Since I am going to be away for 10 days, I called the hospice last night and they said that Dad was settled in for the night. He was having some shortness of breath but it was controlled somewhat by the meds The bleeding on at the tumour site had subsided somewhat and there was no more for the evening.

This was an early morning start for me. I got up at 3:45am to get a flight to Cancun for 7am. I have been so busy for the last few weeks that I can almost feel my body saying that if I don’t get a physical as well as mental break, I am going to crash and from previous experiences of not listening to my body, when I crash, it’s a hard fall. I am prone to being busy and ignoring my body’s signs that I need to slow down so I am sometimes forced to a standstill by a simple cold that should take a few days to get over but it takes me a few weeks. So I decided that I should take a forced vacation – such as it is – and go for a much needed break.

I tried to find a place that is only one plane ride away in case I need to go back to Winnipeg in a hurry and this was a direct flight. We are actually staying in Isla Mujeres (Island of Women). It’s about a 20 minute ride from the Cancun airport to the Gran Puerto ferry terminal then we take a 20 minute ferry to Isla.

We came here for the first time in 2004 and then two more times with friends Mike and Joan and then a 3rd time with Subhadra. This is one place I keep returning to because it really allows me to relax. Life is unhurried and slow and it’s just what I need. There is a long seawall where I go with my coffee every morning and just sit and listen and watch the waves come in to the shore. The seawall was damaged by the hurricane in 2005 but they have fixed quite a bit of it now so it’s usable again. I thought of going to Guyana for a week or so and spending some time with my family but it’s so far away and sometimes the flights are unreliable so I nixed that idea. Maybe a later time.

Having said that Isla is a relaxing place, I called home to mom twice and there was no answer so of course I thought something happened to her. Then i called Sharm and she said that I should relax, that if anything happened at home, they would call me. I was still not at ease with that so I called the hospice at 9pm and Donna said that dad had a rough day with his breathing so they gave him some different meds and he was a bit more settled by the evening. I called mom again and she said that she didn’t hear the phone the first time and when I called back, she was on the phone with Auntie Lovin so she didn’t answer the call wait. She said that when she was at the hospice, dad kept asking for me – where I was and when I would see him. He called home later in the afternoon and he was still asking. When I called the hospice in the evening, I told them to tell him that I called and Donna said that it would probably reassure him. I went to bed thinking that I hope that he’ll be okay for a few more days. I am going to bed soon as I am way past tired and my brains need to slow down. Tomorrow is another day and the sun will rise…