Personally, we are happy to see the end of 2010. There were excellent adventures and some mis-adventures.
We had great travel experiences in the Dallas area; Ruidoso and Santa Fe, NM area; the beautiful Davis Mountains of Texas; very educating visits to Boston; side trips to Maine and New Hampshire, and a family reunion in Connecticut. The Connecticut visit was to celebrate Rick’s mother’s 90th birthday.
On the downside, in January, Rick had a stent placed in one his arteries that showed a 99.5% blockage. All went well. In August, Rick had a colonoscopy and we discovered colon cancer. Removal of half of the large intestine ensued. Chemo therapy began in October and will continue until April 2011. During the testing for the cancer, two masses were found in his left lung. We assumed that these were either related to the colon cancer or a new primary lung cancer, which would be really bad news. We were unable to probe these masses until December when the cardiologist allowed temporary stoppage of his Plavix.
In addition to these downers, Rick lost his mother in November. She was a wonderful woman and we will miss her terribly.
We are now confident that 2011 will be better because we just returned from the doctor where he told us that the lung nodules were not cancer. Yeah!! Samples were sent to a micro-biologist to examine and grow cultures to figure out what the lumps are. Probably some fungus or some kind of bacteria. We’ll know more in about a month. With no transfer of the colon cancer to the liver, we’re looking forward to a clean bill of health by April, upon completion of the chemo.
We generally don’t comment on health issues because it can get boring to most readers. You can tell by the statistics below that obviously most readers are not personal acquaintances.
Readership of our blog continues to increase. We promise a more interesting entries for 2011. Our 2010 statistics were quite impressive. We had an 85% increase over 2009. Visitors went from 200,126 to 370,865.
Geography of the visitors was all over the globe. You can click on the chart below to enlarge.
Of the 93 countries reported, 82% were from the US, followed by Mexico and then Canada.
Our most visited articles remain those from Mexico and life there.
We look forward to continuing our travels this year with another trip toward Florida and the east coast and perhaps northern California and the northwest.
Thank you all for visiting. Don’t feel shy about visiting our sponsor links on the right side of the blog.
