Sheryl Update

I’m still two weeks behind on my posts. We were in Cabo in the beginning of October which was about a month too early. It was really hot.

Here we are 30 years ago on one of our first trips here.

A lot has changed besides us and our clothing choices. Our first trip here we camped on the beach.

Even if we wanted to, which we don’t, you can’t camp anymore. Here’s where you stay now, which was really nice.

The actual town is still charming.

Thirty years ago we ate at this taco place in the market every day.

Their store was gone but the market and taco places is still there.

They even had some nice entertainment. This guy set up a speaker and microphone . He didn’t even seem to be asking for money.

It’s grown up a lot since the 90s. This street is all supermarkets now. But, so have we. Jeff no longer wears a belt wallet and I, well I might actually still own those shorts.

I’m still behind on the blog so this is from a few weeks ago.

Our friend Grace visited us from Seattle and spent the day with us. It was so wonderful to see her.

Grace and I started on the same day at Starbucks in 1999. We met in the shuttle on the way from the parking lot to the office and have been friends ever since.

Over the years Grace’s husband Bruce, and Jeff always talked about fitness when we talked about work. Then we’d finish the work talk and have fun eating fun dinners and playing board games.

Over the years we’ve watched their daughter Lacey grow up. Here we are 10 years ago with her goofing around.

Starbucks has given me a lot of things over the years a career, salary, free coffee. But the friends I’ve made there have been the best part.

When we went to Tijuana to get Jeff’s eye procedure I expected a lawless, dangerous sleazy town. I’m sure that exists. But there is also a normal upscale side.

Our Airbnb was in an upscale apartment building attached to a really nice upscale shopping mall. In tje top picture we’re at a Chinese restaurant at the mall. Sadly I couldn’t drink the two for one margarita.

The mall had mariachis which is the best way to see them. You don’t have to avert your eyes hoping they won’t come to your table in a restaurant.

Kick ass ice cream at the mall.

The touristy street was fun and family friendly.

This tamale made me sick the next day. But it was delicious.

We did walk a block off the main drag and it was not so family friendly. Prostitutes, strip clubs and shady bars. We were only in this street for a block which was more this enough. I did not take photos.

There’s also a beachfront. I don’t think it’s really a swimming beach but was nice to walk along it.

Would we move to Tijuana? No. Will we feel good coming back in six months for Jeff to get more eyeball botox? Absolutely.

Jeff has had an eye problem called strabismus for several years. This caused him to see double for about the last six years. After seeing several eye doctors and lots of research he found a top doctor in Tijuana to fix it.

When Jeff told me he was going to Tijuana for eye surgery I imagined him waking up in an alley missing a kidney.

But after a lot of research I leaned that Tijuana has become a city full of top medical centers and doctors. People from the US and Canada come as medical tourists. The CODET institute where his doctor was, invented either Lasik or something to do with Lasik.

This must be the first machine or something. I didn’t read the sign.

Jeff practiced wearing an eye patch. We assumed he would need this after surgery.

His doctor was great although I was thrown off by her not exactly wearing a white lab coat at the appointment.

She diagnosed him with a form of stravismus that is known as saggy eye syndrome. His eye muscles were sagging and causing the double vision. Surgery would create a eyeball bra that he would always feel. A regular bra is uncomfortable enough but to have one in your eyeball sounds really bad.

Another option was prism glasses.

These were testers. He didn’t love them. The third option was BOTOX injections into the muscles of his eyeballs.

This is what he chose. He said it was not painful or scary. And his doctor wore a lab coat for the procedure. What was scary was these plastic covers he had to wear after.

This was to keep him from rubbing his eyes. After 24 hours he took them off and felt great. His vision is improved even more than he expected. This should last for 6 months to a year.

Here’s Jeff testing out his new eyesite. Tijuana was actually pretty nice in parts. I’ll post those pictures in my next post.

I’m still behind so this visit was several weeks ago. Laura, Jeff and I visited the Egyptian exhibition at the De Young museum.

It was an impressive exhibit with this large what I thought was a wall of hieroglyphs. The top photo is a reenactment of me leaning on the “wall.”

Turns out it was just a curtain. Luckily, I caught myself before falling through it completely and on top of the statues.

If you look at the bottom of this photo, someone else might not have been as lucky. I think the feet are a reflection in the glass but not positive.

This is a female ruler who wore a fake beard. As someone who now wears a wig, a fake beard would be so uncomfortable.

Pharoah with mini me Pharoah. And really good bangs.

I guess not all Pharoahs were good looking. This one is a little bit off.

Afterwards we hung out in the park. Since I was wearing my hat with fake hair attached I still demanded that I sit in a chair and have everyone else surround me.

It was a fun day, and I narrowly avoided disaster and going viral.

My friend Anne visited from Seattle. She was also one of my bosses at Starbucks. Not to brag but I must have been a damn good employee to have two dear friends that were both former bosses.

Rodrigo, Anne’s support sloth and Sven and Sergio’s brother came along. All the sloths were happy to see each other.

Rodrigo told them all about life in Seattle and how much he likes driving. Now Sven and Sergio are trying to get us to buy a car for them.

We spent time just talking and relaxing. You know I’m hanging when I don’t even have my hair on.

Anne is an incredible cook and was nice enough to cook for us.

She is also French so she gave Jeff French tutoring along with cooking lessons.

She made the best lava cake I’ve every had.

We also went out for Indian food with Laura.

While we were gone the sloths got into trouble trying to eat the plants.

It was a great visit for us and the sloths.

I’m so behind on updates. Three weeks ago we got to spend the weekend with our friends Kim and Deb. We’ve been friends with them for over 25 years. Kim used to be my boss at Starbucks years ago.

You know we’ve been friends for a long time by our hair. As in Jeff and I both had a lot of it in the below old photos. Kim and Deb look the same. They don’t age.

We went out for dinner the first night.

I get a wig and now demand to sit in a chair and have everyone gather around me for photos.

The next day we went over to Kim’s brother’s house. We had never met Mike or his wife Yolanda. It was so nice to meet them and their daughter Camille. I’ve heard about Camille since she was born so it was so nice to meet them. They were super nice and welcoming.

They live in a beautiful house with a pool and an incredible view.

Not only did they feed us and make margaritas. They made fancy mocktails for me.

We also got to meet Kim and Deb’s cats. Coconut and Quincy drove up with them from southern California where they live.

It was wonderful to spend time with them.

I’m not totally bald, but my hair is thinning a lot. I’m basically rocking the Benjamin Franklin look. Except he had more hair in the back than I do.

My mom and sister Laura went with me to buy some new hair. This was a few weeks ago I’m behind on blog entries.

We had an appointment and the women said we should pick out 5 or 6 for me to try on. My mom did not pick the one her hand is next to in the photo.

They even had men’s wigs.

The reject wigs were hysterical. I almost fell off my chair laughing at this one.

But then we found the perfect one. My mom picked this one and I thought no, but once on my head I loved it. My mom really does know what looks best on me.

It’s a high end wig which means not only was it expensive, it is a lot more comfortable than the ones you wear at Halloween.

My dad liked it

So did my nephew Casey when we took him out for bday drinks. I’m drinking a mocktail in this photo.

The medical assistant I see every week at the hospital to take my vitals asked me yesterday if I dyed my hair a new color. I was able to tell him, no. I got all new hair.

I’m behind on updates. My parents came for a visit almost two weeks ago

They were nice enough to shrink down to our size.

We went out for some great dinners.

I looked all cool and urban.

And we did some really nice walks.

We also met up with Laura, Jesse and Casey at the restaurant where Joey worked over the summer.

An unfortunate thing was that Jenny was home in Chicago and not with us. We were however able to photoshop her in

The funniest thing in this picture is that I’m the one that looks added in.

We also went wig shopping which I’ll do a post on next.

I’m getting this drug every three weeks at UCSF. For the first dose I was in a private room and they did tests every hour for 6 hours. This one was more like my other experiences with chemo.

Except chemo I did in Panama and Mexico. So here it was all in English. When I checked in I could talk normally. I didn’t have to practice Spanish and have my Google translate app all ready. I also didn’t have to pay $5,000 every time and hope insurance reimbursed me (they did.)

The clinical trial is mostly free. There are a few things insurance pays for but it’s all handled by the hospital.

I start with a blood test and then meet with a nurse practitioner in this weird exam chair.

Then I’m all hooked up and sit in a chair in row of other people getting chemo. My skin looks freakishly wrinkly in this photo. I’m not sure why. It isn’t normally like that.

The view out the windows is nice. Not the sweeping ocean view of Panama’s chemo center but nice.

The food in Mexico was much better. There I got a full breakfast, lunch, ham sandwich, fruit and cookies. Get you get one saltine. Only one as the sign says.

The biggest and best change is getting to see family after treatment. Joey turned 19 and we got to celebrate with her which was awesome.

And I get to see my friend Robin. She lives in Mountain View so not super close but has been nice enough to drive up to see me.

We’ve been friends since freshmen year in high school. I think we are about 17 and 18 in these photos. It’s been so great to see her.

The drugs make me feel pretty crappy the first week but then by the second week I’m just tired and by the third week almost back to normal.

One side effect is I shrunk.

Some of the drug must have gotten on Jeff because he shrunk too.