The last thirty days ended up being our most stressful month here in Oaxaca. Beth began to have some pretty serious side effects from years of taking lithium for several years. A local doctor recommended that she slowly wean off the lithium and try marijuana to help her sleep. That worked but did little to curb manic episodes. Reluctantly we both decided that returning to the lithium was the best choice. Fortunately she’s able to take a smaller dosage. About a week after she began taking the lithium again, while putting on her pants in the morning, she was stung on her thigh by a scorpion. We’ve both been stung and although it hurts like hell for a while it eventually becomes similar to a bee or wasp sting. This time it was different. Throughout the day she began to develop new symptoms.   Her lips and lower legs began to tingle. I took her to the hospital where they administered anti-venom and observed her for a couple of hours. The next day we went back to our doctor for blood work as she’d began taking the lithium. Some of the results were not good. She was prescribed additional medicines to counter her problems. Of course the new medicines had side effects. Through trial and error she has stabilized. She’s controlling her high cholesterol and high blood pressure with a very strict diet. What became apparent from these events is that if I pass before she does, there is no way that she could remain here alone. So we’ve decided to move back to the States. We believe that it’s best to do this move while we are still able. We are considering Washington State. Fortunately the decision to move back was an easy one. We didn’t have to go through the process of weighing the positives and negatives of returning to the States. We are in the process of making our house more saleable and are unsure how long it will take to find a buyer. Anyway, this could be our last blog. It’s likely though that we’ll post once the house sells. Neither of us feels any desperation so hopefully we can continue to enjoy our remaining time here.  We’ve enjoyed writing the blogs and reading all of the comments. We expect to keep the donpedrillo@yahoo email, at least for a while.