Archives for 2019

A MUCH better night sleep last night, only had one small coughing fit that was NOTHING compared to the night before, thank goodness! Felt well enough to tackle the job of preparing to leave tomorrow. It’s been a lovely stay, Rosie has been a fabulous hostess, been so patient with us, and I highly recommend her barn as a great boarding place. A nice laid back atmosphere, everyone made to feel at home, had lots of offers of help, and no one ever turned me down when I asked for it, too. Wonderful! Got almost everything packed up pretty quickly, got Hubby hooked up to his machine, was hoping to get the truck hooked up but never found the time before it got dark, then settled down for the evening. Actually started feeling a lot better as the day went along, which bodes well for being almost back to 100% by tomorrow, fingers crossed! Looking SO forward to being back on the road again!

Thought I would cough my lungs out last night, this cold, or flu, or whatever it is got so bad! And I’ve already had my flu shot, so I can’t imagine how rough this would be if I hadn’t! For the first time EVER I thought I might have to make a trip to the ER for myself, but eventually I found a position where the coughing subsided enough for me to get back to sleep. Felt a little better for most of the day, which was filled with mostly running around, picking up the last of the T-shirts I had made, running up to the house to talk with my new house-sitter up there, picked up a few bales of hay from my usual Mennonite supplier, though this, sadly, may be the last time, filled up with fuel, bought a few supplies from Walmart, then back to the farm. Packed up some peripherals that we won’t need in preparation for our departure on Monday, then tried to recoup some energy the rest of the day.

Woke up a number of times during the night with a stuffed up nose and coughing, but managed to sleep most of the night. Felt pretty bad most of the day, managed to do Hubby’s dialysis, but that was about all the energy I could muster.

Up early and headed out to the clinic before 9:00, arriving in time for our appointment at 9:30. Spent the usual hour plus going through the requirements of home hemodialysis, then headed over to a graphics place to pick up some T-shirts I had ordered last week. Unfortunately, they kind of messed up the order, I had made changes on my second communication, and it fell through the cracks, so they’re trying to figure out a way to make it up to me. Then I got a text from our realtor that he wanted to show the house, and we thought we might have to meet him up there and headed in that direction. At the last minute, we learned that we didn’t, so we turned back around again, wasting a lot of time and effort. A quick stop at Walmart, mostly for a prescription that wasn’t ready yet, then a search for a Thai restaurant that Hubby was in the mood for, but the only two we found turned out to be real dives. We ended up at Red Lobster, and that was a disappointment, for me anyway, probably because I think I caught a bug while at the hospital on Monday, and it’s hitting me full force today, despite multiple doses of generic Zicam, echinacea tea and nasal spray. Finally got home where I crawled into bed, wishing I had been able to get there hours earlier and dozed off, waking myself up with my own snoring, which is a trick. Finally got up to get the horses inside, and for the first time since we’ve been here, Hubby walked into the barn to watch me bring the horses in and do my chores with them. He even sat around the Tack Room chatting for a bit, offering to do his rendition of The Man from Snowy River poem and some Shakespeare to whoever is around over the weekend, a sign that he’s definitely feeling a lot better, thank goodness! Finally came back into the trailer, watched a good movie and a couple of Cheers before heading off the bed, hoping for a good enough night’s sleep to get back in the pink tomorrow!

Well, today is the day Hubby’s been waiting for for six months, a re-do on his lazer abliation on the right side of his back. He’s been suffering for so long, years really, and we’re hoping that this will be the final solution for his back pain. Cold again today so I left the horses in before we left for the doctor’s office in Manchester. Made stops at Walmart and Tractor Supply for propane before we arrived there half an hour early. We were hoping they might be able to slip up in a bit early, but their schedule was full, so it was actually an hour before they took him in. The whole procedure only took a short time, and he was walking out half an hour later, standing up straighter and not having to lean on his fancy walking stick. Hopefully this time it will work! I had brought in his boxes of dialysate into the trailer before we left so that they warm up, but they still didn’t warm up enough to keep the overal temperatures from dropping once it started flowing. Unfortunately, that meant Hubby was shivering halfway through, though it improved later when the levels got lower. Anyway, we passed the time with movies and computer work before settling down for the evening.

Woke up to temps in the teens, after it rained, then turned to snow overnight. Had to use a lighter to get into the back of the trailer to get horse feed, but fortunately, the barn was still pretty warm from yesterday, and the Tack Room was downright cozy with the wood stove still burning embers from last night. Put the heavy blankets on the horses nevertheless, as temps aren’t supposed to go above freezing today, and the heat in the barn was bound to dissipate through the day. No point in doing much of anything today with the cold, it was all we could do to stay warm in the trailer. Thank goodness we have plenty of propane, and there’s very good insulation in here, but nevertheless, we’ve been running the electric fireplace and an extra space heater, and having to supplement that with the furnace to keep it warm enough for Hubby, who gets uncomfortably cold whenever it’s less than about 76 degrees in here. So it was a lazy day of old movies and computer work, a nice, quiet day at the cold, cold farm!

Got up at the crack of dawn as we had to be at the hospital in Murfreesboro by 7:00 for Hubby’s cardioversion, a short procedure to get his heart back into rhythm after it went into A-fib two weeks ago. Arrived right on time, everything went well (one shock and done!), went out to breakfast at Metro Diner, which turned out to be rather a disappointment. Service was so-so, food came out mostly cold (nothing worst than cold eggs!), and it took much longer than we expected. Got back to the farm and started dialysis, and that was pretty much it for the day!

Had an appointment to sell my 3-point log-splitter at 11:00, so I set the alarm to make sure I didn’t oversleep. Managed to get a good night sleep and felt much better when I got up just before 8:00. Then I got a message from the mother of a good friend that Hubby had mentored years ago, she’s been looking for a rental in the area, with no luck, and I told her that my house was for sale, and that I might rent it to the right person (which includes her, of course!) She wanted her husband to see it, but they were pressed for time, and had to meet almost immediately. I hustled Hubby out of bed and we were on our way in less than a half hour, and met up with them at the house, which they loved! She had seen it before, but her hubby hadn’t, and he fell in love with it immediately! We talked for a bit, and came to some tentative terms, then they ran off so he could make a flight back to Florida to pick up a truck and move up to Tennessee. What a turn of events! After months of no action, to suddenly have a friend decide she wants to move back to the area and to have someone in the house will be great! A load off my mind! Not to mention a little income to help with our travel and house expenses! Then I met with the log-splitter buyer and they hauled that off behind a tractor, then Hubby and I went down to Manchester, grabbed some breakfast at the Waffle House, I stopped for fuel and eggs, and got back to the farm mid-afternoon. Rosie was just getting load of firewood in, and there were a bunch of people around, so we all pitched in and got it done in short order. Many hands do make light work! Then I got Rosie and her farmhand to help me load some stuff I had picked up at the house up into the trailer’s “attic,” stuff I wanted in Florida but didn’t want to haul around all summer, so since we’re heading south next week, now was the time to get it! Finally, it was getting dark, I brought the horses in and spent a quiet evening.

Not sure what happened, but for some reason I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. I felt like I was on a sugar rush or an adrenaline high, even though I hadn’t done any particularly active before going to be. It was going to be so cold overnight I decided to leave Lola in the barn in the room with the wood stove, but she somehow managed to escape and came scratching at the door at about 2:30 in the morning. I let her in, and she wouldn’t settled down, she scratched at the bedroom door and scratched at the exterior door until she scratched the screen to pieces. I gave up, got up, put her out in the truck, turned on a propane tank (the one that was on had emptied out during the night so the furnace wasn’t working) and finally got back to bed. It must have been about 4:00 when I finally fell asleep, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that when I woke up it was almost 11:00! Got up and took care of the horses, then got Hubby up, and before we knew it, it was time to start dialyzing. I was so tired I could barely get him hooked up, but fortunately it was an uneventful session, and we just watched old Westerns, which kept us awake just fine. Went to bed before it was too late, hoping tonight I can catch up on some sleep!

Woke up once again to Hubby’s defibrillator alarm going off, decided to keep the horses inside today since it got very cold after the storm front went through. Had a good visit with the doctor, spent some time chatting with the male nurse that we’ve known for years now and who has helped us out many times. The doctor agrees we need to do another cardioversion to get his heart back in rhythm, and we’ve managed to secure an appointment early Monday morning. That works perfectly, as he’s scheduled to get his back fixed on Wednesday, has his monthly clinic on Thursday and the plan is to leave the following Monday, so I’ll have the weekend to pack up, unless we decide to leave early. I put a heavy blanket on Apollo tonight, and left the new lined rainsheet I just bought on Flash, as it’s supposed to get down into the low 20’s tonight, and I’m afraid even in the barn it will get too cold. I put a jacket on Lola and put her in the sitting room in the barn, as it’s too cold to be in the truck, and I’ve been stoking the wood stove all day so it’s pretty warm in there. After a quiet evening, we’re off to bed!