Time for some "Thinking-Driving and Thinking-Camping"

 Location: New Rockdale RV Park; Mansfield, Louisiana

It's been awhile since I've made a post. I'm sorry if I left readers wondering what was going on. 

All of the family is healthy and doing well. Brandon's transplants are still doing great. The kids and grandkids are doing fine as well. My X-wife went through a lot of medical issues over the last year. A very quick summary, so as to document it here, would be: folded intestine (hospitalized), ischemic colitis (hospitalized), low blood pressure/dehydration (hospitalized), biopsy's of lymph nodes and lung (day surgery), lower lung removed along with the cancerous spot  (hospitalized), watchman device installed in heart (hospitalized). The watchman is interesting. She has had Afib for awhile and was on a mild blood thinner and rhythm medicine. Her regular cardiologist set up a meeting with another cardiologist who specializes in the installation of a new medical device called a "watchman". The danger of Afib is strokes. The strokes happen when blood pools up in an appendage/alcove inside the heart. Once pooled, the blood can form a clot which can break loose and travel throughout the body in the blood stream. It can lodge in the brain stem and cause a stroke. It can also lodge in many other places and cause major problems. This is why people with Afib are usually on a strong blood thinner to prevent the clot from forming. Well, a few years ago, the watchman device was approved. It is a tiny wire mesh device that blocks off the appendage and prevents blood from being able to pool up. About 45 days after the procedure the doctor does a scan of the device to see if it is still in a good location and working. If all is good, then the patient can quit blood thinners and the chance of stroke is dramatically reduced. "Good deal, Lucille". Kathy has the follow up scan scheduled for July 9th. If she gets a good report from the doctor, then my work here is done and I can hit the road. 

I need to hit the road because I've been in a funk for the last couple of months. Younger readers may need to find a seasoned citizen to ask what "funk" means in this case. It is not like the song "Uptown Funk". Other than going to the doctors and hospitals with Kathy, I haven't been motivated to do much of anything else. Unless I figure it out, I'll just slowly fade away. That's where the title of this post comes into play,,,, "Thinking Driving and Camping". That isn't three separate things. It is two things Thinking-Driving and Thinking-Camping. I have a few things to work out in my head. An old saying from the Navy days would be, I need to "get my $hi! together". 

Summer is here but we've been lucky in not having too many super hot and humid days. But they are due anytime. I don't like hot and humid weather, so if Kathy's scan is good I should be on the road by the 15th of July. And of course, I'll be headed north for cooler weather. I'm not sure which route I'll be taking but my destination goal will be the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Once I settle on a route, I'll post it here. 

I think I've figured out the new Blogger program enough to get around inside of it. I still don't like it. My Picasa (picture editor/storage) program also quit working with my direct downloads from my phone. However, it does work if I'm using an SD card from the fancy camera. So I figured a way to download my pictures from my phone to a thumbdrive then upload from the thumbdrive to the laptop for use in the blog. Geez,,,,, the things we go through just to post a picture or two. 

I'll post some of the pictures from the last year in a future blog post, but just to make sure I do know how to do it, I'll post a picture from this winter. The winter was pretty mild except for about 10 days. The temperature got into the single digits and snow was flying. I'll make a more detail post about it later so it will be memorialized here for the grandkids to read in the future.   

Snowing on Freedom and Liberty

This blogging and typing feels good. I think I'll try to do it more often.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.