Sunday, 9 - Saturday, 22 May 2021
When I got to town, I had 2 main priorities: get over this stupid stomach flu and get my RV cabin door fixed. There were many secondary ones, but these were the get-done-no-matter-what type. For the first, I spent a lot of time just lying around, waiting for the illness to run its course. I'd already tried a generic Imodium, which worked very well. But all it's intended to do is deal with the diarrhea, leaving the other symptoms untouched. And while no-diarrhea is absolutely a worthy cause, I didn't really want to take it again because what I really wanted was for the illness to go away.
But the side effects of this illness - the dehydration (I could drink 4 bottles of water during a day and still not need to get up during the night), the nearly constant exhaustion and lack of energy - were the problems I actually wanted to solve. It finally occurred to me that spinach salads with raisins might help; they usually have the undesirable side effect of causing constipation which, these days, was a desideratum, and I thought the extra iron might help. And, in fact, the salads did help.
So except for walking the dogs, I cut myself some slack and didn't try to do anything but read John Putnam Thatcher mysteries. And over time, the diarrhea went away, I've gained strength and started to feel more like a functioning human being.
Alvarado
But while I was waiting to get well, I wanted to get moving on fixing the RV. On Monday the 10th, David went with me out to Alvarado where I bought the RV several years ago. They'd never bothered to return my phone calls, and I figured the only way to get an answer from them was to stand in front of them. And that worked: no recalls in place for this RV. The woman in Service who was helping me offered to set up an appointment to find out what was wrong with my door, but she said they'd charge $150 for an hour of labor just to make the determination. What's more, she didn't say they'd waive that charge if I got the work done there, which shops often say (so do lawyers).
Given their failure to return my phone calls (a simple matter) and the sloppiness they'd shown in the finish work when I first bought my RV (remember they'd neglected to connect the water hoses in the kitchen sink?) and the possibility they'd charge me through the nose for work that might not be the best, I told her I'd think about it.
Rockwall
The next day David and I went out to Rockwall, to the place I've gone several times before that has done an outstanding (and not very expensive) job of making the various repairs I've asked them for. Dodie, the owner, took one look at the cabin door and said, "You've got a broken hinge." And he showed us quite clearly that one side of the hinge was attached to the door and the other side of the hinge was attached to the frame, but the two sides weren't attached to each other. The whole hinge was completely split in two. Which of course would go a long way toward explaining why I couldn't get the door to latch securely.
He said he couldn't start for 2 weeks and that it might take 2-3 weeks once he started, but he agreed they could do the list of 5 or 6 additional things I told him I wanted done (replace the torn screen door; fix the heater's thermostat - like that). So I made the appointment. I'd hesitated because that would put me still here until almost mid-June, which wasn't at all what I'd intended, but the work has to be done, and I trust these folks to do a good job, and anyway this is a busy time of year for everybody involved with RVs so I didn't figure anyone else would do it faster.
On the way over there, by the way, we saw a sign that said,
"Pray for Police.
They Need God.
We Need Them."
Gracie
On the way back from Rockwall, David told me to pull into a parking lot because he wanted to read me a text he'd gotten from Anna about Gracie. She described some pretty bad symptoms (vomiting, inability to stand up, eyes whizzing back and forth, and more) she'd seen in Gracie and thought she'd had a seizure. She made a vet appointment for us while we were on the way home.
The vet was one Anna had used in the past, who she trusted, and Anna went with me to describe the behaviors she'd seen. Turns out she also did the heavy lifting because Gracie couldn't reliably stand up, let alone walk, so Anna carried her into the office. Actually, they didn't want us inside but we realized that only when we were standing right at the door, in the pouring rain, with Anna's arms full of a 50-pound dog, and we were wearing masks, so they let us in. They said later it was a weird feeling for them because they hadn't had a client in the office in over a year.
The vet said Gracie had had a stroke, not a seizure. He said she's young enough (though she's 12) to have a good chance at making a full recovery. That seemed impossible at that moment because she still couldn't even walk, she was holding her head at a very odd angle, her eyes were still whizzing around - she just looked very sick indeed. But he gave me some pills for the next 5 days and various bits of advice and encouragement and the staff carried Gracie out to the truck, though Anna had to carry her into the house again.
And she did show vast improvement fairly quickly. Daily we could see changes: when she rebelled against being carried and managed to walk on her own - not very well, doing a lot of staggering around at first, but she did it; when she started drinking water, when she started eating again; when her eyes gradually stopped whizzing around; when she started to have normal elimination again. Bit by bit she's getting well.
But I was thanking my lucky stars that this hadn't happened while I was alone, living in the RV, that has steps in and out. I honestly don't know how on earth I could have handled that. Here, I have lots of help and support and a floor on the same level as the outside so no steps.
Dexter
The following Saturday, the 15th, David drove me and Dexter to a different vet to check out the growths he has on his back and side. The vet's conclusion: though the one on his back is likely no big deal, the fact that it's growing means they should remove it. We have an appointment for that on Thursday, the 27th. They couldn't find the one on his side, mainly because I told them the wrong side. They suggested I mark it with lipstick so they could take a look when I bring him back in.
Lipstick is hard to come by in this household (nonexistent in mine), so Anna thought we could mark that side growth with Halloween face paint instead. The hard part of this procedure is, because they'll need to sedate Dext to remove the growth, I'll have to keep him from eating breakfast on that Thursday morning. Dexter doesn't understand the concept of not eating - anything - so I expect a lot of pushback on that one. The vet said to have him at their office by 8:30 AM, and I said I'd bring him in as early as I could so I didn't have to deal with his non-breakfast distress.
COVID vaccine
I don't think I mentioned that when I was in Iowa, I tried to find someplace to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine specifically and was finally reduced to calling the Iowa Dept. of Health. The woman I talked to listened carefully to my explanation of my traveling life and told me many places were refusing to give people a 2nd dose if they hadn't given them the 1st dose as well. She said one couple who had gotten their 1st shots in Florida were now in Iowa looking for someone to give them their 2nd shot, and having a lot of trouble with it. I honestly can't imagine what the problem would be if they have the little vaccination card that says what they got and when they got it, but apparently it's a thing.
The wait time between doses for the Pfizer vaccine is 3 weeks, and it's 4 weeks for the Moderna version. I can't be certain I'll ever be anywhere even in 3 weeks, let alone 4, and certainly not so I can go back to the place I got the 1st dose. All of that just reaffirmed to me that the J&J vaccine is the only possible one I can get.
And yea! I finally got the vaccination the same Saturday Dext had his vet appointment. David found a Walgreen's that's vaguely in this general part of town that said they had the Johnson&Johnson version available. And just that same day I saw a news article that the government was going to stop shipments of the J&J doses until they'd cleared the manufacturing plant of concerns about proper conditions. I'd been running a low-grade fever all morning and not feeling very well, making me think they wouldn't let me get the shot. But I was also afraid that, if I waited until I was wholly healthy again, the J&J wouldn't be available for who knew how long. So I decided to chance it.
And I was surprised that the Walgreen's took my temp and didn't say anything, so either my temp had gone down or they thought it was within a normal range. And I got the shot. My only side effect was immediate: the person giving me the shot was definitely not a pain-free shooter. Other than that, I've had no side effects at all.
I won't be covered until Saturday, the 29th. And even then I won't stop wearing a mask or gloves, because I'm worried about the variants and because I have so little faith in my fellow citizens that I'm convinced lots of them are walking around unprotected both by masks and by vaccinations. Which means they could be dangerous.
Actually, I don't understand why people are being so weird about wearing a mask. Tough guys in the Wild West did. And it means you don't have to worry about having spinach caught in your teeth. Where's the problem?
Weather
This area is having an unusual amount of rainfall these days. In fact, I think it's rained at least a little every day since I've been here. A few of those days have included thunder, and Anna put Gracie's Thundershirt on for her, so I could learn how to do it right.
One day we had a tornado scare in the middle of the day. Anna's and David's phones suddenly let off an alert about possible scary weather. I put the dogs on their leashes, stuffed Lily in her crate (she was not happy about that and said so, often), Anna pulled a couple of dog beds into the hallway, we closed the doors and all hunkered down until the weather service (Anna had them on Facebook) said the danger had passed us.
It reminded me of doing the same thing in Waco in the '50s - Momma gathering us kids together in the hallway and closing the doors and waiting for tornadoes to pass. I remember it being a little scary and a little fun - Momma tried to distract us with games and things.
This time it was my dogs that were nervous, because they knew we'd never done this before and they could tell we (the humans) were worried. Lily was just displeased. Very vocally.
So for now . . .
. . . we're all doing okay - even Gracie, who's getting better every day. It's an adjustment being in a house instead of our little mobile home, but the dogs love having a back yard with grass and plants, and Lily likes having so much room to roam around in. And I'm gradually getting past this infection and also feeling better knowing that I'm taking care of some of the things that have been on my mind.
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