Didn't have the best night sleep last night, not sure why, but slept a little late because of it. Got up about 8:30 to hungry horses, had breakfast with Hubby, then decided to get in a ride before his dialysis session. There was rain in the forecast for this afternoon, and considering how muddy so many of the trails are already, I figured I better get a ride in before they get any worse. I saddled up Flash and headed out, having planned to do the purple trail to the orange trail in a loop. Of course, I got lost at the first intersection. I thought I left on a red trail, but when I got to the bottom, the trees were blazed in white. I couldn't quite figure out how that happened, but at the creek there was a sign that said I was at Marker B. From there I was supposed to take the red trail that I thought I was on straight to the purple trail, but since I believed I was on the white trail, and there were two red trails and two white trails marked at the intersection, I couldn't figure out which red trail I was supposed to take. Eeeny, meeny, miney, moe, I picked a red trail, which was a nice trail, but never ran into the purple trail, and in fact, came out at the entrance to the day parking area at the camp! What the heck! Whatever. I decided to do the trail in reverse since that was closer, so I headed south on the orange trail and followed that until I got to a place where the orange trail seemed to fork. Hmmm, not on the map. I finally figured out that one fork went to a kiosk and the other along the road. I couldn't find any markings, except that it appeared that the orange trail continued past the kiosk. Purple had to be along the road, but I went down a hundred yards, didn't see any markings, turned around because I thought I must be wrong, and THEN, FINALLY, saw a purple blaze on a tree going in the opposite direction. Guess I was on the right track after all. Since we were going on a gravel road, though, I stopped to put on Flash's boots, then headed down that way for a while. Then we came to more purple blazes that went into a deep wood, so the trails were particularly mucky, and what appeared to be a trail along the utility line that paralleled it, which was mostly dry. We opted for the dry route, hoping it wouldn't get too far from the purple mud. Fortunately, it didn't, it crossed over purple again later. When we reacquired the purple trail, it was sloppy downhill for quite a ways, and of course, Flash lost a boot, so we had to stop on the hill and I had to go back and retrieve it. He was a little antsy, but not as much as usual, and I left both boots off and kept going. That ended up on a road that went through a neighborhood of log cabins. I hadn't realized the trail would become road, but the blazes were still there, so I kept following it. Eventually, back on the trail again, we ended up back at the same Marker B at the creek. Since I remembered which trail we came down, and which trail we took up the wrong way, it was easy to get back to camp, using the shortest distance, which was the one we came down, of course. A bit longer, later and muddier than I had planned, but we made it, nine miles! There was a line of other people washing down their horses at the one spigot that you connect a hose to, so I had to wait awhile before I could get Flash washed down, but he was soon on his highline and I was soon getting ready for Hubby's dialysis. The session went well, we started watching an old John Wayne film neither of us could remember seeing before, and then the storms moved in. Boy, did it storm! Rain, wind, even hail for awhile was knocking on the roof and awning! Fortunately this awning with the weight of the screen room doesn't seem to be bothered much by the wind, so other than rain running off the awning and under the grass carpet, we had no problems. The electric flashed out for a moment, but I had already put the inverter on, so it transferred immediately and we had no loss of power at all, thank goodness, though I did have to restart the washer and dryer, as I was doing laundry today, too. Busy day! Had dinner, Hubby went to bed early, and I did some writing on my blog, though I can't upload it right away, as evidently the cell phone tower doesn't have power or has some other mechanical problem, as there is now zero cell phone reception at the moment. Now all I can do is take a quick shower and head off to bed! Good, though tiring, day!!
Archives for July 2019
Wednesday, July 10, 2019 – Runaround Day
Since yesterday we had taken labs samples before Hubby’s dialysis which we had to get to FedEx for overnight shipping tonight, we took the day to run around and do some shopping. We bought a few things that we’ve needed for a while and which we’ll really need here, like a new utility cart/wheelbarrow. I’ve been using a canvas bottomed folding wheelbarrow for quite some time, but the canvas wore out once already, and I managed to sew a new one last year, but then it got left out in the rain too long and when I tried to load up a tub of manure to roll it to the manure station here in camp, the material started to split. Pity, but I decided I needed something sturdier. I had been looking at those folding utility carts, both canvas and metal, but when I was in Lowes I found the perfect thing, a totally plastic utility cart on two wheels, only $40. Works perfect, super lightweight, but when I got back, I used it to carry four bags of feed at once with no problem! I also filled it up completely with manure and rolled it up a hill, and it was perfect again! Should have done that a long time ago, but I thought I needed a collapsible one, but when tipped up, this one hardly takes any more room than my folding wheelbarrow, and will fit just fine in the last stall in the back of the trailer. I also managed to find a new water tub, I’ve been looking for weeks but no one has had one (at least, not at a reasonable price) and managed to find a perfect one in Meijers in Lancaster. We also found a great clearance on peach and pear nectar, something that’s really good for Hubby, but really hard to find anyplace but in Publix, which they don’t have in this area. Now we know, though, Meijers has that, too! Filled three tanks of propane at what I was told was the local coop, but I’m not sure they were as inexpensive as I’d been told they were. That’s because they go by weight, not by gallons, and you pay a flat rate for the weight. Since one bottle wasn’t entirely empty, I’m sure it would have been cheaper going someplace that went by gallons, where they are more inclined to try to fit more in. It certainly seems like the bottles are heavier when I get it that way. Anyway, water under the bridge, I’ll stick to Tractor Supply for propane in future. Bought a big bucket of KFC before heading back to camp, and settled down in the screen porch until it got too hot, then headed into the air conditioning. The first night we were here there was a lovely cool breeze coming in Hubby’s window, but tonight there’s no air movement at all, and high humidity. Nothing like the heat in Kentucky, but still enough to be uncomfortable, so we left the AC on, as well as a fan in the bedroom, just to keep things moving. Just another day on the road!
Saturday, July 6, 2019 – Trip to Morehead, Day Off From Dialysis
Sorry to say I woke up at 3:15 a.m. to the sound of a generator outside my window, I ended up having to put earplugs in just to get back to sleep. Grrrr! I try to be patient with people, but really, I don’t understand why someone has to run a generator all night long! I didn’t see any medical reason for it, so I don’t know what the purpose was, but honestly, it really is inconsiderate unless there’s a need to run medical equipment all night. It’s one reason we decided again peritoneal dialysis, because it required a machine to run all night, and we didn’t want to do that to our fellow campers. Oh, well! Hubby decided he wanted to skip dialysis today, he hadn’t gained much weight even though he’d been drinking a bit more due to the heat, but I imagine he’s sweating some of it out anyway. We had to take a trip into the nearest big town, Morehead, to get some propane. It’s been a good week of experimenting, between running the generator for dialysis as well as for air conditioning, and we’ve learned that we use slightly more than a gallon an hour of propane. Thanks goodness we have four tanks! One 20 pound tank takes about 4.7 gallons, and lasts just about 4 hours. We took two tanks into town to fill up at the Tractor Supply, got a few horse feed supplies as well as some groceries before heading back for an afternoon of rest and relaxation. Since we’re not dialyzing today, we won’t need to use too much propane except to cool off the trailer at the end of the day, and we should have plenty for tomorrow. Our next stop has electricity, so we won’t have to worry about it too much there, thank goodness! But these are the things we needed to learn about our new trailer, just how much fuel a propane generator uses is just one of those things! Now we know! We stayed outside as the temps cooled down, only coming in after 9:00. A short evening, heading to bed early, happy to say our neighbors with the generator moved out this afternoon while we were in town, and, in fact, we’re the only one left in camp, so we should have a nice quiet night tonight! Yeah!
Friday, July 5, 2019 – Nice Ride on Apollo For a Change! Better Dialysis Day
Thursday, July 4, 2019 – Company Comes, Bad Dialysis Day
We were surprised when no other campers showed up yesterday, thinking if anyone was getting Independence Day off they’s be heading out here yesterday, so we were half-convinced we’d have the place entirely to ourselves for the rest of the week, but alas, it was not to be so. Several trailers showed up today, parking a few slots out on either side of us, one for one night and the other for an unknown amount of time. One fellow gave me a couple of pesticide-infused bovine ear tags that he said was good for horses, too, and suggested I zip-tie them to my horses’ halters. I have to admit, the flies here are pretty bad, I killed several huge green-headed horse flies on Apollo this morning. I did as he suggested, and it seemed to work pretty well, though of course, I had put fly spray on them as well, so it’s hard to say which worked better, or if it was the combination of them both. In any event, we had a fairly quiet morning, then it came time for dialysis, and we had a lot of trouble today. I had trouble getting the needles in, probably because when they declotted it yesterday it shifted a little, so it took me a while to get that right. Then throughout the session, we kept getting errors, then Hubby started getting really dizzy and light-headed, and we had trouble getting his blood pressure to register on any of the monitors we had, and he even started going blind at one point, which we know is a sign of seriously low blood pressure. I gave him saline several times, but finally, we just decided to stop the session, he just couldn’t take it any more. Once he was off, he finally started feeling better, but not much. We managed to get him out to his chair in the screen room, and once he was able to get his feet higher he started to recover. Scary moment, that one! I think it may be partly due to the heat (it’s in the 90’s), but we’ve been running the a/c off the generator and that’s been doing okay. Once outside, I directed a fan directly on him and he improved, thank goodness. Too darn hot! That’s the one main problem at this campground, we’re surrounded by a forest, but there’s not a single bit of shade in the campground. I’ve found that to be the case in most Kentucky public campgrounds, they just come in and bulldoze everything, not leaving any shade for horse or human. Very poor thinking on the powers-that-be in this state. This will undoubtedly be a great campground in spring or fall, but summer is just incredibly hot when there’s not a lick of shade. My outdoor thermometer has been reading nearly 100 degrees every day, even though the forecast has only been calling for upper 80’s. What a difference some shade would make! Anyway, we finally settled down for a short evening, as it’s already later than usual with all the problems we had today, ready for bed!
Wednesday, July 3, 2019 – Day-long Declot Procedure
Up bright and early after a so-so night sleep, no breakfast since Hubby’s procedure wouldn’t allow him to eat, and I couldn’t very well eat without him. Took care of the horses, feeding and cleaning, making sure the fence was working since I thought it safer for them to stay in the fence area rather than tie them to the highline where they seem to be getting in the habit of getting tangled up together. Flash still hasn’t quite figure it out yet, though I’m sure he will over time. We left around nine, stopped for fuel before getting on the freeway and driving the 60+ miles to the hospital arriving about 15 minutes in advance. Naturally we took Lola with us, and I got her dressed up in her Therapy Dog vest and she instigated smiles everywhere she went. We got Hubby checked in and prepped, then waited for quite some before he was finally taken back for the procedure. Lola and I sent to the resident Starbucks and had a nice salad, then waited for some more time for Hubby to be finished. They had to do a lot this time, evidently, whereas last time they just did a couple of balloons to expand his veins and arteries. This time they actually put a stint in in additional to the angioplasty, so it took a bit longer. Thankfully, they fed him while he was in recovery, so that saved us some time when we left. We finally headed out after 6:00, stopped at Tractor Supply to fill up the propane tanks (we ended up using about a tank and a half for nearly a full day of air-conditioning), a quick stop at Wendys for Frosties, and finally a quick stop at Walmart for just a few essentials like ice cream, beer and peanut butter :-). Arrived back in camp, which was still completely empty except for us, at around 8:00. Being in Eastern time gave us the extra hour to get the horses fed and the paddock cleaned up, then we settled in for the evening. Turns out that if I put my cell phone in the window of the bedroom in the gooseneck, I can actually get a signal good enough to get Netflix and Amazon Prime, so we’ve been enjoying some old classic films of late. Will be in bed early tonight though, since last night wasn’t the best night sleep. Hoping for better tonight!
Tuesday, July 2, 2019 – Hot and Muggy Rest Day, then Fistula Problems
Had a fabulous night sleep last night despite it only going down to 70 degrees with high humidity. Got up and fed the horses just before some heavy thunderstorms came in, clinching my decision not to ride today. Once the rain eventually moved off, I put the portable electric fence up so the horses would have more room to move around, and to get them off what was quickly becoming a quagmire around the highline. By 1:00, we decided to start dialyzing so we could finish early. It became so hot and humid once the sun came out, we were compelled to run the generator in order to use the air-conditioning. We’ve been wanting to experiment anyway, to see just how much propane we use when we’re running the generator, especially when we have a heavy draw like the A/C. Anyway, I started getting Hubby ready for dialysis, but when I first tried to cannulate him (stick him with a needle with a tube so we can connect him to the machine), I got a very poor result. I tried several times, even completely resetting the entire machine up a second time, but everything worked against me, and eventually I realized that his fistula was too blocked up to dialyze him at all, darn it! We had just had his fistula cleaned out in Florida in April, and it was supposed to last at least six months, but I suspect that since Hubby’s blood pressure is typically so low that may be contributing to the problem, but I’m just guessing. Anyway, I spent the rest of the afternoon solving that problem, getting in touch with the nearest Fresenius, who then contacted their resident nephrologist, who arranged for us to go into the St. Joe hospital in Lexington for a fistual declot. Our current clinic got them all the records they needed, and by 4:30, we had an appointment for 11:00 tomorrow morning. Disappointing that this happened, but we expect we’re going to cope with a lot of medical stuff on the road. Kudos to Fresenius, though, for handing this with such efficiency and aplomb, everyone was quite helpful and cheerful in that help, even though it undoubtedly kept them working past their regular hours. We settled down for the evening and went to be early, since we’ll need to get up fairly early tomorrow to drive the 90 minutes or so to Lexington.