I Thought We Were Making Progress – NOT!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Trying to Beat the Boredom

Apache Junction, AZ  High 105  Low 79
I’m trying to find little projects to keep Jim busy while we wait for the medical field to get their act together.
The ceiling strip came unglued so I had Jim climb up and put some glue on the strip. The hammer was a perfect fit to balance on the top of the slide and hold the strip in place until the glue dried. Now let’s see what else I can come up with to keep him out of trouble.
Hot again today. But let me tell you, I’ll take 106 with no humidity over 80 with 90% humidity any day. It may be like sticking your head in an oven but at least I can still breathe. One of the problems we do have is that the ground is so hot on the girls’ paws. Not much shade out where we are supposed to walk them so most of our trips are really short.
Except in the morning when it’s still kind of cool. That’s when Scooter and Jim go rabbit, lizard and coyote hunting. We have two coyotes that are living their lives right outside our park – dining on all the rabbits we have in this area. So far they haven’t been aggressive – probably because they have been so well fed. Skitz and I saw one of them when we went out, bout half way down the sidewalk. Skitz barked and then headed back for the gate as fast as she could, all thoughts of peeing gone.
We finally had an appointment with Jim’s surgeon today. After looking over the paper work he wasn’t happy with Jim’s kidney function. He had Jim donate more blood and now we wait once more. The surgeon will see the test results and he may have to refer us to a kidney doctor. Once we get the kidney situation straightened out, we can get surgery scheduled. That probably won’t be for several weeks yet.
Boredom may do us in before anything else. Jim feels really good except his leg cramps from lack of blood flow when he walks.

 


Apache Junction, AZ  High 114  Low 82
It’s hot. Yesterday Phoenix tied their record of 115 on June 17 and we’re headed that direction again today. I sure am glad we bought that second air conditioner.
Jim has been out flying his plane a couple of mornings. He had a rather hard landing and we had to wait for the hobby shop to get in the gear box he needed. He now has two of them – just in case.

We bought new awning fabric. Ours was so rotted that it was barely hanging on by a thread.

With the sun so far north, it beats down on the door side of the RV all afternoon so having an awning really helps keep the rig cooler. Jim did all the work to get the old awning down and the new one ready to go.

This morning (5:30 a.m.), Al came over and helped Jim put the new awning up. With his help it took less than an hour to get it all ready to go. You really do have to get started early in the morning so you can finished any outside work before it gets too hot.
I sure am grateful they haven’t left yet for the summer.






This is our pretty new awning.

Also the awning offers some shade on the rocks so the girls don’t burn their feet when they have to go out. Let me tell you, they are really quick. Well, except for in the very early mornings when Jim and Scooter go out to unlock the gate and go rabbit hunting.
We’ve seen a couple of good movies – The Imitation Game and The Cokeville Miracle.
We are both pretty discouraged this afternoon. We finally found out that his kidneys, although not great, are okay for him to go ahead and have surgery. We had an appointment scheduled with the surgeon on the 24th but after we got that go ahead Jim called and was able to get an appointment for this morning.
After the awning was up and we had our showers, we headed out for Phoenix and the doctor’s office. (This is going to be a rant – just warning you.) We didn’t have to wait long to see the doctor. He came into the room, read the reports and said – I can’t help you. I need to refer you to a specialist. And that was it. I know doctors are busy. But this was beyond ridiculous. I’m trying to justify the fact that he doesn’t take the time to read the reports he gets before he’s  sitting in the office with the patient. But he could have so easily had his office call us and tell us he couldn’t do the surgery and needs to refer us to a specialist several days ago. I know that’s not feasible in this day and age but I’m still really not happy about it.
The specialist’s office called us to make an appointment and the earliest appointment we could get was July 15. Jim asked if there was another surgeon we could see sooner and we have an appointment on June 30. 12 more days of waiting.
And that’s it from AJ.