Christina Update #2: Mexico Experiment

Christina is in Mexico. My friends Eden and Lora in Chacala are taking care of her as she recovers some stability after her grueling trip. It’s a long way from New Hampshire to Jalisco to Nayarit. 

Our prior planning – and your donations – have provided necessities that make life in her broken body more bearable: 

·      a weighted blanket (apparently these things are magic for anxiety and pain)

·      a nifty gadget that allows her to massage her calves when they cramp (she was so happy when she found it online!)

·      an electric teakettle and hot water bottle to soothe her aches (which will be unimaginably awful for several days after the trip)

·      a delivery of Lora’s delicious soup (the first in a series of meals until Christina recovers sufficiently to cook for herself)

·      a cozy room in Eden’s sweet little hotel (where she will stay for a couple of weeks until she is ready to go to the small apartment she rents in San Pancho, a few miles south of Chacala)

·      And other blessings …

Thank you for your kind generosity in helping to cover these costs. She will need additional items and, of course, money for food and rent. I have committed to covering these for as long as she is there. I appreciate your help in doing so. Her need is so strong – and her suffering connected with the NH winter so great – that I absolutely must help her, as she currently has no resources of her own.

Why Mexico? 

Christina is there primarily for warmth. One of many horrendous manifestations of her condition, Ehlers-Davlos Syndrome, is that her body has lost much of its capacity for temperature regulation. Her parents’ home in NH is insufficiently insulated for her comfort – she gets goose bumps at 70 – and heating it to her comfort level would be prohibitively expensive. Her folks are able to adapt; she cannot. 

As it’s warm, and as the cost of living there is relatively low, she began spending the long NH cold season in Mexico eight years ago – except for this past winter, when she stayed home to have surgery on her neck and to convalesce, which was a cruel reminder for her of how much her body requires warmth.

And now, as of Saturday 10/17/20, she is back in the warmth. I know she is fearful about being there alone this year with her new level of incapacity. Still, she needs to know whether her body’s accelerated deterioration over the past year resulted from being cold and cramped and isolated in NH or whether the increased level of pain and disability constitute her new normal even when she is warm and among her Mexican and expat friends. 

It’s an experiment of great significance for her, not just a trip to the beach ...

So … thank you for reading this update. If you want to donate, you can go to https://wellwisestrong.com/writing/help-for-christina and scroll down to the end, where you will find a PayPal link and other donation venues. 

Christina will write her own update to post here as she is able. Meanwhile, thank you for caring. We’re all just walking each other home, yes?