Survival

Please allow me to relate to you a sad and almost deadly occurrence in my life. I was living in a fishing village in Mexico called Boca De Tomatlan at the time. This village is about sixteen kilometres along the coast from Puerta Vallarta. I was conducting a clinic in my motor home for people needing all type of prostheses such as: wheelchairs, glasses, crutches and the like. I also provided medical help to the needy who could not find help in Mexico as I would send them free of charge to Canada to get operations that were too costly in Mexico. I also build up a collection of four boats to give free excursions on the bay.

This event happened at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. It all started on my birthday, my daughter phoned me up to send me her good wishes which she did every year on my birthday. I was feeling so terribly that I don’t know how I even mustered the strength to pick up the phone but when I did I was able to whisper the words “Help me” before passing out. Lori called again but got no response so she flew into action marshaling several other villagers to my aid as she was in a different country at the time. The villagers had to break down the door to find me as I was prostrate on the floor of my home and remember none of my rescue. The villagers called an ambulance and had me brought to the best hospital in Puerta Vallarta as instructed by my daughter Lori.

I was immediately taken into the operating room where the surgeon removed a bleeding tumour as well as a large section of my bowel I required a grand total of ten blood transfusions. The doctor later informed Lori that if I had arrived 2 hours later I would not have survived. I finally regained consciousness only to find that I had two bags extruding from my body a colostomy on one side and an ileostomy on the other. Thank-God for a good surgeon as I was alive. My Daughter flew directly to Mexico from her home in Paris France. The villagers had helped so much, they even donated blood as I had exhausted the hospital’s supply of my blood type during my ordeal.

Lori who had a large translation company in Paris had been hit hard by the financial crisis and had lost quite a lot of money due to the recession. She had no choice but to put everything I owned up for sale and in many cases had to practically give things away to the poor villagers. I was now broke flat but at least my pricey medical bills had been paid. Lori and my son Brad contributed what they could. Lori had to come up with two thousand dollars for a doctor to accompany me back to Canada or the airport would not have allowed me to travel home. $65,000 later and I still owed $7,000 on my visa as I arrived back in Canada.

Once again in a hospital bed and receiving numerous bottles of who knows what pouring into my body I slowly recovered. With the help of Veterans Affairs and the guidance of my good friend Jo Vella all my pensions and allowances were reestablished or restored. These resulted from my five years overseas during WWII and my war injuries during that time. Due to my pension I can now live reasonably comfortably. Lori had liquidated all my assets in Mexico so I was now able to focus on myself these last two years and have completed four novels which have been published by Amazon and can be seen right here on dacker.org, my blog which you are reading right now. If you are interested in my books scroll down for more information.

Thank-you and God Bless

-PS for those of you concerned I had a final operation to reconnect all my bowels and no longer have a colostomy bag. Thank-God for that!

-Dacker Thicke