Missing Costa Rica-Oct 2012

Joe stopped smoking at 3am August 8th. Evidently he had a middle of the night epiphany that if he wanted to see 70, he had to stop. He had had several episodes of being awakened during the night by being unable to breathe. What it was, we figured out later, was that he had blocked nasal passages. But he was convinced for a while, that he had emphysema and would have to carry around an oxygen tank forever. When he stopped smoking, he became very restless. First , He began taking the Costa Rican Klonapin equivalent, something he calls “Rev”, but after being advised by both his brother Bob and his Doctor Alejandro, he began walking, instead. One day he found himself up at Mike and Lena’s house—the spectacular round house with infinity pool way up on top of the mountain. They were surprised to see him and after a pleasant visit, they gave him a ride home. Joe had become increasingly inactive over the years,-- this walking is new behavior. On September 5th he was walking around our compound—again, new behavior, this walking..He was in the guesthouse and the ground began shaking. He managed to stumble outside with the dogs who always follow him. He walked down the road with Freida to see if there was damage and to see how the neighbors fared. Well, our neighbors dog, who is trained to be a guard dog, attacked and bit poor little Freida.. Everyone, of course, felt bad about it and Freida is OK. She is back to her usual behavior of not following Joe past our property.. There have been 2000 aftershocks (one was 5.6—the original quake was in the 7’s), Ainsley disappears a lot and Joe goes crazy looking for him. We have a small amount of superficial concrete damage in the side of our guesthouse which is easily reparable…And we lost some olive oil off a shelf and some glasses in the pub. Joe said the aftershocks are extremely unnerving-he slept a few nights in his bathrobe in case he had to run out.. We have new neighbors, Francie and Barry, from Minnesota. They are house-sitting at Tim and Wella’s and then they plan to rent from us. Joe often goes walking with them and for a while their son and a German girl visited them. They hung out with Joe often and made bread at our house since we have an oven. The thunderstorms are ferocious. Joe said the thunder is so loud, the ground shakes, and the lightning is so close, it might be hitting things. Freida is a nervous wreck…Even Nina is affected, jumping up on Joes lap and trembling. As long as everyone stays indoors it should be safe enough, but one time Joe was on his way back from San Jose the rain and thunder and lightning were so bad that Gunter who was driving and Neicho who was watching the house had to stay overnight. So in many ways Joe is doing fine on his own but he does not like me to be here working. I say it is only five more weeks and we have money coming in.” He says:” Money is not the most important thing. You should be here.” Once we sell the house, we can regroup but there are still no prospects. I am currently being considered now for a telepsychiatry job in OR where I would set up a web cam in our guest room and work from home 24 hours per week. My site in NH is also considering doing this but telepsychiatry is new and there may be logistical barriers. If I don’t do telepsychiatry, I will want to come back to NH next year but of course, this is not certain. Back to Nosara in five weeks….Can’t wait..Love Joe and Helena