Been a Minute…❤️‍🩹

Boobs….. the journey within the journey

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I have always had a love/hate relationship with my boobs. 

It was my sixth grade teacher who told my mom I needed to wear a bra because the boys kept looking down my shirt. My mother was not buxom. My first bra was one of hers. I do not recall being excited at the prospect or wanting to wear a bra. Looking back over the 40 years since, I don’t remember ever wearing a bra I thought was truly comfortable. 

By 18, I was a 36C. The boys were still keenly interested. I felt like my boobs were one of my best features. The “girls” got me out of speeding tickets, got me free drinks & smokes & into all other kinds of fun trouble. My boobs were still young, & I decided bras were optional & for the most part those options were cute & flowery & lacy & still fucking uncomfortable.

By 24, after the birth of our first child & a successful year of breast-feeding, I had grown to a 38D. Gone were the days of optional bras. Gone were the days of spaghetti straps & demi cups. Now it was full coverage with 1 to 2 inch thick shoulder straps to hoist the girls. Don’t even get me started about boob sweat. IYKYK 🤣

By 27, after the birth of our second child & a less than successful & particularly painful six months of breast-feeding, I topped out at 40DD. During that six months, my boobs were so engorged I could barely see my feet 🦶 Breastmilk would literally shoot out of my boobs or I would let down all over whatever I was wearing if I was bra-less or without absorbent boob pads. That unfortunately was the least of my problems. My son had trouble latching on. The force with which my milk came in required my son to eat at lightning speed ⛈️ which meant projectile vomiting came soon after each meal.  I wanted to breast-feed for a year or more for my son’s health, but the final straw would be two consecutive bouts of intense mastitis, that no number of cabbage 🥬 halves could cure.

The “girls” were angry. 😡 They were hard & red & inflamed. It took two rounds of 10 day antibiotics to reduce my fever & quell the infection. That was the end of breast-feeding. 

Over the next two decades, my boobs would fluctuate between a 38D & a 40DD along with my weight. These bra sizes are not cute. They are expensive, expansive & uncomfortable, truly every definition of tit-slings or over the shoulder boulder holders 🪨 I would also become a regular at the chiropractor’s office & never wear a button down shirt again.

Fast forward, 20 years & many routine mammograms. “They” say mastitis & underwires do not cause or contribute to breast cancer, so we will continue to let “them” believe that all that comes next is purely coincidental. 

During one of those routine mammograms, a couple of small spots were found in my right breast just under my lymph nodes. Further scans & a biopsy, concluded they were benign fibroid adenomas. Over the next two years, I would have four diagnostic mammograms in six month intervals. Nada, nothing to report, all clear. That was late 2021.

2022 came in with a bang & lots of big plans. I had a hysterectomy in March (kept my ovaries.) We sold our house 🏡 in April & hit the road in May 🛻 We were back in Colorado Springs late August to September. Woulda, coulda, shoulda caught up on my annual mammogram. It didn’t even cross my mind. That of course, is a whole ‘nother blog about everything I would have done differently if I had to do it all over again.

After six months in Mexico, hooking up with the pet/housesitting lifestyle, a trip to Costa Rica & two months in Pagosa, we were finally back to Colorado Springs in June 2023. We were only there a quick week on the way to the next thing. I had the foresight to make a doctor’s appointment with my primary care physician, thinking all along, I was well on top of my healthcare 🩺

There is another topic for discussion, healthcare & HIPAA in the age of remote work & the digital nomad…. why can’t I get a freakin virtual appt!?

All in all, a good report, nothing of great concern, although it had been a year & a half since my last boob squish. My doctor wrote the order, I called the imaging center directly, but alas, it would be weeks before they could see me & I wouldn’t be returning until the holidays 🎄 Surely it could wait a minute, the doctor had just done a breast exam & there appeared to be no immediate issues.  So on we traveled 🛻 ✈️

We spent the next 2 1/2 months in the Pacific Northwest walking dogs, chasing mice, hiking & drinking wine 🍷 Nearly everything on this “life on the road” adventure had lived up to the hype. (minus of course, fraudulent Airbnb hosts & Mexican police.) 👮‍♀️

Sidebar: Many have asked along the way, “Why now? Why not wait until retirement, when Dave doesn’t have to suffer the drudgery of remote work?” A whole host of reasons, the timing of the housing market & simply the opportunity. But most importantly, because time waits for no man ⏰

In 2016 my mom retired, from a long & thankless career with the hopes & dreams of traveling the country with her husband & seeing all the things. That summer they borrowed RV Betty & hit the road for the Pacific Northwest. Hmm ironic 🤔 I’ve never made that connection until now. The following Thanksgiving, her husband, my stepfather of nearly 20 years passed away, suddenly & unexpectedly. 

So why now, why not? 

We said goodbye to the PNW & returned to Colorado, to Pagosa Springs. One sleepless night, that apparently are quite common for women of my age & life stage. Don’t ask me why, but I thought, maybe I should do a self breast exam. Bizarre I know, but that’s when I seem to do them not in the shower per the placard 🧖‍♀️  

There it was, something concerning. I kept it to myself for the next couple of weeks, with the exception of messaging my doctor 🩺 to prepare orders to be sent to an Albuquerque Imaging Center 🩻 The first available appointment to ensure all of the hoop jumping would be two days after balloon fiesta & four days before we left for a month in Mexico 🇲🇽

I can’t recommend the folks at High Resolution in Albuquerque enough. They were nothing if not efficient & compassionate. Within a couple of hours, my DD’s had been smashed between two glass plates half a dozen times or so. I had had an ultrasound & then waited to talk to the radiologist. The doctor came in on crutches & sat down before me to discuss a more than likely cancer diagnosis.

This is how ridiculous I am, as he spoke about how this lump was different from my previous spots a couple of years ago, all I could think to myself was, “this guy only has one leg!”🦵 Perhaps it was that distraction from the shock of the news to come, of what I already knew, that allowed me to be my levelheaded self & weigh the options. Thankfully they fast tracked a biopsy for Friday afternoon, the day before we left for Mexico 🇲🇽

Long story longer, the doctor called on Monday, October 30 with the official diagnosis. Stage one, grade 2, invasive ductal carcinoma. The tumor was 2 cm, the top end of what they consider stage one. It was growing, but not aggressively hence grade 2. Invasive meant it had left the duct & infected the surrounding tissue, but was not currently in my lymph nodes as far as they could tell 🦠

Several people have said “oh, that is the best cancer to have!” 👍 I will have to take their word for it & pray I never have anything to compare it to. 

The next month was about sharing the news with friends & family. It was also about trying to find the “right” doctor & literally begging for a virtual appointment because, damn it, I had plans & cancer had not been scheduled! 

Once again, healthcare & HIPAA in the age of remote work & the digital nomad…. Wasn’t nearly EVERYTHING virtual just a couple years ago? 

Needles to say, their lack of flexibility was compounded by my state of denial. I postponed my initial appointment three times in order to stay our current adventure course. I convinced myself, that for my mental health, I needed to go skiing ⛷️ Granted we hadn’t seen snow ❄️ in 2 years! I had so been looking forward to our time in Breckenridge. Was it the best decision, maybe not, but it is what we did…

What came next would the most trying time of my life ❤️‍🩹

🏔️ the Springs 🏙️

Back in 2006, as our time in Ireland ☘️ was coming to an end, we had a unique opportunity. We opened a large map 🗺️ of the U.S. & asked ourselves, “If we could live anywhere, where would we want that to be?” We had a short list of criteria… 

  • Four seasons 🍁❄️🌸🌳
  • Outdoor recreation 🎿🏔️
  • Good for ballooning 👍
  • Smaller town/city (than Austin, ABQ or Dallas) 🌃
  • A place we could raise our kids thru HS 🎵⚛️
  • Decent airport to support Dave’s work travel ✈️
  • Close to family in DFW/ABQ but not too close 😉 🛻

We had friends in Denver, but Denver was too big🌆 We didn’t want to move back to Texas because it was too hot🥵 Dave’s company, at the time, was in Minneapolis but that was too cold🥶 So we began to focus on Colorado Springs.

At the time, Colorado Springs was less than 400,000 people. It sat in the shadow of Pike’s Peak at the southern end of the Front Range mountain ⛰️ It had four seasons & tons of outdoor adventures, including ballooning, with it’s own local balloon club! There was a decent airport🛫 It was only half a day’s drive to Albuquerque & a long day to Dallas.

Dave & I made one quick trip there on a stateside visit while we still lived in Ireland.☘️ The decision was made. Colorado Springs would be our next home. When we returned that summer, we bought a house, at what would then be the most expensive market at the most expensive rate.🏠📈

Our house was better than a fixer-upper, although we would remodel most of it over the next 16 years. It was at the top of a cul-de-sac, on a hill, looking northwest towards the mountains & the Air Force Academy off the back deck. The neighborhood was very close-knit & they took us in immediately. We were welcomed with groceries & homemade cookies & a neighborhood barbecue. Over the next 16 years, there would be dozens of barbecues. Neighbor teens would babysit our kids & later Erin would babysit other neighbor kids. We would walk together through births, graduations, marriages, health scares, job losses & death. 

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We lived on Lange, longer than we lived anywhere & longer than all the other places combined. Andrew really grew up there, from 5yrs old to 22. He is nearly a Colorado native. He became best friends with the boy next door, they are roommates now, still living in Colorado Springs, not far from his boyhood home.

I guess you might ask, “If it was so great, why did you leave?” Well, if you’ve been following along, you may have noticed, I don’t sit still very well. By the time we had settled on Lange, we had lived in seven other cities, in three different states & two different countries, in ten years time.

Leaving was bittersweet. People ask what I miss most about being on the road? My answer, hanging out with friends. Although, many friends have visited us along the way & traveling has allowed us to see other friends & make new friends. 

Colorado Springs feels the closest to a hometown as l ever had. Sure, I grew up in Dallas & lived there for 19 years. Dallas was my childhood home. Colorado Springs was & will always be, our family’s hometown. It just took us a while to get there. Then just like that, it was time to go.

I remember this Texas girl panicking at the first 6 foot snowstorm. I remember spinning out on the icy roads & running into a brick mailbox nearly totaling our Pathfinder. It would be a couple of years before I got back to snow skiing. Then it became what we did over the winters. Summers we spent hot air ballooning around the state. Pueblo, Frederick, Westminster, Craig, Steamboat, Grand Junction, Castle Rock & of course, Colorado Springs. We covered most of the state many times over, yet never made it down to the southwest corner.

It would be 2020,🦠 the year that time forgot or made us forget time, when we finally “discovered” another Springs, Pagosa Springs.  For us & a group of rag tag ballooning friends, 2020 would be deemed the year of the Bummer Summer tour. Any other year, balloon rallies would have gotten under way sometime in May & lasted well into December, but not 2020. CANCELED or POSTPONED would keep us grounded, or would it? We would choose a handful of beautiful places, reach out to local pilots, pick a date & pay our own way. (Rallies usually provide pilots with accommodations & propane.) Pagosa was first on the list (followed by South Dakota, Utah & Pike’s Peak!)

We partnered with the local ride company, Rocky Mountain Balloon Adventures. The owner/operator Austin gave us the lay of the land. We may have gone rogue but we had every intention of respecting the flying area.  We had a dozen balloons, celebrated 3 birthdays 🎂 including Andrew’s & Austin’s. We just about took over the local hotel.  We tubed down the San Juan river & Mama Linda made friends with the local swan 🦢. The flights were spectacular. The views from above even more so.

It wouldn’t be until the next year, when we came down to fly again, that Pagosa really captured us. Nestled down the road from Wolf Creek Pass & the Continental Divide, this time in the shadow of Pagosa Peak & the San Juan Mountains 🏔️ a (sometimes) raging river runs through a county of less than 14K residents (twice that during tourist season, May-Oct) Visit Pagosa!

Pagosa Springs also host the “World’s Deepest Hot Springs!”

Pagosa is also surrounded by the San Juan & Rio Grande National Forests. Hiking is literally out the back door. Box canyons, waterfalls & panoramic views delight in every direction. 

Downtown Pagosa itself is built along the San Juan River. Less than 2500 residents live within the town boundaries. Many more live up Putt Hill in the area of Uptown. Uptown boasts the one Walmart & a City Market. Uptown grew up around vacation time shares built decades ago around Piñon Lake Reservoir & are now run by Wyndham. Uptown Pagosa also boasts one of the largest HOAs in the country.🇺🇸  We still have yet to decide if that is a good or bad thing.😬

Our first AirBnB host, a Colorado native from Denver who had lived most of his adult life in Pagosa told us a great story about the growth of the town & surrounding area… 

Who remembers Officer Poncherello? 

Apparently, some years or decades ago, actor, Erik Estrada worked with a real estate company, making infomercials to sell land in then obscure & unknown areas of California, Arkansas, Washington & Colorado. The tourist board or time share company advertised in Arkansas, Oklahoma & Texas. If a person called the 1-800 number, they could avail of the deal, free or super cheap. They would be flown into Durango, shuttled to Pagosa & then shown property to purchase. At this point, Pagosa was a sleepy little farming/ranching community, 45 minutes down the road from the, then & still, private/family owned Wolf Creek ski area. Acres were sold for less than $1000 a piece!

The actual population of the town & area have not grown much but Pagosa is now a tourist destination. With many second homes & over 500+ short term rentals, Pagosa Springs is anything but obscure.

We found it late, but found it we did 😉 We have since spent more & more of our time in Pagosa. We have made amazing new friends & get a bit better lay of the land every time we are there. We have hiked, tubed, rafted, sat on the patio of many a local eatery & skied.⛷️ With every visit, we get a little closer to calling it home.🏡

Stateside 🇺🇸

Our near six months in Mexico 🇲🇽 was everything we had hoped for & if you have been following along, so much more! Would we do it again? Absolutely! 

We traded the slow pace of Mexico for the the hustle & bustle of big box stores & doctors appointments. There is a whole subject for another time, “healthcare & life on the road!”

Ole Black Betty was a sight for sore eyes after squatty little overpriced hatchbacks in Mexico 🚘

These are the times we call, the rejig! They are not particularly exciting times, just a part of this travel process that has to get done. Thankfully, that meant a quick trip to Colorado Springs. We visited our stuff in storage & unpacked & repacked a few things. I squeezed in a game of ⛳️ with my gal pal & we did our first official stateside, Trusted Housesitter sit for a hilariously mismatched set of pups 🐶

Prints & Peanut. Can you guess which one was the alpha?  Nearly every morning of our 10 day stay, I woke to Prints hovering over me, standing with his paws on the bedside. It could have seemed a bit daunting but he was in fact just a big lovable baby. Prints & Peanut were inseparable & sometimes bickered like teenage siblings 🤣  It took them about a day to warm up to us being their temporary humans & stop searching the house for their mom.

They were patient, allowing me my morning coffee before heading out on a walk. This was my first encounter with a double lead, which was far better than the two singles even when Dave & I walked them together. Did I mention they are inseparable? 😉 Peanut kept up well with Prints & Prints seemed to hold back a bit as not to just drag Peanut along. The double lead included a waist belt which meant no tug-of-war on my arms & shoulders. They were sweet cuddle bugs who just wanted all our attention.

The opportunity was good confirmation that pet/house sitting was something worth pursuing. By the end of the summer, we would have half a dozen sits on our resume & banked $10K in savings, not paying for accommodations across the PNW. 

We settled back into life & headed to Pagosa Springs. Pagosa Springs is a little mountain town in the south west corner of Colorado. I’m not sure why it took us over a decade to discover this little piece of paradise, but it wasn’t until 2020 in the midst of Covid that we found ourselves there. Pagosa ticked all the boxes of what we wanted next, small town, mountains 🏔️ rivers, a few established friends, still close to family & great hot air ballooning. It is currently the closest thing we have to call Home 🏡 We spent six weeks there at the beginning of our adventures in 2022 & have since gone back & forth trying to find our place. 

We thought for sure we had discovered it when, last July, we purchased nearly 7 acres south of town with a meadow, seasonal stream & great view of the mountains. We spent much of our time in Mexico dreaming about building, talking to builders & scribbling out our dream home. We either jumped the gun or missed the boat! Needless to say, we are likely back to square one as the dream house that was well within our budget in 2021 is now almost twice the price. Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware it’s a first world problem. 

Although the shine has faded from building, Pagosa Springs continues to be where we want to re-settle when resettling is our thing again 😆 

During some of our initial visits, we were incredibly blessed to make new friends in Pagosa. The discovery of mid-life friendships has given even more meaning to this time in our lives. Conversations, that 20 years ago would likely have centered around children & careers, now lean more towards adventures & relationships with each other & ourselves. We are different. We are the same. Some are young, others young at heart ❤️😉 We love to hike & golf & take in the beauty from both where we are headed & whence we came.  Wine 🍷 of course is an added bonus!

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So per usual, I am behind the curve on the state of our adventures but moving forward. If you have hung around this long, thanks ☺️ If you are just joining us, welcome! & if you are giving up due to my blathering, lack of punctuation, affinity for run-on sentences & emojis, well, I don’t blame you 😜