas (cancer) and the cream she'd prescribed was a pretty common treatment with a reported cure rate of 80-90%.

I was a bit freacked out at this point and really wanted to have it removed and sent to pathology, afterall psoriasis orr eczema can often be mistaken for Actinic Keratoses. After much angsting, and correspodning with a dermatologist in Playa who confirmed the treatment as valid, and discussing the matter with a friend in New York who'd used the cram for treatment of similar legions before, I decided to go with the treatment my Cozumel dermatologist recomended.

I have just finished the treatment. The cream basically burnes the affected area away. I went back to the doc and she said she could not tell if the legion had been cured until the skin healed. Another course of a different cream for 10 days should do it.

So I will find out soon if it has gone. Either way I think I am going to consult with a dermatologist in England when I get home in October.

What steps am I taking to avoid more damage to my skin? Well I work as a scuba instructor and am in the sun a lot so I bought three dive skins. These are t-shirts made of a lycra type material with a UV protection factor of 40. I wear these all day when I am at work to keep my back out of the sun as well as factor 80 sun block on my face and ears. I have always been very careful about applying sunblock to my face - purely driven by vanity but I would always leave out my ears. Ears are aparently a common place to get skin cancerr so they are now part of my regime. I reapply sunblock each time I get out of the water and always keep a bag containing a selection of sunblocks in my car.

I am lucky in that I was not really exposed to the sun in my teens when most damage occurs. In my 20ies though I was a bit of a sunworshiper and also spent a little bit of time on sunbeds. Unfortunately I will probably never know if this was a pre-cancer or something more inoccous, but I figured either way I need to look after my skin more.

So I wanted to ask people to be more responsible in the sun. Apply sunblock regularly and wear a t-shirt if snorkling or surfing. I work in a hotel and see badly burned people on a daily basis. Burning on the first few days just seems to be part of their vacation routine. 'No use in crying over spilled milk', they say but it takes just a little bit of effor to protect your skin and its well worth it.

Little Bird

Today was just like any other - actually I was a bit more tired than usual, having just spent two days teaching an advanced open water class. When I opened the gate to the yard outside of my apartment I heard an unusual bird call. I looked up into the tree and there was this little colorful bird. Obviously an escaped pet:

He was very interested in me and I wondered if he was hungry. Probably if he'd escaped from a cage he would not know how to feed on his own. He did look a little fluffy and young. So I tried to tempt him down with bread crumbs. I then walked up to the roof and held my hand out to him. I was within about 5 inches and he was quite comfortable. Honestly I was just a bit scared of being pecked or I might have coaxed him onto my hand.

After consulting with Julio I grabbed some gloves from the car and re-attempted contact. This time I was armed with papaya. He was really interactive but very warey of my hand. Twice he jumped onto my gloved finger to take some of the papaya. The second time I moved him closer towards me and he got scared and flew into the higher branches of the tree.

I then decided to stop molesting the little guy and left the papaya on a branch for him to eat. After my afternoon snooze I went back outside but he seems to have gone.

I feel sorry for birds that are kept in captivity, on the whole, although my friend Fernando has a little bird who is a real character and thinks he's one of the family.

This little guy though is clearly domesticated and I'm worried he will not be able to survive in the wild. Part of me wishes I'd been braver and grabbed him to keep him safe from the nasty big Mexican birds and part of me thinks he'll be better living free, even if it is a short little existence.

If he's around later Julio may try to catch him. Either way I really enjoyed my encounter with this little bird.
Does anyone know what he is????? Or have any views (preferably informed) on whether or not he's likely to be able to survive in the wild?

Parents visit

YES I'm still alive. I've just dropped my parents off at the airport in Cozumel after a weeks visit. Pretty tearful dropping them off and no sooner had I pulled out of the parking spot I was in, did I get pulled over by the federal police. My car carries New Jersey Plates and a Mexican permit which has expired. The law here is that you do not need to renew your car permit if you have a valid FM3. Unfortunately the Federal Police are famous for not knowing this. Anyway luckily for me I was very tearful when I was pulled over. I find tears are very helpful in these circumstances. I used the quite genuine tears for my parents departure to convince the federal police to let me go on my way with not much bother.

So PARENTS VISIT. We had a really lovely time, marred only by the heat (oh and mosquitos). My parents are not used to extreme heat and relaxing into an Island pace, lounging by/ in the ocean took them the whole time they were here to get used to. Even then, frequent trips into A/C buildings were a must. My parents skin, unused to evil mosquito bites, became very sore and swollen when they were bitten (unused to having to lather on bug spray at sun set and in the mornings in the garden, they were bitten frequently).

The flight from England is pretty grueling, although THOMPSON AIR now offer direct flights from London to Cozumel. After a 10 hour flight they were exhausted. I'd booked them into a hotel called Hacienda San Miguel. Its a very good choice if you are visiting Cozumel and want to be in walking distance of town but in a quiet setting. They have well kept gardens filled with, red flowers, well groomed bushes, little lizards and lively humming birds:


Here is a picture of their room:

We spent many mornings drinking coffee and talking on this little terrace.
It does make me very sad that I do not live in the same country as my family. I also have a great fondness for England, although I have to say I didn't much like me for most of my adult life in England although there are many reasons why I choose to live here and not there.

Why not England or New York??

1. I think I had a hard time with the transition into adulthood in England. I didn't much like myself there and going back reminds me of that me.
2. Really I think its true to say that I have struggled with a pretty serious alcohol problem for much of my adult life. Having struggled over the years to get on top of this and perhaps even just as a function of getting older I've pretty much conquered this but again the prospect of moving back to the UK scares me because drinking, as a way of life, is how I know living in England. Pretty much all of my old friends drink, a lot, socially and I'm not sure I could slot back into that without it becoming a problem for me.
3. England is cold and the Ocean is freezing. I love diving and swimming and even just looking out over the tropical waters of the Caribbean.
4. The only way I could afford to live in England or America is by working in an office. Not to put to fine a point on it, I find this way of living soul destroying. I can't do it anymore.
5. Now this one is a toughey, but MEN. Now I know there are some wonderful men in England and in the USA and many of them are my friends, but I have again and again been devastated by the behaviors of men I have chosen to become involved with. Sex in the City is a pretty accurate portrayal of the dating/ relationship scene in New York. I know bad relationships are everywhere as well as here in Mexico, BUT here I have been lucky enough to find a lovely, wise, honorable and caring man the likes of which I've not encountered before. I think my man is one in a million and probably nothing typical of Mexico BUT I'm going to stick my neck out and say that in my view big cities attract (or create) f**ked up individuals who go around treating each other terribly.
   
6. I love my simple life in Mexico. I've stopped living like a crazy worker aunt. I have free time for yoga, meditation. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable to just relax without filling my life with work, stress, teaching, but I'm learning a lot about myself.
   

Things I miss about England and New York

1. My FAMILY - I miss my parents brother, and extended family a lot.
   
2. FRIENDS - I have the most wonderful friends in the whole world in Newcastle, London and New York/ New Jersey (as well as a few others scattered across the States and the world). I miss you all terribly and hope to maintain annual month long visits to the UK, via NYC.
3. I miss the English countryside and North Eastern British beaches. The Jersey Shore, Lake George, the Berkshires
   
4. Marmite, white bread, salt and vinegar McCoy's crisps. NY pizza, sushi, health food, bagels
5. Joico hair products, discount shopping
   
6. ENGLISH - I'm still struggling with Spanish - I miss being able to interact with everyone around me easily.
   

So it was lovely to spend a week with my parents and sad to see them go. Next time they will avoid the heat of June, July, Aug and September. I'm also pleased I will be seeing them for a good three weeks in October.

The Moon

Tonight we had the most beautiful moon. The moon is full this Saturday so it is already pretty big. I've never seen such a halo around the moon. It was really beautiful. Julio and I climbed up on my roof to take photographs.
You will be looking at the same moon in Newcastle, New York or Berlin, but I bet yours does not have this amazing halo. Hopefully my yoga group are doing a full moon celebration on Saturday. It is likely that the halo will stick around until then - I'm guessing it is caused by humidity...

It just been a matter of days since swin flu registered on my radar...

...and already the effects are taking a serious toll on Cozumel. The Cruise Ships upon which many rely for income have imposed a 2 week ban on stops in Mexico.

Yesterday I went to Playa Del Carmen to pick up some stuff and say goodbye to my friend Hans. I'd decided to do some beading on the ferry which soon made me very sea sick. In a rush to get onto dry land I left my nice pink butterfly beach bag on the ferry. All that was in there was a bottle of water but I was sad to loose the bag. Hans made the comment that it was a timely reminder of the impermanence of everything. I agreed tha it was indeed.

It was a growing dissatisfaction with the materialism of New York that was the major motivator for my move to Mexico. I wanted to be free of the insane drive to acquire more money, power and possessions.

When I arrived here life became simple. I've had a very peaceful seven months. I've been blessed with Selene, a wonderful teacher of kundalini yoga who has taught me much in terms of yogic theory and meditation practice and I have had more time to devote to reading -much related to spirituality. I've made good friends and met a wonderful man who is wise, kind and content.
Recently, however, I have begun to develop a bit of a preoccupation with the future: looking for land to build a house on, decking out my apartment in nice furniture, angsting about whether or not children are in my future. They are all forms of the grasping for possessions that I was trying to move away from.

Right now is a low few weeks work wise in any event. Its difficult to say how this swine flu outbreak will affect Cozumel at this stage but I think it is safe to assume that the effects will be serious. With North America and Europe advising travelers to avoid Mexico, the tourism, upon which Cozumel relies, is likely to dry up to next to nothing for a spell.

So far in life I have been very lucky with work, in that since the age of 17 I have always had a secure well paid job. Not so now. We have clients to take us through this week but then the likelihood of earning nothing at all for the near future.

I have savings in my bank account which puts me in a better position than others. The distress I felt yesterday related to the fact that I will probably have to start living off my savings for some time, rather than immediate pressure of no money to live on, like some of my friends.

I remember, as a little girl, I would embark on ambitious building projects. I'd have visions of grand, billowing tents and set to work on creating my visions with only a cloths horse and some sheets and blankets (perhaps a few card board boxes). My mother told me that she would dread these creative urges of mine as invariably I was not able to conjor my visions and ended up in bitter and inconsolable disappointment.

I believe that I've continued with this pattern through out most of my life. Following unattainable pipe dreams and encountering disappointment after disappointment. Now though I fell my perception is changing. I am truly beginning to realize that attainment of external, material goals rarely makes for happiness. The Buddhists believe that such grasping is at the route of all human suffering and I think that I have moved beyond just understanding this to making it a reality in my life. So I am viewing the forthcoming time as a reminder to live in the now.

My boyfriend, of course, takes this all peacefully in his stride. He's seen a few hurricanes in his time and has gone through this all before. I once asked him if he'd ever wanted to be rich and he just laughed a 'don't be absurd' laugh and said no.

To my parents and more conventional friends - don't worry I am not planning a life of poverty. If things get too bad here, we'll come up with a game plan.

For now though I'm seeing this as an opportunity for growth. Rather than building castles in the sky I'm going to enjoy all of the free time I'm likely to have. Exploring in our kayak, studying Spanish learning more about my boyfriend and friends. I've just started designing my own jewelery and plan to enjoy rekindling the artist in me.

I am sad that I'm unlikely to be able to see my parents in two weeks but thankful that they are healthy and that I am able to talk to them often on the telephone.

I'm avoiding 'what ifs' and thinking too far in advance.

As to the swine flu its self I am overwhelmed with the amount of media coverage, and information which is flying around on the internet. Right now I feel pretty safe personally. I'm pretty healthy and on the grand scheme of things think that the odds of getting sick or dying are slim. Honestly there is so much speculation out there that its tough for me to form a view on any of it.

So I will keep you all posted on how thing progress both in my life and in Cozumel (probably more now than before as I'm likely to find myself with much more free time on my hands!!)

Swine Flu

Swine flu went from something I had heard a whisper of last week to something pretty serious withing the space of a week. I've read a lot about this flu on the internet. Around 100 people have died in Mexico City, and now there have been cases in the US, Spain, Scotland and perhaps Manchester. Obviously I am very saddened by deaths of people in Mexico City, but having lived through the mad cow era in the UK and anthrax scares following September 11, I tend to take a pretty philosophical about these things. If its not something you have control over then don't worry about it. I'm afraid I've developed a bit of a tendency to hide my head in the sand during world crises.

Two things that have personally impacted me on this occasion:

Two of my very dear friends who lived in Playa Del Carmen have decided to move up their leaving date. They are expecting a baby and for unrelated reasons had made the decision to return to the US. I just got a phone call 10 mins ago telling me that they've decided to leave today, for fear that travel may become increasingly difficult over the next month, as a result of the spread of swine flu. A wise move (and when an unborn baby is involved I think caution is the best way forward) but its meant that I didn't get to say goodbye which has kind of hit me hard today. Its made me feel a little lonely here in Mexico. I still feel very happy in my choice of lifestyle and just in myself at peace and content, but increasingly recently, I've been missing my friends in the US and UK. Other than the friends who are now leaving I suppose I have begun to develop one or two close friendships in Mexico (and of course my boyfriend who is my best friend ever). Teaching by the pool one day last week I overheard one of the guests listening to Led Zeplin - this reminded me of living in England and of all of my friends from Uni and I suddenly became not 'homesick' but 'friendsick'. Then with my only really close friends leaving Mexico this feeling got worse and today - well I'm feeling a little bit alone.

I also spoke to my Mam - my parents are planning a trip to Mexico on May 11th. I am very excited about this, but my mam said today that her friends have been calling her telling her not to come. I kind of poo poo'd this but now it seems that there is a real possibility that travel to Mexico might be seriously impacted. The European Union health commissioner has advised Europeans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico. I hope this does not affect my parents trip as I really want to see them (although I don't want them to get swine flu).

This brings me back to the feelings I had of remoteness right after September 11th when I was marooned in Brooklyn on my own.

There is also the issue of the impact all of this will have on tourism to Mexico and the impact that that will have on my and other's in this region ability to earn money. Coupled with the US economic situation and media coverage of drug wars here in Mexico I worry about falling tourism.

Ak I'm being a big baby I know and I am incredibly lucky with the life I have here. As usual I'm just going to trust that this will blow over. I'm about to deliver a bottle of fresh orange juice to my boyfriend who is sick (excuse for a big hug) and then head to pilates and yoga to put my mind into a peaceful state.

Going to miss my friends though!!!

Lion Fish - ANOTHER 10 mins of fame

Some of you may recall my radio debut when I was interviewed by Radio Newcastle following the September 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in New York. Well today I was captured in the lime light once more. The reason???? This little guy:

He is a Lion fish - actually a juvenile Lion Fish, about the same size as my little finger:
Lion fish are native to the Indo-Pacific, but have recently been spotted here in Cozumel. No-one knows how they got here although there are various theories involving releases in Florida. They look innocent enough right?
In fact they are voracious predators eating native fish and crustaceans in large quantities. They are not known to have any native predators here in Mexico and because of this and the fact that they reproduce quickly there is concern within Cozumel's National Park Organization that they will compete for food and space with local species and damage the delicate ecological balance on Cozumel's reefs. They are equipped with venomous dorsal, ventral and anal spines, which deter predators and can cause painful wounds in humans.

So how does this involve me? Well on Saturday I was diving along with a group of divers and I saw a tinsy lion fish. Pretty cool I thought and looked around for something to catch him with. 'Rats teeth', I had nothing. So I left the little guy at large. Well today I armed myself with two plastic bags - those who know me know I like to dive with back ups:)

Anyway I figures I might see him in the same spot as on Saturday. The conditions today were good and with my discover scuba group in tow I made my way back to the spot where I'd seen him. On the way we saw two carribean reef squid. This put me in high spirits because I love to watch squid. When I got to the general area I started to look around. We found a sting ray and I checked a few rock piles which looked like the ones I'd seen him on on Saturday. Just as I was about to give up hope (what are the chances of finding such a little guy in such a large ocean I thought), there he was. Hanging out on a sponge. So I poped out my little plastic bag and scooped him in.

He caused quite a stir on Sunset Beach. One of the other instructors (Caesar from Caribbean Divers) called the local TV station - Chanel 10. My first thought - I look a mess - hair like straw, dry salty wrinkly skin from the ocean, and they're going to want me to talk (yikes!). I made a quick decision not to attempt to speak in Spanish (a wise move I think). The reporter took lots of video of the fish, a little of me and a lot of Caesar. I have to say Caesar took to the lime light very well!

I then took my little friend to see Julio where we transferred him into a cooler. Feeling hungry, I returned home. I had planned to keep him overnight, take him to show the people at work and then take him to the Marine Park tomorrow. Well, within 10 mins of my getting home I received a call from the Marine Park asking if they could come and collect him. Someone had turned me in! They arrived in minutes. I learned that this was only the 3rd lion fish to have been caught in Cozumel. Sadly I doubt my little friend will survive the week. The NP officer told me that he'd probably end up pickled in alcohol. When he saw the look on my face he back tracked and said that they would probably keep this one alive to study. A likely storey - I think he was just trying to stop me from crying.

So off he went in a big white van. Very pretty little thing - difficult to believe he'd cause such havok:

And so the question is -am I a reef preserver or a lion fish murderer???