Whew!!!

Well, we drove home without any incident and went to the doc on the following Monday. Our doc was concerned but not overly so. When asked why the Phoenix docs made it sound as if he might not even make it home, he shrugged and thought that they were just being overly cautious. He scheduled a nuclear stress test for Bob and carefully explained what it would show and what he was looking for. (He is so good at that.) The doc told us that he would call immediately if there was something critical, otherwise it would be a few days. Bob went for the test last Thursday. (I wound up home with a cold and a temperature.) We kept waiting for the phone to ring. When it did not ring we tried to tell ourselves that it was good news, but it is hard to keep waiting like that. While we waited we talked about how frightened we were about me trying to hook up the trailer and drive it home if Bob was too sick to do so. We both agreed that we would feel safer if we had a class C motorhome (one built on a truck chassis). Then if something happened I would not have to deal with trailer hook up stuff - which I could do if all went well, but could not do if there were any problems. So we started researching Class Cs. We looked for used ones because new ones are SO expensive. We drove around to many of the dealers and got a feel for what was out there. We had hoped to have a shorter one that would fit into the driveway, but none of the floor plans had any kitchen counter space - my one big criteria was enough room to put up the dishpan - that's all - it didn't seem like much, but we could not find it. So we started looking at bigger ones. They were more expensive, but we decided that this would be the last RV we bought so we needed to get what we wanted. We found one online that we really liked and called to make sure that it was still available and were told that it was out for the weekend on "demo." that didn't sound good. It was either a rental or it was close to being sold. finally we found one that was a really good price. We went to look yesterday and it was in really good shape with very low mileage and everything we needed - counter space, above the cab bunk for the grandson, double sink, oven. And this one has a walk around bed so that I don't have to crawl on the bed to change the sheets or make it. (I got pretty good at it, but it was still hard to do.) So we traded in the trailer and the pickup for the class C. We decided that we really do not need to have two cars - it is so rare that we both need to go somewhere at the same time. We can get a tow bar to pull my car when we go for long trips. So today I spent the morning pulling stuff out of the trailer. While I was doing that the phone rang. . . . and it was Bob's doc. The doc said that the test was a very good picture and it shows nothing wrong with the heart. That's right NOTHING WRONG. The doc had no explanation for why the EKG had changed. He said that there was no evidence of a heart attack or of any ischemia. I asked if it could have been the stress from being so dehydrated. He thought it was possible. I asked what happened next and he said that we could redo his EKG at some point in the future and see if it reverted back, but other than that, nothing. He said that Bob could stop taking the beta blockers and not worry about it. I couldn't stop grinning. I was so relieved. So now we get back to our lives.

Much better

We are both much much better today. The symptoms have subsided. We have talked to our Doc in Portland (actually his nurse, but close enough) and faxed him the results. Bob has an appointment on Monday. we will leave here on Thursday morning and take our time going home. But Bob felt good enough to actually go to the pool and take a swim. It was delightful.

The adventures keep coming

Well I just reread my last post and was surprised at how positive it sounded. Bob was not better. He was continuing downhill. He could not keep any liquids down and was vomiting and had diarrhea. We finally called the advice nurse from our insurance company and she was very clear that I should take him to the hospital to get rehydrated. So at 7 pm we left for the hospital. Luckily there is one less than 3 miles away. The RV place was very good about giving us printed directions to things, including the hospital. There was a long wait in the ER waiting area. Bob looked like he was getting weaker and weaker. when they finally took us in they moved pretty fast and began rehydrating him, giving him antibiotics, taking EKGs, blood work, CT scans. They were even worried about the wound on his foot from walking on a pebble. At about 11 pm they told him that they wanted him to stay overnight. They htoiught he might have pneumonia. By 1 pm he was in a room. Although they would have allowed me to stay the night, I decided to go home because I was not feeling well. I did not sleep well that night and got up with a pretty good headache. I got back to the hospital. by this time the doctor had come in to see Bob and told him that it was not pneumonia, it was just the old scar from his surgery. But then another doctor came in and told him that they were worried about his heart. While I was there he had diarrhea several times and the last one was black, i.e., bloody. So we told the nurse and she ordered occult blood test for the stool. Guess what, it came back positive. By now I was feeling pretty bad. So I went home, got in bed, and immediately started getting nauseous. After I had a pretty violent vomiting epid=sode I wanted to make sure that Is tayed hydrated. So I stayed in the air conditioned trailer all day and kept drinking as much as I could. At about 5 pm Bob called and said that they wanted him to stay another night because of the bloody stool and the heart issues. By 8 pm I was feeling better. I got a pretty good night's sleep and got the hospital at about 7 am. (I wanted to be there when the docs came in.) I asked Bob a lot of questions about what the docs had said. He didn't know the answers and told me that he was confused by it all. I told the nurse that Bob was confused and she came in and repeated what the docs had said. They were asking a cardiologist and a GI specialist to do a consult. Bob was feeling pretty poorly and they were still giving him saline by IV so it seemed good that he was still there. His appetite was still pretty bad. Finally the cardio doc came and shoed us the EKGs. They were clearly irregular and we had no idea if that was normal for Bob. She wanted to do further tests. We said okay to a stress test, but they wanted to do somehting more invasive. We talked about it a long time and even called Stef. We decided that if we were going to get that kind of test we wanted it in Portland where our records were. The GI doc wouldn't do anything until the heart issue was resolved. So at about 3 pm, the hospitalist doc came in and gave us all of his records and released him. When I saw the records I understood why they wanted to hospitalize him. He was seriously dehydrated and there were lots of other issues. But he was finally released at about 5 pm. I went and got his prescriptions filled and we tried tos ettle down. Neither of us was feeling very good, but it was better to be home. But we both woke uyp this morning feeling much better. We had a good night's sleep and we both ate a good breakfast. We are going to stay where we are for a few days and then decide what to do next - probably drive home.

Be careful what you wish for

Well, we did want it warmer, but not quite so warm. According to the Weather Stations thermometer it was 105 in the shae this afternoon. Now it is down to 98 (with an 8% humidity). I have always been very hesitant about using air conditioning. I don't like the sound and then I never get used to the warmth. But today I had another reason, besides the heat, to turn on the AC. Last night Bob was sick all night. He vomited at least 6 times. Then in the morning it did not get better. I went for a one hour walk and he told me that he did it three more times. I finally went to WalMart and got some meds, some ginger ale, and some saltines. I don't know what worked, maybe just time, but he was better by about noon. He thought he had a fever so I gave him some DayQuil. I then went to the pool and sat in the sun and in the pool for about 2 hours. I figured that was enough for this white skinned lady. When I came back Bob told me that he had had an accident in his jammies and had put them in the hamper in the bathroom. Well this is a very tiny bathroom and when I stuck my head in, it stunk. I turned on the fan and put in a smelly candle, but it did not help. So in this heat, I trudged over to the laundry and did all our laundry. (It was time anyway, but I was hoping for cooler weather.) The good news is that our AC is really working well and that is helping Bob. He is feeling better. Tomorrow is another day.

We gave up

It has been a busy week. A week ago we were in Butterfield and the weather did not get any better. It kept raining and it was always windy. We spent NO time outside. If I wanted to be inside I could have stayed in Portland. Then to top it off, the propane tank for the campground shower broke and the bathroom was closed. The workers did not seem to be in a very big hurry to fix the problem. Needless to say, I was not happy.

Thursday night we went out for dinner with the young couple who were camped next to us. we had a wonderful dinner and a great evening. After we got back to camp we went into their HUGE class A rig and talked and drank for a while until we were so tired that we were not making sense. It is a big rig, and there was more room in the middle, but I don't think a lot more sotrage space. Anyway, it was nice to have some time to talk.

Friday morning we left early for Phoenix. We had remembered tat there were a lot of RV parks in Yuma so we stopped at about a dozen of them to see if we should move there. I had done some research in advance, but we were not impressed with any of the parks. They were for OLD people. They were expensive and crowded and had lots of "activities." The season is almost over and so most of the folks were starting to leave. It did not look in the least bit interesting.

We did find a nice park just north of Phoenix which is very clean and well maintained. The sites are a nice size and the people are incredibly friendly. There are no "activities." Just a pool, an exercise room, and a reading room(all of which are open until 10 pm). It was not very expensive, but it was, of course, more money than we had planned because we thought that we had paid for the month. (no refunds at Butterfield). We had a wonderful weekend with Ira and Cathie. I met my great great niece and my great great nephew. So cute. We went to a spring training game for the Mariners and really enjoyed that. I had a good time just talking to Ira and Cathie - who were great hosts.

On the way home we stopped at two more RV parks and neither of them was great. So we considered just staying at Butterfield. But when we got back to Butterfield it was VERY windy. It turns out that it was very windy the entire weekend. That did it. Bob and I decided that we would either go home or go to Phoenix. We decided on Phoenix.

It really did not take much time to pack up the trailer. All those months on the trek make it very habitual. We left early yesterday - in the midst of a lot of wind. We got here in Phoenix and set up in very short order. It is warm here and there is a slight breeze. We had dinner outside on the picnic table. We had breakfast outside on the picnic table. Bob was able to go ona pretty good walk because there was so little wind and it was flat. Then we got the scooters down and took them to the local Lowe's to buy stuff to repair a hole I made in the trailer. We stopped for lunch. The trip on the scooters was so much fun. We just went around for a while. then I saw a Super Cuts. It has been too many weeks since my hair was cut. So I stopped in and got it cut. So cheap and it looks fine. I figured that even if it was a bad cut it would grow out soon enough, but I couldn't take the overgrown look of my hair any longer.

We are now just sitting around. Bob has fixed the trailer - it took no time. It is 93 degrees outside with 12 % humidity and a slight breeze. We may have to come back here for a longer stay next year

The pictures above are of the new campsite and the one cactus that was everywhere at Butterfield - the ocotillo.

Yeah. Bob finally feels as if we are on vacation.

An adventure - if you think of it that way.

Sunday morning here was nice but chilly. I went for a long walk with the group from here and we went into a small mine. Lovely. As the day wore on it got windier and windier. It got more and more cloudy. I knew this was the desert but I smelled rain. We were going to go into town to buy groceries but the wind was blowing so hard that Bob did not want to leave the trailer. (I asked him what might happen and he was not sure. Nor was he sure what he could do if he were here when it happened. He just did not want to leave.) the winds were averaging 25 mph with gusts up to 40 or 50. The trailer was rocking back and forth.

I brought inside everything that could be harmed if it got wet - thinking all the time This is the Desert!!! At about 4 pm it started to rain. then it started to pur. Neither of us could concentrate on reading so we played cribbage. then we played Scrabble. Then we watched a good Clint Eastwood movie. The wind was blowing really hard and the rain was coming down in torrents. We usually go to be at about 9:30. But we were too nervous to sleep. finally it started calming down a little by 11. We got in bed and were really rocked to sleep. we got up in the morning and, the only thing that was ruined was our dining tent (yes, the brand new one that we bought earlier this week). We knew it was happening, but it was blowing too hard for us to go out and take it down. Bob thinks that maybe he can fix it. Maybe.

It was cloudy and rainy all day yesterday. We did drive into town and had a nice Thai lunch and got groceries. It was too cold to do anything outside (and this coming from two Oregonians - what wimps). We did inside things again. This morning it was cold when I got up - 39 degrees. I did not want to walk and did not want to do my exercises behind the trailer. so I went into the visitor lounge and did them here. People kept coming in and staring. But I got them done.

As I sit here typing the sun is out. There are some cottony clouds over the mountains, but none overhead. Maybe it will be a nice warm day. Yeah.

We are finding things to do

It is amazing how you can find things to do everywhere. We were getting tired of the wind so on Thursday we drove above 50 miles to a casino. We had no luck, but had fun. We also had a good steak dinner for very little money. It was a nice evening.

Then I found out that there are weekly hikes leaving from here, so I was ready bright and early Saturday morning. It was a great hike. It took about 3 hours. We walked up to a house built out of local stones. On the way we saw amazing wildflowers. They are blooming very early this year because of the amount of rain. They had 12 inches of rain this winter and they usually get less than 3 inches. We also found many artifacts from early homesteaders in this area. Apparently there used to be a lot more water here, but in about 1955 there was an earthquake and it really changed the aquefer. But we saw foundations, water troughs, wagon frames, and even a house made out of stone that was built by the miners who worked the mines. We saw a spring that was still running. Near the spring our guide (Barbara who is VERY knowledgeable about the area) found what she thought was a hiding area for illegals. You could see where they slept and where they had a very small fire.

Barbara agreed to take a couple of us on Sunday for a walk to the mines. There was a young couple who were on the walk with me - Ed and Ashley. Ashely takes tours of youth groups to Israel. I was reading a book about Israel in 1945 and brought her the book later that afternoon when I finished it. while I was talking to them Ed said that he wanted to learn to play cribbage. So they came to our trailer with a bottle of rum. we played cribbage and they joined us for dinner - Bob had made some really yummy clam chowder.

then last night was the full moon. this was apparently the closest the moon has come to the earth in 18 years. So there was a campfire to watch the moonrise and then a lovely short meditative walk under the moonlight. There was also a group of Hindus here who were celebrating the full moon. They had dancing etc to celebrate. It was a busy night.

This morning we met at 9 am for another walk to the mines. It was again beautiful. The wildflowers were even bigger. We walked cross country rather than on a path. We got to the mine and went in. It was small and obviously dug by hand. Lots of various minerals here underneath the ground. All of the walking feels very good. Barbara says that she will take me on another walk later this week.

Meanwhile it is cloudy, cool and windy here. So I think we will take the opportunity to go to the store and get some groceries. Then if it is nice tomorrow, we will be able to enjoy the warmth.