For about ten years in the USA, I had some issues. It seemed that every few weeks I would get sick. It was like the flu. It came with a fever. I hate fevers. I would rather have physical pain than a fever. I returned to the doctor many times about it. I saw other doctors. It didn’t matter, no relief. It is downright depressing to have something like the flu almost constantly. Allergies? Yes, but they went away. So I lived and worked feeling terrible half the time. It was baffling. And then, for no apparent reason it cleared up and I began having the flu like normal people, maybe four times a year.

I have only had moments of illness in my life. I had hepatitis when I was around ten. Nearly died from it, woke up from a  coma after about two weeks. I then went through that flu thing. about twenty years ago I got pneumonia. Again, I was on death’s door because I ignored it (habit from those flu days) and ended up locked into bed unable to work for 6 weeks.

The last time was a few years ago when I was confined to bed for a very long time. I would get dizzy when I stood and just collapse. I couldn’t drive or go shopping. Oh, I tried, but when I found myself looking up from the floor at a circle of people in a supermarket, I decided to listen to the doctor. Turned out to be some sort of middle ear issue related to cancer. Just prior to this I was getting spontaneous nosebleeds. I would fall over at work. It was crazy. Eventually, it was all figured out and cured. Three days after they operated, I headed to Ecuador.

When I arrived here, I was extremely weak (zero walking or exercise for a few years), worn out from the operation, and couldn’t breathe from the altitude. I was a bit of a mess. I had also gained over 120 lbs during that time so I had a lot of extra weight to drag around. My first few weeks here I could barely walk more than a block or two without having to stop and rest. It was as horrible as you are imagining.

I started to feel a bit better, and in a few months, I was feeling pretty decent. While still massively overweight, I was losing each week and could walk further and further. A big moment came when I was in Azogues for yet another round for Visa, and I decided to walk. I walked up and down the hilly streets and across town for around 2 hours. Inside I was extremely happy. It had been a number of years since I could do that.

So from then on, I kept inching my way back to normalcy. I have continued to lose weight. Somewhere around 45 lbs in total. It is strange to feel like I’m a human jello bowl when I am walking but I don’t really concern myself with that. As long as I can walk at all. I know there will be people in my life that will be unaware of all of this. When I got sick, I isolated myself from others and didn’t really tell people much if anything at all. To those that read this, what can I say? I can’t really explain what I don’t understand myself.

I will now tell you the upside to all of this, and why I have set the stage. Since I have been here, I have not caught the flu or even a cold. Nearly 2 years and nothing. Now I will say that every now and then I feel like a cold is coming on, and for a day or a bit more I may feel feverish or tired, but the next day it clears up and I am fine. I do not know if I have ever gone this long without some cold or flu. Is it some Cuenca miracle? I don’t think so since the few friends I have made here have been sick. It seems colds and flues here aren’t much different. I think the difference is first, I pretty much keep to myself. Second, I do not have kids around me bringing back a cesspool of crap from school and sneezing it on me. Third, I do not have to go around shaking hands or just being exposed to a ton of people like I always had to do in my work.

Contrary to what some think, I don’t see Cuenca Ecuador as being some miracle healthy area. But for me, this drastic change in my life, it feels like it. What brings this up now? I just went through 2 whole days sneezing, feeling weak and tired, and having a fever. I woke this morning and, of course, it was gone. Every time this happens now I feel like I have cheated. But I am not complaining. I feel very fortunate.