Crafted Thoughts

Well, it's been a while since I took the time to write anything, so I thought I'd do an update. Maybe this will come in handy if I ever get around to scrapbooking all the pictures I've taken over the past several months.

Warning: This is a long posting since it covers more than two and a half months. It's also pretty boring. If I'd written it as we went, it might have been more interesting, but with it all in one big entry, it's pretty dry reading. Also, I've got more photos to upload, and I haven't added the links to this posting yet. but I'll get to it eventually, most likely, maybe, if I have time, etc. Anyway, this is mostly for me, the people in my immediate family, and a few friends who may wander over here from time to time. And all of those people know that I'm the great procrastinator, so the fact that this isn't finished should come as no surprise! LOL

When I last wrote, we were in Clanton, Alabama, playing Guitar Hero III and getting ready to head toward Florida to avoid the cold weather. Tim and I were both pretty tired, so we were more concerned about not getting too worn out rather than making great time in our travels.

We got up late on March 9th, and headed southward on I-65. When we got to Montgomery, we left the Interstate Highway system and started using more scenic routes.

This was SO much more relaxing and took a lot of pressure off me. When we're on the Interstates, I feel like I really have to push the speed to keep from holding up traffic. Considering that we're more than 60 feet in total length and pretty heavy, that's not always comfortable for me. My comfort speed is around 55 to 60 mph, so when the minimum is 50 mph, that doesn't leave much leeway. And the sound of a truck horn when the driver decides I'm not going fast enough!!! Just let me say that there are a few truck drivers out there to whom I'd like to give a piece of my mind! There's even more nice ones, I'm sure; don't get me wrong. But when I'm driving down the highway with a strong wind blowing at the side of the motor home and trailer, getting pushed almost into the next lane by the wind, already tense as heck, and going as fast as I can, it doesn't help to have one of those amazingly loud truck air horns go off in my ears as the truck passes! But enough on that pet peeve.


We passed through Montgomery that afternoon without stopping, hit US highway 231 and made it to Ozark, Alabama, just north of Dothan. We stayed, as usual, at the WalMart there. We walked over to the Applebee's restaurant across the street and had a late supper. We shared mozzarella sticks and tortilla chips with spinach artichoke dip for an appetizer. Both were pretty decent. Tim and I got a Chicken Broccoli Pasta Alfredo Bowl to share, Sierra got Chicken Fingers with steamed broccoli, and Cheyenne got one of their dinner salads. The pasta bowl was not good at all--very bland and not much chicken. We finally took some of the sauce from the mozzarella sticks and some of Cheyenne's salad dressing and added it to the pasta dish, and the pasta eventually became edible, but I most definitely can't recommend this dish.


After supper, we went back to the motor home and played Guitar Hero III for a while, then hit the sack. Well, everyone else hit the sack, and I hit the computer. I think I finally got to bed around 4 a.m.

Since we got to bed so late, everyone was late getting up on the morning of the 10th--or should I say, on the afternoon of the 10th. We finally hit the road around 4 p.m., and since it was so late in the day, we weren't going to make the Florida border before the Welcome Center closed for the day. So, instead of missing the Florida Welcome Center and its free orange juice, we decided to have a lazy day and stopped for the day in Dothan, Alabama, at the WalMart.


We got up earlier on the 11th and hit the road. It was raining lightly most of the way, but we finally made it across the border around noon and stopped at the Florida Welcome Center and got some orange juice and grapefruit juice samples, picked up bunches of brochures, took some pictures, and then hit the road again, heading toward Tallahassee. We stayed off the interstate most of the way and stopped at the WalMart on Tennessee Avenue. We were planning to go to the Mary Brogan museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, but Tim was feeling really icky around that time; I don't know if he had picked up a little bug or if the stress of traveling was getting to him, or what, but he was having a rough time getting up and doing anything at all. Although we don't usually spend more than one night at a WalMart, this location was allowing RVs to stay longer, so we spent the night of March 12th there, too.


The girls, of course, kept asking when they were going to get to see the beach. They had never seen an ocean, and they were, after all, in Florida, which is where people go to play at the beach, so they were very excited. Since Tallahassee is much closer to the Gulf of Mexico than it is to the Atlantic Ocean, we considered heading south to the Gulf; but in the end, we decided to stick with our original plan, which was to head to Florida's east coast and go south until we got to a good stopping point.


It was time for everyone to take a shower, so we found an RV park in Tallahassee for the night of the 13th, Big Oak RV Park, which was pretty decent. The layout was a bit strange, but there were lots of trees and squirrels. Rested and all showered, we were almost ready to head east on I-4, but Tim was still feeling really ill, so we spent one more night at the WalMart in Tallahassee.





On March15th, we finally made it to Saint Augustine, Florida, and that afternoon Cheyenne and Sierra, at long last, got to see the ocean and play at the beach.


A cold front was moving in, with high winds and much cooler temperatures, but that didn't slow them down. They wanted to go swimming in the ocean, but with the winds so bad, I only let them go wading. I told them that if they could prove to me that they were strong enough swimmers, then I'd let them swim in the ocean. The way they could prove it? Swim back and forth, two times, the length of the pool at our RV resort (four lengths total). I figured that if they could swim that long, then they might have a chance if they got caught in a rip current.


As it got cooler, we headed back home, had supper, and called it a night. We were staying three nights at Ocean Grove RV Resort, which was on Highway A1A, very close to the beach.

The next day, the winds were running about 20 mph at the beach, so we stayed at the RV park and the girls went swimming in the pool. Sierra could swim only one length of the pool, so there was no way I was going to let her go into those choppy waters without an adult attached to her. Cheyenne, on the other hand, struggled but made it the full four lengths. I wasn't really comfortable with her swimming ability, as she had had to work really hard to make it the full distance, but she had met the test. I told her, though, that she was going to have to wait until the winds died down and the rip current warning were gone, and she didn't complain. In the meantime, they had the pool, so they still got to be waterbabies.

We stayed in Saint Augustine the nights of the 15th and the 16th. We drove around and saw some of the historical buildings, but we didn't take any of the tours. The architecture was very pretty, and perhaps we'll come back another time to see the insides of the buildings. The girls made good use of the pool, and we got them some beach toys (shovels, buckets, molds and the like) for them to play with at the beach. Since the red flag warnings remained up, they still couldn't go swimming, but they had a wonderful time playing in the sand. The exhaust pipe for our generator had fallen off in Alabama while we were sitting in a parking lot (so we were able to retrieve it and put into the trailer, thank goodness), so while we were in Saint Augustine, we had it welded back onto the motor home. I was pleasantly surprised that it cost only $30.

On March 17th, we left Saint Augustine and headed to Deland, to spend the night at the WalMart there and then go to the Gillespie Museum the next day. Sierra just LOVES rocks. She keeps them for pets! So this museum was on our must-do list.


The Gillespie is a small earth sciences museum on the campus of Stetson University. It's a member of the ASTC, so we got in free with our reciprocal membership. They have quite an extensive mineral and gemstone collection. We were the only guests at the museum, so they offered us a free guided tour of the entire museum. Such a treat! The tour ended at a hands-on exhibit where the girls got to "dig" for some stones to take home with them. I also splurged and let the girls spend some money on souvenirs at the gift shop. Cheyenne bought a dolphin necklace carved from stone, and Sierra bought an assortment of rocks. To top it off, I was lucky enough to find a necklace that I liked, too. We all enjoyed this little museum very much, and if you're ever in the area, I highly recommend it. It's not big and fancy, but their specimens are high quality, and the staff was just wonderful.

After we finished at the museum, I got on the phone and started trying to locate an RV park in the Daytona area. The ones in Daytona Beach were out of our price range, but I found a nice little park in New Smyrna Beach, Sugar Mill Ruins Travel Park. It's about 7 miles from the beach and located fairly close to restaurants and shopping, yet in a wooded setting. They have a lot of permanent and seasonal retired residents, but it was a nice park, even for us transients.

We got the motor home all hooked up at the park by a little after 5:00 on the 18th, and by 6:30, the girls were on the beach. The temperature had dropped considerably, and it was in the 60s, but there was no stopping them from putting on their bathing suits and getting wet.

The winds were still very strong, and the red flag warnings remained up. While Cheyenne and Sierra played in the water and the sand and I took pictures, Tim sat and read his book in his heavy sweater and hat. I agree with him--It felt cold!! But the girls didn't seem to be bothered a bit by the cold, and I believe they would have stayed there all night if we would have let them.

We let them play for about an hour, then walked down the street and got ice cream cones and headed for home.




We took the 19th as a stay-at-home day and got some laundry and house cleaning done. The girls got to go swimming at the resort pool, though, so they didn't mind too much.

On March 20th, we drove the car up to Ponce Inlet, which is just a few miles south of Daytona Beach, to let the girls see the lighthouse there. The lighthouse was built in 1887 and has been restored to its original glory.

We toured the museum grounds and the girls and I were planning to climb the lighthouse. Tim couldn't climb it because of his heart problems. The lighthouse is the tallest in Florida, at 175 feet tall, and there are 203 steps between the bottom and the top. This picture that looks like a spiral is a view of the staircase from the ground floor.




I had climbed this lighthouse when our children were little, about 25 years ago, and the view from the top was spectacular. I could see the ocean and miles of coastline.


Unfortunately, this time my fear of heights got the better of me. I started up the steps, but I just couldn't make myself keep moving up. I made it to the first landing, and that was it.

The girls were disappointed, but they were pretty understanding about it. They still enjoyed touring the museum buildings and seeing the science exhibits, so it wasn't a complete loss.









After we finished at the lighthouse, we went over to a nearby nature preserve where they had pretty much kept the natural Florida swamp landscape and had put in sidewalks and raised walkways so that people could walk around the area and see what it was like before all the houses and condos went up.

We all walked out to the overlook where we could see the ocean. We noticed a couple of people who were doing something with a kite-like contraption, so we decided to drive over to the ocean to check it out.

It took us a while to find the correct road, but we finally did. There were two young men wearing something similar to hang-gliding parachutes and riding on ski boards. It was really neat to watch them catch the wind and ride the waves. We watched for about a half hour and then decided to drive up to Daytona to get something to eat.

As we entered Daytona Beach, we saw a public park with a playground and beachfront, so we decided to stop and let the girls play for a while. Unfortunately, Tim locked the keys in the car, so they got to play for almost two hours while we waited on AAA to come unlock the car. Even if we were freezing, at least they had a good time on the playground, and I got some photos of the full moon over the ocean. By the time we got the car unlocked, we were freezing and starved. So we scrapped the dinner plans and decided to just get some fast food and head on home. We got back to the motor home about 11 p.m., and everyone fell asleep pretty quickly.

On the 21st, we hit the road again, heading a little farther south. My aunt lives in Melbourne, and it was Easter weekend, so we decided to stop in that area. Unfortunately, we were moving far enough south that it was getting harder and harder to find a WalMart where it was legal to stay overnight. Most of the communities along the southern half of Florida's east coast have passed ordinances outlawing overnight stays except in RV parks. But Tim and I got on the phone and started calling the WalMarts in the area, and there were two to choose from: Titusville and Vierra. Since Vierra is closer to my aunt's home, we chose that one. When we arrived, we were fortunate to get permission to stay for two nights. We ate dinner that evening at Shells restaurant and had a great seafood meal. Sierra had her usual chicken fingers, Cheyenne had shrimp, Tim had scallops, and I had some trout. Yummy!

The next day we called my aunt and went down to visit her. She invited us to have Easter dinner with her and my cousin, and we happily agreed. After a short visit, we headed back to the motor home and played Guitar Hero for a while. Then it was off to bed for the girls, and Tim and I had to get busy putting their Easter baskets together. We finished about midnight and hit the sack.

Easter Sunday, the girls got up and found their Easter baskets and ate way more candy than they should have. Then we headed over to my aunt's house for a wonderful Easter dinner of ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, deviled eggs and other goodies. She even fixed a dessert that wasn't too bad for us and that tasted great. We spent the afternoon talking and nibbling on left-overs, and the girls played video games for a while. We were all able to take a real shower, too, while we were there--always a good thing when you're boondocking and trying to conserve your onboard water. After we left my aunt's home, we had a late dinner at Denny's, breakfast for supper, and then turned in for the night around midnight.

On Monday, March 24th, we moved our motor home to the West Melbourne/Palm Bay WalMart and took my aunt and cousin for a late lunch at Shells. After lunch, we stopped at the Best Buy and picked up a game for the Nintendo DS that we had already bought for Sierra's upcoming birthday. This was almost the last thing we needed to get; we just wanted to find a baby doll for her, and then we'd be through with her birthday shopping. It was a bit of a challenge to shop for her while she was with us, but with my aunt's help, we pulled it off. I also picked up an 8-gigabyte SD card for my camera--over 2000 photos without having to change the card or download!!! We thought about buying a shoot-and-point camera for Tim, but it looked like new models were about to come out, so we decided to hold off for a while.

After we were through with our shopping, we went back to my aunt's home and did a couple of loads of laundry. It was very late when we left her house, but we had reservations at Treasure Coast RV Resort in Fort Pierce for that night, so after the laundry was done, we hit the road and headed south.

We arrived at Fort Pierce around three a.m. on the 25th and pulled into the RV resort. The resort was so wonderfully Florida-ish looking, with palm trees everywhere and white rope lights twisting around the tree trunks. We had a pull-through site, and they left directions for us at the office building, so it was easy to get set up for the night. We hooked up the water and the electricity and hit the sack.

Later that morning, we checked in at the office. We looked around the resort, and it was very nice, so we decided we'd stay for a couple of weeks. The owner was an absolute doll, and since we'd arrived so late, she didn't even charge us for the first night. Since they have only four pull-through sites, longer staying guests can't tie up those sites. We were concerned about this, since we keep some of our stuff in our trailer and need to get into it often, but they told us to find a site we liked and they'd give us a second site next to it, where we could keep the trailer, at no additional cost. We drove around the park and finally settled on a site that faced the small lake. One of the owners helped us get the trailer into the site right behind the motor home, and we were all set. Treasure Coast was a little pricey, but this was most definitely the nicest RV resort we'd ever stayed in. I was really glad that we'd stayed at WalMarts so much on the way down and saved our money; otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to afford to stay at there.

Sierra's birthday was coming up on the 31st, and she very much wanted her mother to be with her on her birthday. At first, we had planned on driving back to Tennessee so that she could celebrate with her mother. But with the cost of gas rising like it did, we found that it was cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket for her mother and bring her down to us, instead. So a couple of weeks earlier we had purchased the tickets, and Kris was due to arrive on the 26th in Fort Lauderdale and stay a couple of weeks. The girls were getting both excited and nervous, so we tried to keep them busy and let them go swimming most of the afternoon. As usual, we played Guitar Hero for a while and then hit the sack around midnight.

On the 26th, around one o'clock, we got in the car and headed to Fort Lauderdale, about an hour and a half away. Kris wasn't scheduled to arrive until around 7:30 p.m., so we had plenty of time. We lived in Pompano Beach, just north of Fort Lauderdale, for several years, so we wanted to drive around the area and see how things had changed. And boy, had they ever changed!!! What used to be farmland was now covered with shopping centers. Our old neighborhood hadn't changed too much; it was a little rundown, but no major changes. We drove around for a while and showed the girls where their mother had lived when she was about their ages and showed them the beach.

Then it was time to head to the airport. Kris's plane was about 45 minutes late, but we found this out ahead of time, so we had to wait only about 15 minutes after we got to the airport. After loading up her suitcases, we headed to The Clock restaurant for a late supper. Cheyenne was a bit frustrated with her mother, so she was cuddling up with me and doing everything she could to make her mother jealous. Sierra, on the other hand, couldn't have been happier; she finally had her mommy with her.

For the next two weeks, we mostly hung out at the RV park, making a excursion every now and then to go shopping or see the ocean. We hit the Bruno Chocolate factory and got some fudge and found a good (but cheap) pizza joint not far away. While Kris was in Florida, Tim and I finally got to spend some "alone time" together for the first time since January. We went down to the clubhouse and learned to play dominoes, walked around the park, went on a few drives and just hung out together.

The kids had a great time having their mother around, and they got to go to ice cream socials, pot luck nights and other events at the RV resort. Cheyenne learned how to use her mother's digital camera and became quite the little shutterbug.

We had a little party at the clubhouse on Sierra's birthday, with pizza, ice cream and a princess birthday cake. She got a Florida straw purse, a Nintendo DS and the game Nintendogs, along with a case to hold them, a sticker book with lots of stickers, an art set, a doll that makes realistic crying and cooing sounds and moves like she's breathing (it's amazing what they can do with microchips these days!), some doll clothes, an Uno game, some color by number sets, some Pretty Ponies, a sequin-by-numbers set, a WalMart gift card and some tape and a stapler (okay, she kept borrowing mine, so it was in self defense, but she did like them, LOL). She definitely made out like a bandit!

The morning of April 7th, I was getting dressed and bent over to pick something up and hit my mouth on a plastic storage box. No big deal, except that I already had a loose front tooth that I needed to either have removed or get fixed. Well, the decision was made for me that morning; the tooth, after I hit my mouth, was left so loose that I thought it would fall out very soon. There was no doubt I was going to be missing a tooth, but I really didn't want to have to pay a dentist to remove a tooth that was that loose already. So I told Tim that I was going to wait a few days to see what happened.

On April 9th, we took Kris to the airport for her return flight. We dropped her off around 2:30 and then headed to the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, in an attempt to keep Cheyenne and Sierra busy so that they wouldn't think so much about their mother leaving. They saw some fish, snakes and spiders; got to fly all sorts of flight simulators; made lots of soap bubbles; used a robotic arm; got to ride a Mars Rover simulator; and just had an all around good time. We all really enjoyed our time at this hands-on museum and wished we could have spent more time there. On the way back to Fort Pierce, we stopped at the beaches in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach and let the girls collect some more shells. We finally made it home a little after dark. The girls were really sad that their mother had left, so they were glad to get to talk with her on the phone that evening.

We decided to extend our time at Treasure Coast RV Park to a month since there were activities for everyone and the park was so clean and neat, with a great laundry room and a good pool and clubhouse. Again, they were really great and let us just pay the difference between what we had already paid and the monthly rate. You can't beat that!

On Saturday, Tim wasn't feeling good and wanted to stay in bed, so I took Cheyenne and Sierra to a nearby u-pick strawberry farm, Dekker Family Farms, where we were able to get some tomatoes, lettuce and strawberries fresh from the fields. It was definitely a new experience for the girls, and we got some good recipies, too.

By Monday, April 14th, it was obvious that my loose tooth wasn't going to come the rest of the way out on its own, so we drove arond the area to see if we could spot a dentist's office. We found a billboard for a dentist that wasnt' too far away, but when we called them, they said it would be at least $500 to pull my tooth, maybe more--this for a tooth that was 90% already out all on its own!!! We told them no thanks and kept on looking. Finally, we gave up and started heading home, and on the next street we took, I spotted a sign for a dentist. We stopped, and she was able to take care of me right then, although it was 5:00 and they were getting ready to close, and the total bill, including x-rays, was just $200. She was very sweet, too. I'm somewhat dental phobic (and, thus, the neglected tooth that was already loose from being hit previously before I hit it this time), but she was very reassuring, patting my hands and explaining everything she did. It turned out that I had a bad infection, and that was what had been pushing the tooth out, so she put me on antibiotics for ten days and that was that.

Tim had been wanting to get a guitar for a while so that he could learn to play, but we had been holding off because we had two guitars at home that we could get when we got back to east Tennessee. But on April 16th, we decided to buy him a beginner's guitar since we weren't planning on being home until sometime in July. So off to Best Buy we went, and we came home with an inexpensive Gibson acoustic guitar. We spent the rest of the day with me playing a little and then showing Tim and the girls a few chords. Tim quickly found out that it's harder than it looks to make your fingers reach the right frets. But I think that, with practice, he'll really enjoy it.

The girls were still missing their mother very much, and Tim and I were beginning to feel the need to spend some time alone together, in light of his health problems, so on the 17th we talked with Kris, and she said she felt like she would be able to take care of the girls okay at that point. So we spent the rest of that day and the next day packing up all of their stuff and arranged to meet their father in Perry, Georgia, which is about halfway between Fort Pierce, Florida, and Bristol, Tennessee. We weren't sure this was the right thing to do, but we were really feeling the pressure from not getting to spend time together like we had planned; that was, after all, the reason I'd retired early/temporarily in the first place. And during her visit, Kris certainly appeared to be doing a lot better. So on April 19th, we got in the car and started driving north, and around 10 p.m. we met up with Jimmy and the girls continued north from Perry with their father, and we headed to a hotel to rest for the night, feeling a little guilty, but hoping things would be okay.

The next day we got up and drove around the area a little bit. Just before noon, the car got really loud, like a car without a muffler. I thought I'd noticed it sounding a little funny the day before, but Tim (the deaf one, we call him) couldn't hear anything unusual. Well, it turns out that the exhaust pipe had come loose. We stopped and asked for recommendations to a repair shop, and we finally found a local place that could take care of us that afternoon. We were very lucky that they were able to weld things back together, so our total bill, including new windshield wipers, was only about $50. Thank goodness for small miracles!

We headed back towards Fort Pierce that afternoon, truly alone for the first time in months. On the way back, we stopped at Ellis Brothers Pecans in Vienna, Georgia. We try to stop there every time we go through Georgia on I-75. They have a great sales floor, with oodles of samples; and their nuts are very good and reasonably priced. We always leave there stuffed from the samples and with a bag of goodies to take home, and this time was no exception. Tim's favorite this time was the Coffee Coated Pecans, and mine was the Pecan Praline Crunch. We got to the Orlando area around 8 p.m. and decided to stop for dinner at one of the Panda Express (Chinese fast food) restaurants in the area. We thought about staying in the area and going to Walt Disney World the next day (we have annual passes, so tickets wouldn't have been an issue), but our plan was to spend a couple of weeks at Disney after we left Fort Pierce on the 25th, so we decided to head on home to Treasure Coast.

The next couple of days, we just hung out around the resort, enjoying the Florida weather and relaxing. I was a bit shy about getting out in public with my missing tooth, so we didn't go down to the clubhouse much. On the 24th we started packing up so that we could leave the next day. Let me tell you, it's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate during the course of staying in one place for a month! Our trailer was piled high with boxes--a complete mess--and we needed to straighten everything out so that we could put the car in there. We don't move as fast as we used to, so we decided we could use a couple of extra days to get things ready to go. Since the resort was running a weekend special that allowed campers to check out at 6 p.m. on Sunday, we decided to take advantage of that and leave on the 27th instead of the 25th. We didn't have reservations in Orlando, our next stop, so we weren't on any special timetable. Despite my missing tooth, we went to the potluck dessert party on Saturday night and enjoyed all sorts of goodies, including two servings of strawberry shortcake.

On Sunday afternoon, we made our final preparations, got the car loaded into the trailer, and said goodbye to Treasure Coast around 7 p.m., heading north to Orlando to see Mickey Mouse. We stopped at the Flying J truck stop in Fort Pierce to check the air in the tires. Tim had a low blood sugar episode, so he stayed inside and drank orange juice while I checked the tires. I was all through with the motor home and was going around to check the last tire on the trailer. I decided to be lazy and go over the trailer's tongue, and my foot got caught in the cables that run from the trailer to the motor home. Down I went, onto the pavement, landing on my left arm. I banged on the back of the motor home from where I was sitting on the pavement, and Tim came out and helped me get up. He finished putting air in the tires while I went in to put ice on my arm. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew that my arm wasn't right, so it was off to the hospital in Fort Pierce, with me behind the wheel, no less. Fortunately, I'm right handed, and the hospital wasn't too far away.

A few hours later, and I had the bad news. My arm was broken, and not just an ordinary break. I had managed to break a pyramid-shaped piece off the elbow end of my radius (forearm bone), and it was going to have to be repaired surgically. The doctor said I needed to see an orthopedic doctor within the next week, so I had two choices: have surgery in Florida or head back home to Tennessee and have surgery. At the emergency room, they put my arm into a fiberglass splint, wrapped it in padding and stretchy bandages, told me to keep my arm in a sling all the time. There was no way I was going to drive a long distance that night, so we decided to head back to Treasure Coast to rest for the night and try to sort things out the next day.

On Monday, I called the local orthopedic surgeon to whom they had referred me, and I called Knoxville Orthopedic Clinic. I don't have medical insurance, so I was referred by the local surgeon's office to a clinic for person's without insurance; KOC, on the other hand, was willing to see me and let me make payments. Tim and I talked about it for a while and decided to go ahead and head back to Tennessee for my surgery. I made an appointment for the next Monday, May 5th, and we made plans to leave Fort Pierce (again) as soon as I felt I could drive the motor home.

I took pain medicine Sunday night and all day Monday, but by Tuesday morning I wasn't hurting as badly, so we decided to hit the road that afternoon and I switched over to ibuprofen. Surprisingly, the ibuprofen helped about as much as the Vicodin had.

We hit the road around 2 p.m. on April 29th, heading up Florida's Turnpike. I stopped at just about every service plaza (rest area) on the turnpike, and by that evening we had made it to the Okahumpka service plaza near the north end of the turnpike. The turnpike authority normally doesn't allow overnight parking in the service plazas, but we pulled into the truck parking area and decided that we'd leave if someone asked us to leave or when we woke up in the morning, whichever came first. I was really tired, and I needed the rest, and I really didn't want to have to leave to turnpike to find a spot to park the motor home for the night.

We were very lucky and got to spend the whole night in our space at the service plaza. We pulled out around 7 a.m on the 30th and headed toward I-75. We made it up to Cordelle, Georgia, where we slept at (no surprise here) the local WalMart parking lot. On Thursday, May 1st, I was determined to make it to Tennessee if at all possible. I would have been satisfied with Chattanooga, but I was able to make it to the WalMart in Clevenland, Tennessee. Friday morning I got up and started toward Knoxville. I called KOC to see if they could move my appointment to that afternoon, since I was going to be back in town sooner than expected, and Dr. Calhoun was willing to go ahead and see me that day.

We pulled into the WalMart in Lenoir City, parked our rig, got the car out, and headed into Knoxville to meet Dr. Calhoun. He took x-rays and confirmed that I definitely needed surgery, so he scheduled me for 4 p.m. the next Wednesday, May 7th, when he was going to put me back together with some screws and maybe some metal plates.

After my doctor's appointment, Tim and I went over to say hello to our grandchildren before heading back to Lenoir City and really enjoyed getting to see them (even if the dog did pee on my shoe). We stayed at the Lenoir City WalMart again on Saturday evening while we checked out some RV parks in the area, and on Sunday, May 4th we checked into Soaring Eagle RV Park again.

Our children and grandchildren came out and visited us on Sunday, and we had a nice family day. After dinner, we headed to the Weigel's and got Icee's for everyone. We're still not exactly sure how she did it, but my 11-year-old granddaughter, Tabitha, managed to spill her strawberry Icee on our ceiling!!! But even with that, it was great to be back with family.

I had my surgery, as scheduled, on May 7th. I didn't want to have general anesthesia, so the doctor did an axillary block that numbed my entire arm and then gave me some sedative-hypnotic drugs so that I wouldn't remember the surgery. The drugs must have worked fine because I remember them telling me that the doctor was ready to get started and then I remember the doctor standing next to my bed with x-rays of my repaired arm in his hand, and I don't remember anything in between. Dr. Calhoun told me to keep my arm in my sling and gave me a yellow block of sponge-like foam with holes in it, that looked sort of like Sponge Bob SquarePants, for me to keep my arm in to help support my arm and keep me from bumping it.

My arm was still completely numb from the block when I left the hospital (with Tim driving this time), but the doctor had given me a prescription for Demerol with phenergan (to prevent nausea) for when I needed it later. Since I wasn't hurting at the time, when Tim suggested that I go ahead and fill my prescription for the pain medicine, I told him not to bother, that I'd get it filled when and if I needed it. I just wanted to get home and try to relax. The doctor had said that the block would wear off gradually, so I figured I would have plenty of time later to fill it. Of course, it was around 8:30 p.m. by this point, and most of the pharmacies were either already closed or getting ready to close, but in my drug-influenced state, waiting until later made complete sense to me. Tim hesitantly agreed, and we headed home.

Well, the doctor LIED!!!! The pain block did NOT wear off gradually. Around 9:30 my arm all of a sudden started to feel like it was ON FIRE. In a big way! So stoic little me, who doesn't usually need pain pills, was sitting on the couch in tears screaming at Tim to, "Go now! Go to the pharmacy. NOW, NOW!!!!" So, off to the 24-hour Walgreens he went, and he returned home with the meds. My hero! I immediately took a dose, and about 45 minutes later, I was asleep on the couch. Our bed sits up very high and has a thick memory-foam topper, so we decided that I would sleep on the couch for a while since it would have been very difficult to maneuver into and on the bed. Tim, the sweetie, slept on a cot next to the couch, even though he has a bad back and I know he was miserable. But he really hung in there for me.

Thursday was pretty much a series of (1) wake up, (2) take pain medicine, (3) go back to sleep, and (4) wake up four hours later and start the series over again. I took my evening dose of Demerol on Thursday and, surprisingly, when I woke up on Friday, I wasn't hurting nearly as much. I was very tired of sleeping all the time, so I decided to try skipping the Demerol and seeing how the ibuprofen did. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked pretty well.

My wrist, however, was killing me by Friday afternoon, hurting far worse than my arm and elbow. I called KOC, and all the doctors were in a meeting, but I spoke with a physician's assistant who told me that I could come to the office and they would bend my splint/half-cast out so that it didn't rub on my wrist so much. We started to drive into town, but I decided that we could just as easily do it ourselves, so back home we went to dig out the pliers. A few gentle pushes and tugs on the wrist end of the splint, and all was much better.

I took it pretty easy for the next week or so, mostly just hanging around the house, not doing too much. I did a mystery shop at a fast-food restaurant, with Tim's help, on May 15th. Then on May 16th, our grandchildren came to visit us for the weekend. We have Dollywood season passes, so we took them up to Pigeon Forge and let them ride some rides on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, we drove down to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga for the afternoon. We had a fun time there, bought some pizza for supper and hit the Publix supermarket before heading home (love their buy-one-get-one specials). I really wish we had a Publix in the Knoxville area. Maybe someday. We didn't get the kids home until around midnight, and they had school the next day so, not surprisingly, their parents were somewhat ticked off at us. Can't say that I blame them, though. Bad grandparents--bad, bad, bad.

On May 19th, I saw my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Calhoun, and he took the cast off my arm. Goodness!!! My arm is SO stiff and I can't bend my elbow much in either direction. I'm supposed to do some range of motion exercises for my elbow, trying to straighten it, bend it, turn my hand palm upward, and turn my hand palm downward. All that sounds simple, but it's amazing how hard it is to do after having surgery and having my arm in a cast for a month. I go back to see him on the 9th of June, and he says he'll decide then whether I'm doing okay on my own or whether he'll want me to go to physical therapy. I'm definitely working at getting my arm working again, but I have no idea how much improvement he'll be looking for on the 9th. Of course, it really doesn't matter; since I don't have any medical insurance, I can't afford physical therapy anyway, so he'll just have to keep on giving me exercises for me to do on my own.

On Tuesday, May 20th, it was off to the Tri-Cities so that Tim could see his doctor in Johnson City and so that we could pick up a few things from the house in Bristol. We got a late start and were late for his doctor's appointment, so he had to see the on-call doctor instead of his regular doctor. He's been having some pain in the muscles of his chest, and we found out that he has a lump that has to be removed. It turned out that having the on-call doctor see him was a good thing because that doctor had worked in Knoxville for a while and knew the doctors in the surgical group that Tim had used previously. So he'll be able to have the surgery in Knoxville instead of going all the way up to Johnson City. His surgery was originally scheduled for May 27th, but he forgot that he was supposed to stop a couple of his medicines (Plavix and Celebrex) for a week before the surgery, so it's been rescheduled to the afternoon of June 3rd at St. Mary's hospital in Knoxville.

On the 22nd, I was lucky enough to get to go with Rachel to her obstetrician appointment. Since she's diabetic, they're doing ultrasounds frequently to check the size of the baby. They did one during this appointment, and I got to see his tiny little hands, feet and face. The doctor estimated his weight at 2 lb. 6 oz., so he's right on track and not overweight at this point. The doctor said that he was going to start doing the ultrasounds weekly before long so that he can track the baby's progress closely. It looks like his name is going to be Alex unless Rachel and Jym change their mind between now and August.

So for now, we're staying put in Lenoir City, about 15 miles west of Knoxville. We went up to Bristol on Friday and picked up my van, so now we're a two-car family again. Our grandchildren are out of school now, so they're spending a little time with us whenever their schedules allow. I go back to the doctor on June 9th, and Tim has his surgery on June 3rd. I'll do a little mystery shopping every now and then so that we can eat out without having to pay for it, but other than that, I'm going to try to stay retired for a while, if we can afford it. With all my medical bills and my having no insurance, our budget is stretched to the limit, so I'm not sure that I'll not have to work at least part time. But Tim and I would like to take this time and spend it together, if we can, since with his health problems we may not have a chance later on. In the meantime, we'll just take one day at a time and see how things work out. If I'm lucky, I'll get to do some scrapbooking and rubber stamping and Tim will get to do some shooting and reloading. And we'll eagerly await Alex's birth in August. With the price of gas these days, we're certainly not going anywhere in the motor home. Our last fill up cost almost $400! So maybe we'll be able to stay here, stay busy and, hopefully, stay out of trouble.

# posted by Suzanne Q @ 8:58 AM 0 comments