Okay. I’m in Buenos Aires now. My last blog post had me injured in Thailand. It got worse. I had nine days of recovery in the Philippines before I got on the plane to go to Argentina. And although I had mainly recovered it relapsed badly the day that I was going to get on the plane. I came very close to canceling my flight at the last minute but in the end decided not to. For the first time in my life, I played the injured and need a wheelchair card.

It worked quite well. Although in my pain as I was leaving the house, I forgot more than a couple of things including my backup phone. Arrggghhhh! Pain is really distracting.

It was a really odd trip. It consisted of three legs; from Clark to Doha, from Doha to Madrid, and from Madrid to Buenos Aires. I was in a lot of pain during the first leg but by the time I got to Doha the muscle spasms, which had been primarily on my left side in the lumbar area, had completely vanished and the muscle spasms had moved over to my right side. However, during the flight, they were pretty good. When I was in Madrid, albeit I used a wheelchair, I was actually walking around thinking this is okay. I was able to take a shower. I was able to put my socks back on. It’s the small things 😊.

I arrived in Buenos Aires, the wheelchair was a great help; got right through immigration very quickly. Very nice people, got my bags, got me out to the sidewalk where I was met by my friend and my regular driver. We got to the hotel (Park Tower), no problem. And yet by the following day, the muscle spasms on my right side had basically turned into sciatica. The hotel was a a great landing pad for 2 days though.

I did get moved into my apartment on the Monday, two days after arrival. I’m so lucky that I have good friends here. But I was essentially bedridden for almost a week. This is the first day that I have actually been able to sit down at my computer to work, including writing my first blog article in almost a month.

And, at the same time, my good friend Michael, in the Philippines who had been about to get onto his flight on Monday, came down extremely sick and had to be taken to hospital. A flurry of administrative and logistical messages ensued, involving people in Buenos Aires, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Portugal. But it was ok. His daughter came out from England, and an old family friend who was in the Philippines came up to the hospital. Most importantly my best friend Steve and his wife were on the ground and were CRITICAL to getting him taken care of. I believe that he is on a plane as I write, on the way to England.

I was able to hobble to my Spanish test at the court on Friday the 14th. Passed with no problems although it was rudimentary. Very amiable guy that took care of it. So that is out of the way. The last thing that I need to do I believe. So now I just wait for the next step. I gather the package has to go to two more offices (the Fiscal and then a judge) to be approved 20 – 60 days) and then they call me to be sworn in. If approved … 10 days to get my DNI (which is the national identity card). That will come by mail. Then, I’m told, I can go down to the passport office in the morning and return in the afternoon to get my passport. The DNI is much more important than the passport here.

God! It feels so good to be able to sit at my computer to work. My pain is about 30% of what it was just 2 days ago. What an unutterable relief. Pain truly incapacitates me. I don’t complain, I don’t get irritable, but I truly become less than functional. I went to a very dark place again.

I spoke with my friend Jakob in Bulgaria today, and it was enjoyable. We covered everything from the stupidity of culture, possible YouTube entrepreneurship, to me getting back to finishing writing my book. I am now trying the dictation software that is built into Microsoft Word. And that that Google has freely available.

Over the last couple of months as I have been exploring personal knowledge management, entrepreneurship, self improvement, etcetera, it has been borne in on me that in the world today, especially when dealing with technology, it is vital to revisit the marketplace from time to time to see what is available. I bought dictation software from Nuance about six years ago and it was quite expensive, maybe $600.00 I think, I'm not sure. And it is obvious to me now after just a few minutes of using the built-in dictation software with Microsoft and Google that this does everything that I need. So, I don't have to pay $350 to upgrade to the latest version of the Nuance software, and Microsoft / Google is much easier to use and configure. They even handle French, Spanish, and Turkish. 😊

I sit here in my apartment - see the pictures - and listening to the wind howling outside the building. That is one of the things I actually like about this building. You can hear the wind every time the weather changes. I love it … feels very cozy inside when the wind is blowing.

I will bring this post to a close. I may be able to sit at the computer but I can't sit there very long still. But today I started doing my therapy exercises and I went for another walk. Definitely my back feels better after a bit of movement. As I said many years ago, “motion is lotion”. 😊

I’m glad to be back. Hope everyone is well.