Sooo, Meagan and I have been keeping quiet lately but for good reason. We have had a lot going on. It’s a wonder we have any hair left on our heads and that not all of it is grey yet! Not all of it anyway.

Over the last few months we have made a lot of changes. Getting accustomed to the fast paced, traffic dominated lifestyle of the Bay Area, not the least of them. After the holidays and the many great visits with family and friends we had early in the new year, we faced our first major setback. What felt like food poisoning soon revealed itself to be something much more sinister. After seeing my text, “I Need Help. In  Bathroom”, Meagan ran to the Marina’s men’s restroom and found me nearly incapacitated on the shower floor.  Even without health insurance it didn’t take us long to decide a visit to the nearest hospital was in order. Especially when the symptoms I relayed to Meagan matched word for word the symptoms of appendicitis in her trusty WebMD app.  A short but excruciatingly painful car ride and a few tests later we were prepping for surgery. It only took a whopping six hours from the first grumblings of stomach upset to laying on a gurney counting backwards to oblivion with a tube shoved up my nose.

When I woke, we knew we were in a world of hurt (financially). Luckily I now had my health back and that was a relief. Our healthcare system being what it is, we had to wait several weeks for the multiple bills to start circulating in. $1668- surgeon, $632- ER doctor, $570- lab work, $1620- anesthesia, $35,000 hospital, wait, WHAT!! Yup, in all the total bill was looking like it would be near the $40,000 mark. Hmmm, Fuck. So began the work of finagling with all the billing agencies, pleading for assistance, and luckily receiving some. In the end our bill appears as though it will be significantly reduced, but still enough for a down payment on a modest home. Below is the inside of our MacGregor during some tiring evening trying to figure out how to not end up in the poor house. (Or are we already there?)

The more exciting news is that we have taken this time to buy, yep I said it, buy, another larger boat and fix it up. In the mean time Meagan has successfully landed a project geologist position at a localish environmental engineering firm and I have begun recovering physically and am currently looking for work while doing all the prep work on the new boat. Life sure keeps us on our toenails!

Spoiler alert, the new boat is below. It’s a Cascade 36 cutter. More to follow…