Archives for 2019

With all of the essential chores and preparation and running around done, I finally had a chance to finish off as much packing as possible in our effort to leave tomorrow. I had the whole morning to do stuff, which positively seems like a luxury after all the activity we’ve been plagued by recently. We moved the RV away from the stable to up in front of the house, because we wanted to test the rest of the system without electricity. For some reason, the generator wouldn’t start because it was sensing that the batteries were too low, which isn’t right, but once I plugged into power, it started up just fine and ran just fine for the evening, so we’ll have to figure that out later. Finally, in the afternoon, we settled into doing his dialysis, and it went brilliantly, not a single alarm or hitch the entire session. So glad! Back to three hour sessions seems like a luxury now, having mornings to ourselves where I can get caught up on things, quiet sessions in the comfort of my own home during the dialysis. Now this is a routine I can get used to! Now all we need is a new back yard, and that starts tomorrow, yeah!

Well, after a night of rumination, I decided that I wasn’t about to let my Open Range go for half price just so the RV dealer could make $2000, figuring that even though the value will drop a bit next year, it won’t be a 50% drop, so I should still be able to make some money next year. Anyway, it seemed we wouldn’t be getting our digital dialysis machine, so we ran up to Stuart and picked up the analog one, then headed down to Hobe Sound to pick up the trailer and bring it back to Jeff’s. He and his girlfriend had just gotten back from their mini-vacation, and was just as surprised to see the trailer come back as he had seen that it was gone earlier when they arrived! With his help, we got the dialysis machine in the Trailrider, got it set up, and had our first dialysis with new machine. Everything went well until the last half hour, when we had a venous error that cut it short (which I think I caused when I accidentally knelt on a line trying to get something out of a top cupboard), but otherwise everything went well, except I realized there was some kind of settings that weren’t right, so I turned on the old machine, wrote down all the settings, and reset the new machine exactly according to old machine’s settings. So tomorrow, it should all match up with what I’m used to, and we can get back to Home Hemo Normal!

Today is our last day of Home Hemo remedial training, but our machine still didn’t come in. It seems that instead of the new digital machine that we’re supposed to get, they could only let us have a new (old technology) analog machine. No one seemed to know exactly when the new machine was due, and our nurse Rita was having fits with the company that was supposed to be sending it, no one could tell them where it was and when we could expect it. We decided to give them one more day before accepting the analog machine, as the digital ones are so much nicer, and much quieter, too, it seemed to me. After we left there, we ran home and hooked up the Open Range in order to take it to a nearby dealer. I had had a conversation with them and confirmed that they took consignments, but when we got there, he looked it over and offered us LESS THAN THE WHOLESALE PRICE for it, then he was going to skim $2000 off the top of whatever price they got for it! Are you kidding me??? If I wanted to sell it for half it’s value, I could do that one my own without giving him two grand! Ridiculous! We had already unhooked it, and it was getting really late, so I told him I had to think about it (frankly, I was so astonished I was speechless, which is saying something!) He agreed to let us leave it overnight and let him know in the morning. I just didn’t even know how to respond to that. We headed home in a state of shock, but I was too tired to worry about it. We got home and settled down for the evening, but I suspect I won’t be getting much sleep tonight!

Did a few more things to get ready today, and also had the extra responsibility of looking after my brother’s critters, as he and his girlfriend went to spend a couple of days at a beach hotel. That was enough activity for me, I need to get some rest before we head out of town!

Spent most of the day packing things up, moving the small horse trailer out of the way, and generally getting ready for our impending departure, for which we are SUPER READY! As much as we’ve enjoyed staying here, we’ve been here long enough, we need new sights to see and new places to visit, and new trails to ride! Can’t wait!

We had hoped that today would be the last day of training, but since the machine we’re supposed to get hasn’t arrived yet, we’re scheduled to come back on Monday, darn it. After a good dialysis session, which started at 5:30 in the morning so we could make out surgery appointment, we headed over to the hospital in Stuart and got that all taken care of. Super people over there, the surgeon and all the nurses were great, and event though the admission process took time, the actual surgery was only about 45 minutes. Evidently they only had to inflate one balloon to make it open right up. It’s been recommended that this be done about once every six months, the first time we’ve heard that suggestion, but it makes sense. Anyway, we were still home at a reasonable hour, even with all the activity, but after all that, Hubby didn’t have much energy! Early to bed with us!

Another long early drive, another good day of Home Hemo training, which went even better than before. One hitch, though, it seems they did a test on his fistula during the last in-center session and discovered his access was as open as it should be, which could account for some of the problems they were having in California (or more likely, the other way around.) In any event, they were able to schedule a “clean-out” surgery for him tomorrow afternoon, which everyone agrees was a good idea to get done before we hit the road. Got home at a reasonable hour again! Yeah!

Up bright and early today so that we could be at the Home Health Dialysis center in Port St. Lucie, which is an even longer drive than Stuart, arriving early, at 8:15. The point of this exercise is to refresh my initial training, since it’s been a while, and to make sure I meet the standards of Fresenius. Our nurse Rita is very thorough, and very helpful, and I remembered some forgotten stuff and learned a new thing or two, which is always helpful. I had Hubby read me my checklist, which seemed to impress her, and I didn’t forget too much, just my timing is out of whack. It was a good session, though, no problems, and we were out of there by 1:00. Can’t wait to get back to doing this at home!