September 6: God Bless Texas!

We flew to Dallas via Puerto Rico on Tuesday, September 1st. Wow...is it great to be back in the states to visit family and friends. After the relative peace and quiet of the islands, it is a bit shocking. Everything is so loud and fast here, and everyone constantly on the cell phone and/or texting. Really, is it that important?? And so much FOOD and STUFF!! You can buy ANYTHING here!!! We get into a bit of consumerism right away....a real salon with my forever stylist for me, West Marine and Frye's for Craig (us). Walmart was crazy fun as were the sporting goods stores to replace some beat down Columbia shorts for us both.

We are staying with Craig's parents in Denton, about 30 miles north of Dallas. I have my two sisters here and we both have many friends whom we hope to see during our stay. Unfortunately we had to cancel our much-awaited trip to see family in Nebraska but are stil looking forward to a trip to Tallahassee to see my parents and friends there.

Have missed seeing well-fed cows, even if this one tried to charge us...

The latest in beer-opening technology. STUFF!!!

Dakota mugs for the camera.

We are also glad to be back home so we can take care of a medical emergency that popped up in Grenada. Craig began having chest pains the week prior to our departure. The medical care in Grenada is quite good and the end result of all that is that on the Friday preceding our Tuesday departure, Craig had a positive stress treadmill with ischemic changes in anterior leads after 5 minutes. I called the interventional cardiologist from Grenada and got an appointment on Wednesday. We scheduled the cardiac catheterization and probable stent on Thursday. Scary but simple enough. Not the case. Craig has a large lesion in the LAD just below the bifurcation with a section of narrowing as well as a section of almost total occlusion. The anatomy of the lesion and vasculature precludes a stent, so Craig is scheduled for open heart surgery for a single vessel bypass graft this coming Wednesday. Thoracic surgery technology has advanced so that they do not have to stop his heart and use a cardiopulmonary bypass machine during the operation. They still have to open his chest through the sternum (breastbone) and that is an 8 week recovery. It will be a good little while before we are hauling up a mainsail.

For now, we are resting and enjoying family time. Hakuna Matata is safely tucked away in a marina, under the watchful eyes of our cruising friends, anxiously awaiting our return. She does not like to be tied up!!