Location: Heart of Haynesville RV Park (homebase); Mansfield, Louisiana
I've been back at homebase for several months with only a short 10-day trip in late January which I took to escape sub-freezing temperatures. The time has been spent visiting with family over the holidays, going to grandchildren events, consulting with my doctors as well as accompanying my ex-wife during her doctors' appointments.
I have a few weeks of free time and can take a short trip. As a side benefit, I plan to have some maintenance work done on Liberty while on the trip. The trip will only last a few weeks because I need to be back in the area during June due to my ex-wife's doctor appointment. I guess I need to document her condition for future reading by our grandchildren. I won't go into all of her conditions, since they are extensive. Her latest procedure from about 6 weeks ago was the installation of a Carotid Barostim device. This is a recently approved device that is implanted near your collarbone and connected to the outside of your Carotid Artery in your neck called the "carotid sinus". It is the place where your body collects signals and forwards them to the brain for action. That action could be to increase or decrease blood pressure, pulse or anything from the sympathetic nervous system such as fight or flight reflexes. The barostim device blocks those signals and sends their own. This improves heart functions for those in heart failure. We are still in the wait and see stage as to its effectiveness. They have been increasing its sensitivity every couple of weeks. It is now set to the highest maintenance setting. The doctors' meeting in June will be to discuss a different procedure. That one will be to add a second wire from her defibrillator/pacemaker to her heart. This was attempted a couple of years ago, but that doctor couldn't do it due to poor veins. There is a group of doctors in Dallas who are confident they can do it. If the second wire can be installed, it will allow the two chambers of the heart to work together instead of against each other. It will be a benefit if it can happen. She is about 90% sure she wants to try it, but we will wait until mid-June to talk to the doctors again. The good news is it isn't an emergency type situation.
Two of our kids live close enough to take her to the doctor and be the "patient advocate", but instead of bothering them, if I'm around, I do it. I'm very familiar with her past medical issues and her current conditions. I'm also not too proud to question the doctors about things. It keeps them on their toes. Just for the record, we were married for 28 years and have been divorced for 20 years. Oh well, old habits are hard to break.
Anyway, back to the trip. I'll be leaving on May 1st with two stops before a scheduled appointment at Holiday World of Willis located in Willis, Texas. They have several RV Sales and Service locations around Texas and New Mexico so I'm relatively confident that the technicians are well trained. I still have my doubts though. The work I have scheduled is to have the bearings greased on Liberty and have her washed and waxed. I am capable of doing all of that myself, but I also know that if I did, my back, hands, arms and legs would be hurting for several days afterwards. So, I made an executive decision to contract the work out and cross my fingers that it's done right. I'll be talking to the service manager to make sure he knows that I know, what they should and shouldn't be doing. Unless their insurance prevents it, I'm hoping to be looking over the shoulder of the technician doing the work. We will see how it goes.
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| This is the route I've chosen. There will be 6 COE's and 2 National Forest Campgrounds. I've stayed at a couple of these places in the past but re-reading my blog I had mentioned about coming back. Either way, it will be good to get away for a while. |
Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.
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