Frank in Thailand

There will be a nice story about us soon!!

For those interested about me, I had a huge setback with my health 15 years ago. As boy of 16 I was in a bad fire that burned some skin and my lungs, all healed well, except the lungs, collapsed (pneumothorax) 19 years later.
Surgery went "well" except for complications, cutting a chest nerve.

Since then I have 24/7 neuropathic pain.
How does that feel?
Like you hit your thumb with a hammer. Not the first sharp pain, but later the waves with spikes.
Like that, then just a baseball bat to my ribs.
Pain meds work good, but mess with concentration.
I wasn't able to read comics for years, let alone a newspaper.
Slowly I got used to medication and pain and for about 10 years we have a "stand off".
Pain eats a lot of energy so I'm chronic tired.
Good news, it doesn't get worse (or better) I can irritate by being too active.
Dig a hole in the soil for 5 minutes takes 2 days to recover.
Lucky I now have mini excavator

While I was already blessed with the accident gene, if something can go wrong, I'm sure to test it. AKA problem magnet...
That was actually helpful for my IT job at some phase.
No software bug could pass me

With the tiredness and concentration issues, I'm unfit for regular job.
I can do anything, just not at normal speed.
And.... I make mistakes.
Loads of them.
Mistakes every other person also could have made, I just seem to make them all.

I'm an optimist.
My glass is half full and see, there is the sun shining behind that cloud!
That is what keeps me going.

For the Dutch medical world, I'm a "success story"..
It was a long long way from my job, 3th line software support for Japanese Company for Europe, ME and Africa, giving support to the top 500 companies, flying all over the globe to practically a vegetable

Happy now, but a long dark way. Especially the first few years.

So if you wonder, how is it that Frank makes that many mistakes?
Now you know.
And why I repair and don't buy new?
2 reasons
- environment. I don't like the throw away consumption.
- finance.
For Thai standard we aren't poor.
USA Standard, maybe. We can buy most of the things we need.
We are now saving for a 2 wheel Cultivator, strong enough for the clay soil, and easy enough to operate without much strength.

Living off grid is great, most of the time.
12Km from the closest village does have its benefits
No big risks for getting Covid infection.

The farm goes slowly, the soil was/is depleted by uneducated farming.
That takes a few years to recover.
Good thing I receive funds from Holland, we don't need crops to survive and can let the soil rest, and feed compost and buffalo shit

2 or 3 more years and it should be good again.

More later

If it can't be done, it never happened.