Plane rides and back surgery

Having been in shelter Bay Marina for a while, we decided it was time for a break. The Captain was happy that the services offered by the marina boat care division are good enough for our precious Kariwa and booked us a passage to Florida. It took a long time to decide whether to fly to Miami, a 3.5 hour drive to the apartment, or Orlando, a 1 hour drive. He settled on Miami because it was half the price of Orlando. It’s a no brainer.

Just over 2 years ago, Frank had a DLDR (Deuk Laser Disk Repair) on his back by Dr Ara Deukmadjin in Melbourne, Florida. Dr Deuk repairs the disks instead of doing a spinal fusion, by removing the herniation from inside the herniated disk end the disk then heals itself. The whole procedure is done laparoscopically so is minimally invasive. Frank walked out of the surgery centre an hour after the procedure. Last week he had a rhizotomy at the same place (Deuk Spine) which is essentially a severing of the nerve endings which relay pain messages from the back to the brain. For anybody interested in this revolutionary new surgery, you can search for Deuk Spine on Youtube. They have a facility where you can upload your MRI and Dr Deuk will review it at no charge.

The following day we started our journey back to Panama. On a one way ticket.

The check in staff at Copa Airlines were not happy with the fact that we had a one way ticket and a cruising permit for the boat and ended up calling us to the boarding desk 15 minutes before boarding, insisting that we have a return ticket. Frank booked these within five minutes and they gave instruction to load our bags and boarded us. As soon as we landed in Panama he cancelled the return leg. I am sure the airlines are aware of some of these regulations and so allow free cancellation within 24 hours.

Our taxi driver Chico was a few minutes late to pick us up due to heavy rush hour traffic in Panama City but he got us safely back to Shelter Bay within 2 hours.

Saturday morning we took the marina bus to Colon to stock up on a few provisions and look for a washer for the kitchen tap, We did not find a washer but managed to stop the leaking tap using other ideas.

It has rained on and off today which is a good thing, the Panama Canal is suffering due to a lack of water.

We are planning to return to Bocas del Toro via Escudo deVeraqua and Zapatilla next week.