A Medical Emergency and a Change in Plans

I can't believe it has been this long since my last post, but the inspiration just hasn't been there. The type of traveling that we had hoped to do, just hasn't been in the cards for us. It now appears that it is going to be relegated to part-time travel, rather than full-time, and for a multitude of reasons.

We thought that buying this RV would give us the space we need, but space comes at the cost of many other problems. Any time you travel with a rig like this, it either costs money or inconvenience. This rig sets too low to the ground to let us into many of the places that we could access free of charge, and therefore has cost in having to pay extra camping fees for places that are easier to get this rig into. Even without the trailer (which complicates it even farther by making us 44 feet long), that still remains true.

Another problem is the maintenance required on a rig like this. "Soft parts", like gaskets, seals, and other rubber and plastic parts are going bad. On the outside, they are easy to fix, but when contained within the engine or transmission, they can be very costly to replace. And the larger the rig, the more it costs in fuel consumption (currently 8 mpg). Therefore, any impractical ideas I expressed in last fall's post in regard to keeping this rig has since been discarded. It's just too expensive to maintain.

And if that weren't enough, life has its way of throwing us curves other than in the roads we travel. So no matter how good our intentions are, we must always remain flexible to adjust to those curves and take them at whatever speed we consider safe.

After spending the holidays at Cobb Camp in the Osceola National Forest, meeting with the Southeast Get-Together Group, we left there on January 5th for another free location not far from there...at Lake Palestine boat landing. We remained there for roughly 2-1/2 months, during which we were visited for a couple weeks by our friend and fellow traveler, Ed Helvey.

As the boat landing became increasingly more busy with boaters as the weather warmed up, we decided to give them their space after 2-1/2 months, and return to Cobb Camp for a couple more weeks. This is where the bombshell was dropped.

Over the winter, we had been noticing that Sharon was losing weight. She had dropped roughly 35 pounds since Christmas. In looking back, I knew she was becoming weaker in the legs, was drinking more water, getting up more often in the middle of the night, and more importantly, her mind was becoming more and more fuzzy.

Finally, on March 27th, I had to rush her to the emergency room at Lake City Medical Center. They quickly diagnosed her with diabetic ketoacidosis. After an hour of being on an insulin and fluid drip system, her blood sugar was still 856. They estimated that it could have been over 1000 when I brought her in. She was almost comatose. Normal blood sugar for adults is roughly 80 to 130.

They put her in ICU for two nights, and then moved her to a regular room for three more, before releasing her on April 1st. Her sister had flown down there, unannounced, and the suggestion was made (since our destination was her place anyway, in another month) to let her drive our van with Sharon as a passenger, and follow me in the RV and trailer, back to her place in NW Indiana, where we could find a good endocrinologist. We arrived there on April 5th, after four days of driving.

On the way up here, I noticed the RV was backfiring and coughing if I gave it too much gas, and that got progressively worse. Now the engine is running rough, and I have no idea what could be involved in repairs. Also, the right front wheel started throwing grease, and I have black residue all down the right hand side of the RV and trailer. The bearing dust cap was missing off that side ever since we had the brakes worked on in Louisiana two years ago, but it had never thrown grease before. And the RV still needs to have a complete brake job... again... because it wasn't fixed right in Louisiana! So this RV is going to go... soon... one way or the other!

Even though both Sharon and I were well aware of the usual symptoms of diabetes, we were completely blindsided by this diagnoses. After all, her sister is diabetic, and Sharon had spent five weeks with her just two summers ago, to help put together a diet plan and menus for her. Many of those menus and meals had been incorporated into our own eating habits. We have always tried to eat healthy.

If anything, proper exercise has been our downfall since traveling full-time, as we haven't always been able to park in places where we felt comfortable walking. And since we gave up our memberships to fancy RV parks, there have been no exercise rooms to use. In other words, we sit WAY too much! That has to, and is going to, change going forward!

So Sharon is still staying with her sister right now, because she lives very close to the medical facilities they need. Her sister lives in a place where pets aren't allowed, nor is it easy to park an RV there, so I am staying in the RV with Angel at a friend's beautiful farm about 20 minutes away.

When Sharon's blood sugar becomes more stable, we intend to make some short trips to search for an apartment as a new home base, and get rid of this "money-pit" RV, soon to be followed by the cargo trailer. In place of them, we hope to get a larger, extended, high-top van (preferably a Promaster) that we can use to continue our travels, but without having to drag our entire household with us! In our past experience, we have found that we enjoy lighter traveling much more than driving huge RVs!

Why an apartment, as opposed to a house? First are the maintenance issues. On a rental house, a tenant is usually expected to maintain at least the lawn. We don't want that hassle! Nor do we want a condo, where we have to maintain the inside! We want a "full-service" apartment where anything and everything can be done by picking up the phone and asking for it! But it has to meet our very particular criteria. We aren't willing to settle for just "anything".

Also, we still aren't sure where we want to remain for the longer term. We want the option of being able to change locations after a year's lease, and either go back to RVing (with a smaller vehicle, of course) or maybe even move to a different part of the state, or even the country! A lot of that decision is going to be based on Sharon's medical needs. We could even end up staying longer in whatever apartment we choose, if we like the situation. Once we get used to this new way of life, we may be able to travel again, at least part-time, and make shorter, local trips for the summers. We may even be able to go somewhere warm for the winters. At least we know now, exactly "how" we want to do it!

Neither of us are crazy about moving back to snow country, but it may be necessary for awhile. If all goes well, we may still prefer a home base in warmer weather. The saving grace is that at least we are retired and don't have to work in or even go out in inclement weather. We can plan our outings around the weather for the most part, and that makes it much more bearable.

In the meantime, we are taking it day by day, waiting for warmer weather, waiting for more stabilization in Sharon's condition, waiting for a Plan D insurance of some kind (something which we had never seen a need for before, as neither of us were on any prescriptions), waiting to find a large van, waiting to locate a suitable apartment... waiting, waiting, waiting. That's the name of the game these days.

We will retain our mail forwarding company for now, and will not reveal our new locations, even after we settle in somewhere. We have a lot of work to do in the months ahead, and have a lot of decisions to make.

To those who have been awaiting a new post, I apologize for the delay, but maybe now you understand the "why" of it. Thank you for your patience. As always, feel free to comment. I answer all legitimate comments that come in.