HAPPINESS IS

Jim being able to drive again. Now we can go those places that have small parking lots (like the grocery store) and I don’t have to worry about whether I can get the truck into a parking spot.

Aunt Happy’s residence has a very small parking lot so the first place we went was to visit her. She’s still recovering from her eye surgery but almost done with doctor visits.  A virus hit their living complex and they were under quarantine for a week. Happy stayed in her room and had her meals brought to her so she escaped being sick. Everybody seems to be feeling okay now.

 

After leaving Happy’s, we went to visit my sister for a few minutes and then out to Old Chicago. Jim had a craving for pizza. And it really did a number on his blood sugar. So no more pizza for several months.

Jim felt really good but very tired when we finally got home. He’s still taking naps every day and Scooter just loves it. We went to Walmart this morning and he was able to walk all through the store and out to the truck without limping and pain. He could not do that before surgery. He and Scooter take walks a couple of times a day and he doesn’t have any pain.

The incision is still sore and uncomfortable, but I figure that feeling will last for six months or more. In fact, I figure it will be a year before he really is back to total recovery. As long as there’s no pain, we don’t care.

Doctor bills are starting to come in and I’ll be curious to see how much Jim’s surgery actually cost us.

HO HUM

I’m bored. The price of fuel is ridiculous. I can’t face working on our tax return any longer. Jim and the girls are taking naps. That’s about it from here.

NOT DOING MUCH

Jim is recovering very nicely from surgery. He took Scooter for a walk this morning to celebrate three weeks after surgery. Before surgery he would come back limping and in pain. Today he walked as far as he normally does with her and back without being in pain. That is the best news ever.

He isn’t moving very fast which works well with Scoots cause she wants to sniff every rock and every blade of grass that exists. Skittlez hates to go for walks. She hates being outside and when we take her for a walk, she is constantly turning around and pulling for all she’s worth to go back home. Not a lot of fun.

We haven’t really done anything. Went to Walmart for a few things and that’s about all the shopping we’ve done.

We did go out to dinner last night with Paul at Los Gringos Locos and had a great time. Paul will only be here for about another week before heading out but we hope to see him a couple more times before he leaves.

And that’s about it from our world.

PLEASE MAKE A COMMENT

I could not figure out how to get back to the old format of blogger. I’ve been using the new format since way back when. When I clicked on my “wrench” per Rick’s blog, I didn’t come up with an option to go back to the old format.

I’ve been reading everything I could find and all of a sudden I realized I had a check box that said to make blogger draft my default. That box was checked so I unchecked it and clicked on dashboard. It brought up the old format and then I could go into settings and change that word verification thing.

So now I need somebody to comment and let me know if what I did worked.  Thanks guys.

I AM SO SORRY!

I thought I had turned off word verification years ago. Thanks to Sam’s comment I just found out I haven’t succeeded. I went to Rick’s blog to follow his directions and guess what – my “wrench” doesn’t come up with the same information as his. I’ve sent an e-mail to Rick asking for additional help so please bear with me and eventually I will get this all taken care of.

And I really really want to thank all of you who have taken the time to comment with word verification. I know how much I hate it.

RECOVERY

Jim is really happy to be home. Wednesday we went to the Escapees Chapter Luncheon and then Wednesday night we went to Superstition Skies to hear Brant and Kerrie.

Carol and Gary

We invited two couples here in our park to go with us Wednesday night and I think they had a good time but we were home by 6:30. We rode with one of the couples and they were ready to come home. So next time we will take our own vehicle.

Cam (his wife Lois wasn’t feeling very good so she didn’t go with us)

Dianna and Dottie also joined us but wouldn’t let me take any more pictures of them. Dianna brought Jim a get well gift. The bag was full of pistachios and cashews. He is a happy camper.

It was probably a good thing that we did come home because Jim was tired on Thursday. We didn’t do much of anything. Jim took a short walk and I did some laundry. I also helped one of our park neighbors get her tax return filed.

Today, Jim and I went to Teakwood’s Tavern and Grill to try it out. I had a Groupon that needed to be used. The food was very good but it was a long way to drive (30 miles one way) for a sandwich.

It’s amazing the number of things that Jim can’t do since he can’t bend or twist. (Like pick up dog poop). So I keep busy doing bend and twist duty.

My goal for the next week is to get back to reading blogs. I hope all is well in your worlds. I have missed you and hopefully life will get back to being “normal” again.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

It’s a wonderful Valentine’s Day for us. Jim is home. The girls went nuts. I shut them in the bathroom until Jim got in and sat down. Then I turned them loose. So much love. He and Scooter are napping right now. All is well in my world.

YES!!!

Jim comes home tomorrow morning.

GOOD FRIENDS AND SUNSHINE

Eric and Karla were close by for a week so we made arrangements to meet them down at Superstition Skies for dinner on a Wednesday night. They are spending a month close to Surprise, AZ before they start moving north towards Lake Tahoe where they are going to be workamping again this summer.

Superstition Skies has been “discovered”. The place was absolutely packed. They have all you can eat chicken wings for $6.95 with cole slaw and baked beans. There wasn’t a seat to be had in the whole place. And we could hardly hear ourselves think so visiting was a little difficult.

Last night Paul and I went to Superstition Skies and Diana and Phil were there. Great fun to see them again. And once again, the place was packed. I’ll sure be glad when some of these snowbirds head north again and sanity returns to “our” hangout. LOL

The girls are missing Jim. Every time I come home in the truck (which I still hate parking) they know it’s our truck. I open the door to the rig and Skittlez goes tearing around to the driver’s side looking for Jim. She’s sticking to me like glue – I think she’s afraid I’m going to disappear like Jim did. Scooter just seems sad. But they do love that sunshine.

OUR TRAVELING TRIBE

I fixed the link in my last post and this should also be the correct link to their blog.

Our Traveling Tribe

THE TRAVELING TRIBE

There are times when I find a blog that I find absolutely fascinating for many different reasons. One such blog that I found is Our Traveling Tribe. This blog tells the story of a family that is full timing in a fifth wheel toy hauler. What is really amazing about this family is that there are 12 children along with Mom and Dad.

However, two of the children are not with them because their oldest son is in boot camp and the oldest daughter stayed in Montana to work. But that still leaves 10 children. And we have trouble keeping things straight with the two of us and two small dogs. lol

I also knew that I really wanted to meet this family. For one thing they have a new baby, Caleb, and I needed a baby fix. They have an Aunt and Uncle here in Apache Junction and they were coming to visit them. We made arrangements to meet at Prospector Park which has a great playground for the little ones and a basketball court for the boys.

We had such a wonderful visit. Dana and I just talked and talked but we didn’t even begin to compare to Vaughn and Jim. They got to talking about fishing and I didn’t think I’d ever get Jim away. They will be returning to Montana this summer so we have plans to spend some time with them and the guys are planning those fishing trips.

Sure wish I had some of their energy.

Thanks guys for taking time to meet us. We really enjoyed ourselves.

THE APACHE TRAIL

Our special friends, Judy and Gary, flew in from Billings, MT to spend some time with their family. But we got to have them to ourselves for dinner on Thursday night and also Friday morning before we headed back to Quartzsite. (I just realized we didn’t get a picture of Gary.)

Friday morning we took them for a drive up to Tortilla Flats which is one of the prettiest drives around here. You can continue on past Tortilla Flats but the road is not paved and is not for the faint of heart. We turned around and came back the same way we went up.

Interesting rock formations.

Such beautiful country and Canyon Lake is just gorgeous. Wish we could have had more time.

Saw this interesting RV in the campground at Tortilla Flats.

What a wonderful way to spend a winter morning in the Arizona desert.

JIM UPDATE: He is still in rehab and is bored to death. He will see the surgeon on Monday and hopefully the doc will say “go home”. He is doing the stairs easily and can dress himself (sure sounds funny to write that) and is allowed to walk around his room without his walker. We think he’s ready to come home but we have to wait. Maybe that will be my Valentine’s Day present.

BED SAVER, SHED AND TILES, OH MY

Now that Quartzsite and Jim aren’t exciting to write about any more it’s time to go back and catch up on the other things we’ve been doing in Apache Junction.

After our adventures of dropping the fifth wheel onto the bed of the truck, we received a comment from Palms Americana about the Bed Saver from ETrailer. We are now the proud owners of this bed saver and it certainly has relieved a lot of my stress. Thank you so much for the recommendation.

Before we went to Quartzsite for the second time we bought a shed. The guy parked behind us and his wife were having major medical problems and were selling their fifth wheel and heading back north to their doctors. He had just bought the shed from another person here in the park and he also bought paving stones (tiles? or whatever they are called). We had talked about getting a shed so Jim could collect more stuff and we would just leave our Christmas stuff behind.

This worked out perfectly. There are a couple of guys here in the park that have figured out how to move these sheds and made their own special lever to use on them. Quite the set up.

They insert two hand trucks under the shed with the handles underneath it. Then they have wedges and clamps to hold the wheels in place.

Then they swing it around, move it to our site and level it out. Really slick process.

 

Cam helped (or I should say did) all the stones for us and showed us how to work sand down in between them to make them set up.

And wallah – we have a shed which I’m sure Jim will have filled as soon as his back has healed.

I’ve decided the guys in the park get bored and love it when somebody has a project they can all pitch in and help with. Guess it keeps them out of the bars. LOL

PROGRESS

Love the comments about the bag. Michael: “I don't know the purpose of the bag, but I do know a bag on the toe is much better than a tag on a toe!”

Then along comes Kris with this comment:  “Maybe he needed a pedicure.”

Thanks guys for giving me a good laugh. I had never see the bag in action before either but the nurses here use it to help them get those horrible white socks on. They say it’s easier to get the sock over the heel and ankle. I guess I’ll find out when he gets home.

We got him moved to the rehab facility today. He’s feeling pretty good and getting stronger every day. They are going to work with him on stairs because that is going to be his biggest challenge in the fifth wheel.

Take a look at this room. I’ve stayed in a lot of motel rooms that weren’t anywhere near this nice. Of course, this one is probably costing us a whole lot more.

Advanced Health Care of Mesa is a whole lot closer than the hospital was. It’s only about 15 miles one way. The only problem is I had to make the drive twice today. I had just barely walked in the RV after getting Jim settled when they called and asked me to bring his Byetta (insulin) in because their pharmacy didn’t have any. So back I drove. Not a big deal except for the fact that I really don’t like to drive our truck. It’s not so much driving the truck as it is trying to park it. I am really lousy. By the time this is over I should be a whole lot better.

WARNING: The following picture is of Jim’s back and it’s a little gross looking. But I wanted a record of it in our blog. So you can just not look. Personally I don’t think it looks too bad.

He loves all the attention he’s getting.

We’re not sure how long he’ll have to stay here. It all depends on him and how fast he gets his strength built up.

NO BLTs FOR JIM

I continue to be very impressed with the staff and the facility at Oasis Hospital.

When you walk in the door, the floors sparkle, literally. They are made from recycled mirrors and are just beautiful, especially when you arrive and it’s still pitch dark outside. Hard to see in this picture but I tried.

After getting registered they took Jim back to prep him for his surgery. He’s all hooked up and ready to go.

Anybody have any idea why the nurse put this bag on Jim’s foot?

 

I went up to see him this morning. It’s about an 85 mile drive round trip so I’m getting lots of practice driving the truck. He is doing better today (his stomach has settled down) but the pain is worse which is to be expected for the second day. He was able to walk to the door yesterday afternoon and this morning he went out the door and down the hall almost to the end and back. Rolling over to get out of bed and standing up or sitting down is tough so  tomorrow will be better.

There is a very strong probability that on Friday they will be moving Jim to a rehab facility. It looks even nicer than the hospital. They are worried about the steps into the RV and also the steps up to the bathroom and bedroom. At rehab they will concentrate on stairs and being able to get out of bed and that’s a good thing. The best part is, the facility is in Mesa which is a whole lot closer.

You’ve all experienced hospital food I’m sure. Once again this place is so NOT like a regular hospital. The food is delicious. Jim had a hamburger for lunch today on a ciabatta bun. He shared with me and it was delicious. Tonight he’s having a New York Strip steak. He said his scrambled eggs were perfect this morning and the bacon was excellent. Even the toast is definitely not Wonder Bread. I told him not to get to used to eating like this.

Oh, about those BLTs – Jim cannot Bend, Lift, or Twist (BLT) for a month.