Once again, FedEx screws up big-time. I pulled Hubby’s labs last Thursday and hand-delivered them to our clinic on Friday. Our nurse Karen boxed them up and sent them out FedEx with a Special Saturday Delivery label, and, would you believe, they arrived yesterday, on Tuesday! Of course, that meant at least one of the test tubes had gone bad, because there’s a short window of time before the ice pack melts, which is why they pay extra for Saturday delivery. Anyway, Karen decided to drive down and pick up a new sample, as well as do her required “home visit” that’s supposed to happen whenever someone joins a new clinic, though it’s something we hope to streamline as part of Fresenius’ RV travelers system. Once Karen left, I started to pack up, as we now have so many extraneous items we’re using, it takes me a lot longer to pack up. I put the screen room away and as many other things as I could, all the outdoor chairs and tables, all the extra horse stuff, and at the end of the day, put the horses on the highline and put the corral away. Whew! Almost two hours of work that I couldn’t start until AFTER Hubby’s dialysis. The good news is, we now have a new Fresenius Ipad and modem, so Hubby can start looking after himself a lot more and not rely on me to get his machine’s readings every half hour, but the bad news is, we’re still waiting for our clinic transfer to come through to get a password. It seems we should have it tomorrow though, and Karen has promised to email the information, since she knows we’ll be traveling tomorrow. Finally managed to get everything put away that I could, just before mosquito hour hit, and we won’t be long out of bed, believe me!
Archives for July 2019
Tuesday, July 30, 2019 – Rainy Day
Rained most of the day off and on, so I just moved the portable fence around to a new spot and did some housekeeping, all done by the time Hubby got out of bed, then we had a quiet day, watching old movies while the rain came a’tumblin’ down!
Sunday, July 28, 2019 – Old Friends and New Came to Visit
After a very good night sleep last night, best in a long time, the day quickly because like a day of holding court! First Elaine stopped by to see how we were doing when she saw me out doing my horse chores, and chatted for a while, then the couple I met yesterday, Lisa and Rick came by and chatted for another 45 minutes or so, borrowing my ladder to fix a cover over their air conditioner, then Patty came by and visited for a while, until finally I had to go make Hubby breakfast, and after she left I managed to finish my chores. I had put the horses out in the area in front of the trailer that I wanted trimmed, because I was afraid the ground wasn’t getting dry enough for us to be able to get out, and they did a fine job with that today! Then, shortly thereafter, my old high school buddy Donna from Cleveland arrived and we spent almost all afternoon catching up, chatting and snacking. Another trailer came in with a couple of day riders, and a big Kiefer livestock trailer showed up with another couple, and I went a chatted with them for a few minutes because they looked like they might be parking in an area that I knew was too soft for them (which they suspected as well), and they did managed to find a good spot across the road from us. Eventually Donna had to head out, and the day riders left, leaving us and our new neighbors the place to ourselves. Evidently they’re staying until Wednesday. The woman came and asked me about the trails, and I showed her my Google earth map that had an overlay of the local trail map, as well as the GPS of the trails I actually took (which matched in very few places!!), and so they know now to take their GPS with them when they ride this week. I’m hoping to get a ride in as well, but there’s rain forecast for Tuesday, so it may have to be just a short ride tomorrow, but we’ll see. The weather was perfect today, we had a wonderful breeze so that even the screen room didn’t get too warm for a change. I had pulled the barbecue grill out and we had a grilled dinner tonight, me with steak and Hubby with a Beer bratwurst, along with a baked potato. What a wonderful, relaxing day! Now I’m beginning to remember why we love it on the road so much, I actually have time to just sit and relax! Whoo-hoo!
Saturday, July 27, 2019 – Quiet Day
I had intended to get a short ride in today before dialysis, but I uncharacteristically slept until 9:30 this morning, so by the time I got my chores done and Hubby got up, it was too late to do much. Frankly, I was afraid of going out for an hour ride and ending up getting lost for an extra hour or more like last time, so I decided to skip it for now. I ended up chatting with some of the other ladies here, though frankly, this place was incredibly quiet, not one single horse was in the place besides ours! We thought it would be more crowded on the weekend, particularly since the weather has been perfect for the last few days, but it was very quiet here. I put up a small corral at the front of the trailer, because the grass is so long and I’m concerned if the ground doesn’t dry up enough we’re going to get stuck trying to get out next week, so I wanted to get my four-legged lawn mowers on it to shorten it up. Of course, they did a marvelous job, but I was also concerned about staying within the bounds of the rules. Almost everyone I’ve met here hasn’t seemed to mind we’re taking a bit of license, with the exception of the one woman on the board who made a little fuss earlier in the week, but even she came over and apologized to me today, so I guess we’re all good now. Hubby felt good enough to walk out and sit in a chair in the shade and throw the ball for Lola for half an hour, so he was definitely feeling better. We started dialysis, however, and by the end of the session, he was feeling quite poorly again, not sure why but it really weakened him by the end of the session. One of the things we discussed with Karen yesterday is the possibility we might be “over-dialyzing” him, as his blood clearance seems to be almost too much now, so it’s possible after our last labs, if they continue to show that problem, we may be able to actually shorten his dialysis time, which could help with his weakness. We’ll know better in a few days, hoping for the best! Meanwhile, we watched a couple of old classic movies while settling in for the evening.
Friday, July 26, 2019 – Clinic and Shopping Day
Well, the day we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived! Hubby and I got up early to get to our monthly Dialysis clinic, our first time at our new location in Canton, OH. We met Karen, who will be our new nurse for the duration, and she was fabulous, giving us all kind of new information and being extremely helpful! She managed to get us an Ipad and a modem so we can get back to sending reports electronically, which will be a GREAT help, and she was very personable and delightful to get to know. After spending more time with her than we probably should, we finally headed over to the Doctor’s office across the street and spend a very short amount of time with them, then headed up to a Walmart to do some shopping, got some fuel and headed back to camp. We spend quite a bit of time socializing with Elaine, and Ellen stopped by for a few minutes to make sure we were doing all right as well. Hubby felt really good today, even walking when he didn’t absolutely have to, and without his walking stick! He even did a little Shakespeare for Elaine, which shows just how much better he’s feeling today. Fingers crossed, he’s getting stronger! Eventually we settled down to dinner and a movie and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 – Delivery Day and Unexpected Rain!
I had hoped to take a short ride on Apollo this morning, but despite a weather forecast declaring clear skies until next Monday, clouds built up and rain came down, so that obviously didn’t happen! We have a dialysate supply delivery today, so I thought if he came early enough I might still get a ride in if the rain went away, but neither of those things happened. I had already sorted out the back of the trailer for the delivery, so when the truck arrived, we got everything loaded in with no problem. But of course, more rain came in, so a ride was out of the question. Flash is still favoring his hind leg a lot, but the heat is mostly out of it, the swelling seems to have come down, and the raw skin has almost completely healed over, though I’m still treating it regularly, so hopefully he recover in short order. So in the end, we had a fairly relaxing day, though I did bathe Lola, washed all of her bedding and insect-bombed the truck, because she’s still carrying around fleas she picked up long ago. Hard to break the cycle once things get going! Did some house work as well, very productive, yet somehow relaxing day! I guess any pace slower than clearing out a house seems like a break these days! Fingers crossed I’ll be able to ride tomorrow!
Tuesday, July 23, 2019 – Setup, Shopping and Dialyzing
Had another restless night, not getting as much sleep as I would like, but got busy as soon as I got up, setting up the screen room and putting up the electric fence so the horses could munch on the grass that was too long. Ellen had told me the person who usually mows the lawn was ill so I thought I’d help out by letting the horses cut the lawn in as large an area as possible, but later on, I was informed that portable corrals are not allowed, or at least a maximum of 12X12. Sigh… Two horses in an area that small will ruin that space in no time, but if that’s the kind of pasture management they want to do, so be it. (Bear in mind, the place was empty, except for the person telling me this, and she left shortly thereafter.) So tomorrow I’ll take it down again, or maybe make it 12X12 or so, just to satisfy their rules. Meanwhile, they did get a day of nice clover. Unfortunately, I noticed Flash was limping, the rope burn he got on his fetlock seems to be infected, so I treated it, hopefully it will improve by tomorrow. I ran out to the post office to ship out a book because of an order I received yesterday, and then to the store to get some grocery shopping done, getting back later than I hoped because of a delayed prescription transfer. Finally got back and got Hubby on his machine, did some more chores throughout the rest of the session, finally settling down for the evening much later than usual. I hope Flash is better tomorrow, I sure hate the idea of having to call a vet out here! I’ll just keep treating it and keep my fingers crossed for now!