Not exactly chilling in our old home town…

Well we certainly picked the wrong summer to spend in our old home town in College Station, Texas. It has been over 100 degrees for seemingly forever. College Station has currently seen 60 days over 100 including 51 days in a row and 15 days in a row of over 105 degrees. They also set the highest ever recoded temperature of 112 which we have hit twice! Not hot by Arizona standards but the humidity here is always more oppressive.

Anyhow so what are we doing here except to get our RV repaired… Well, it turns out that our daughters is having another baby. We had thought about taking the RV over to North Carolina but after getting the recent repairs we decided to stay here and just fly over to NC.

So we have fallen into a bit of a routine with all this heat. We go for a morning walk of about two miles before it gets too dang hot! Lunch is next and then in the afternoon we go to a local gym for a workout. After our workout we are in search of a nice happy hour. And that is our life is for now.

As a side note, I should mention we joined a gym through a program called Silver Sneakers. If you haven’t heard of this program it is offered through Medicare any more specifically through Medicare Advantage. Not all Medicare Advantage programs offer it but most do.

Silver Sneakers is a health and fitness program designed for adults 65+ and Silver Sneakers members can:access live online fitness classes and an on-demand video library of prerecorded workouts. What we took advantage of is that thousands of gyms, community centers, and other participating fitness locations across the nation participate in it. This means that you can get a FREE gym membership!

Why would they offer it free? Well, the goal is to help you stay strong in body, mind, and spirit. Knowing regular physical activity keeps your heart, brain, bones, muscles, and joints healthy, insurers hope to save money in the long run!

So we've been going to the gym M-F to not only work out but to cool off as they air condition the heck out of these places. For now we are members of Tru-Fit and if we go somewhere else we will just change fitness clubs.

In the meantime we wait for Katie to have baby number 2. She is scheduled for a C-section in about a week or so and Sharon will fly up first to help take care of baby for 8 weeks and then I’ll fly to NC for 2 weeks before returning back to Texas.

In the meantime today’s pictures are from a walk we took on the Texas A&M University campus.

Damn Covid, finally found us…

When Covid first made the news and began affecting our lives it was during the winter of 2019. The first impacts were figuring out how to get groceries, how to do our laundry and how to find parks not closing down to newer people.

We managed our way through that winter and again the winter 2020 which was a continuation of 2019. However,the world had gained a bit more information about what precautions we could take to make our lives safer.

Sharon and I, after much reading and research on our own, elected to get vaccinated right away. As a result we got all the follow-up vaccinations since then and the booster recommended for the Omicron variant of Covid just this year.

While we were fully vaccinated, we were also aware this didn’t mean we couldn’t catch Covid. However, if we did get Covid, we were also aware by being vaccinated it was less likely for us to develop severe symptoms which may have required hospitalization.

We are also understanding of others who chose not to get vaccinated because, after all, it is your choice. Up until now we have been evading catching Covid by staying out of crowded enclosed venues preferring to be outside anytime we went out for fun.

Well, our time without Covid finally ended this past week. We suspect we caught it at a Mardi Gras party but could also have contracted it somewhere else. Fortunately, we realized we were sick early and stayed home not wanting to give even a cold to somebody else.

I felt like I was catching a cold since my nose was running on day 1. The next day I got a deep cough and thought it would be wise to test for Covid. I did, and it was negative. That same day Sharon had a sore throat and the next day she had a bad cough. To be safe we tested her for Covid and hers was positive. So, I retested on day three of symptoms and I too tested positive. Sigh… we were both down with Covid.

We went to an urgent care to see what the current advice of doctors was because of our age. Let’s just say we got more politics than medical advice. This is not a political post so whatever your political beliefs are just know we respect them. This of course happened on Sharon’s doctor’s day off.  She messaged him knowing it could take up to three working days for a response. After much thought and internet research we decided on our own that since we are over 65, we should take Paxlovid.

I was hesitant to do so since there is a lot of unpleasant side effects possible and it is said to be only 51% effective against the latest variants. We quickly embarked on our first day dose and both experienced an immediate lingering bitter after taste. Sharon also developed a rash the next morning. As a result, we decided to stop taking Paxlovid. Sharon’s doctor has since been in touch and is supportive of our decisions.

For some comfort food during our sickness, I made some red chili pozole. Sharon was especially thankful because her sense of taste (and appetite) had diminished. While we escaped Covid for 3 years, COVID finally caught our asses. We are fortunate so far as we both have what they refer to as "mild" COVID. We will just lay low and stay home until we both test negative…

Baseball, Softball and Eye Surgery #3

We came to College Station Tx primarily for me to have eye surgery number three. As you may remember I had my first surgery to my left eye to repair a torn retina. My second surgery on the same eye was a vitrectomy to “fix” my floaters issue in that eye. Well a third surgery was needed because the previous surgery accelerated the development of a problematic cataract.

When surgery day finally arrived, Sharon took me to the outpatient hospital. She masked up as required and patiently waited for my surgery to end. An hour or so of surgery and I was done. I opted to get a “distant package” lens in my left eye and planned to get the right eye done a year or so later.

This package basically sets one eye to see clearly close and the other (your dominant eye) to see far away. Since my left eye was not my dominant one they set it for close vision. A few days after my surgery I wasn’t overly fond of the eye having only clear near vision now and not any away vision. As a result I went ahead and scheduled eye surgery number four for my right eye to complete the distance vision package.

Since my old glasses were still useful in the interim we took full advantage while waiting for surgery by going to a couple of baseball games to watch the Texas A&M University Aggies take on a couple of non-conference teams. We are happy to report that not only did we have a blast watching the games but our fightin’ Texas Aggies won both games.

Being equal opportunity supporters, we also went to watch a softball game at the new softball field. The women weren’t doing as well as the men in conference play but we still wanted to watch them play the first place (in the SEC) Arkansas Razorbacks. Although the lady Aggies were in last place somehow they managed to pull off upset walk off win in extra innings over the Lady Razorbacks! What fun!!!

We still have a lot of time to kill until my next eye surgery. Also, as a result of needing this surgery, we extended our stay here in College Station one more month until June 10th. This became necessary in order for me to make the many follow-up appointments post-surgery. Ahhhh, but such is our life on the Road of Retirement!

NOTE: We are now in College Station, TX until June 10th

A little eye surgery in store for me

While our plan was to stay one month in College Station our departure date would be entirely flexible dependent upon what we decide about my eye care. The day after we arrived I had an appointment to have my eye examined for a lens replacement. Sharon masked up to take me home from the appointment after they dilated me.

Those who follow our blog might remember a few years ago while wintering in Arizona I experienced a retinal tear while we were on a walk. I had laser surgery the next day as it was a large tear which threatened the sight in my eye. Well a year passed and the amount of floaters in my surgically repaired eye never diminished so it was recommended I have a vitrectomy.

A half a year ago while spending the fall in Arizona I returned to the same doctor and had that procedure done. A vitrectomy is a procedure where the surgeon takes out the fluid (vitreous) inside of the eyeball and replaces it with a sterile saline solution. The procedure was successful as my vision was clearer but I was informed that this surgery would likely advance a cataract forming in the same eye.

The glasses after the vitrectomy became worthless in a few short months so I  scheduled to see a Doctor here in College Station to have yet another (my third) surgery on this eye. This explains the length of our stay being dependent on the outcome of this surgery.

I will fast forward a bit and say that I had the lens replacement surgery done and all is well. However, I have decided to go ahead and have the lens replaced in my other eye while we are here to avoid having to go through this again in the near future. As a result we have extended our stay to June 11th.

While we are waiting to have my next eye surgery we have been enjoying birding at some of the local parks during this spring’s migration. Birding here isn’t as productive as in the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas coastline but there are occasionally days where lots of migrants settle down for a day to fatten up before moving further north.

We had one such day like this while visiting the Texas A&M University Research Park. In this area after cold fronts bring severe weather there are occasionally large numbers of migratory birds settling to avoid the turbulence. On this particular day the migratory birds were in abundance. However, no matter how patient we were in trying to focus our cameras on these tiny little birds we found it a bit more challenging than we hoped.

Today’s photos are from our some of our hiking and birding excursions here in the Brazos Valley of Texas…

NOTE: We are now in College Station, TX until June 11th

Fun times, Well Except for the Retina Tear…

Well we are down to our last week in Mesa so we find ourselves beginning to pack up and stock up for the trek back to Texas.  Our plan is to depart on March 11th for four nights in Tucson and then we will do something unusual as we will take five straight one night stops until we end up at Canyon Lake in Texas.

We are moving much more quickly because we stayed longer in Arizona than we normally do so we need to zoom to be able to see our grandkids in San Antonio. Therefore we will spend one night in Wilcox, AZ, one in Las Cruces NM, one in Van Horn TX, one in Sonora TX and one in Fredericksburg TX before settling in at Potters Creek COE Park for nine nights!

While we have really enjoyed our stay here at Mesa Regal RV Park we (well more specifically me) are ready to roll. In the meantime we have been continuing to enjoy the amenities and the nightly live music at the main pool or the West End pool. We do have one more Manager's Night this Friday to attend where we drink  25 cent beer, cheap even for the Canadians using their currency!

There is also a fellow here that is a true one man band and he has played in the park a few times. He can play most any instrument and does a mean Saxophone. He is also quite an entertainer and we remembered him from our past visits here. He is the only live music gig where you better get your seat an hour before his show. He plays everything from the 50’s to hip hop. Anyhow we saw him twice this time around and stayed to the very last song both times.

We do love the park but sometimes we really crave time outside the compound so we did another hike at the McDowell Sonoran Park near Scottsdale. It is a place we have hiked before but it makes my soul very happy to savor the beauty of the Sonoran Desert. Since we only come out this way every other year I need to get my fill of the desert landscape…

It has not been all fun and games as one morning I woke up to blurry vision. I also noticed some large “floaters” in my eye as well. Since it was Saturday I waited until Monday to see a doctor After some research I actually found an ophthalmologist who graduated from Texas A&M Medical School! During the appointment I learned I needed immediate laser surgery to repair my torn retina.

Apparently as we age our eyeballs tend to elongate and the vitreous humor (the liquid in the eyeball) shrinks. This separation of the vitreous humor from the back of the eyeball is called Posterior Vitreous Detachment. It appears that my vitreous humor was detaching from the back of my eyeball but as it was detaching it tore my retina.

Fortunately for me I had the repair that same day because if left unattended it could have resulted in a much worse complication such as blindness due to a retinal detachment. Unfortunately I have to live with the numerous floaters for many weeks ahead.  Although it is annoying I can drive with no problems and am certainly ready to hit the road.

 NOTE: We are currently in Mesa Arizona until March 11th 2020, then over to Tucson for four nights.

Sharon Talks About Her Mayo Visit and Our Cummins Service Center Experience (Part 2 of 2)…

Thursday was my birthday and I had no appointments that day, however the doctor I saw in dermatology called to say I needed to come back because the biopsy revealed that the place on my tummy was a squamous cell skin cancer (sigh, what a great present for my birthday) and would require removal. Amazingly he was able to schedule the treatment right before my wrap up appointment with internal medicine the very next day. This is the beauty of the Mayo Clinic...amazing.

If only things went that easily at the Cummins Service Center. After reviewing the quote and researching, John felt like the service center was charging us way too much for the labor and he felt like he could really do the work himself. So on Friday morning we called to say we needed to pick up the parts. Of course this took several calls because only one person could talk to us about when to pick it up and his extension constantly went to voice mail and he would never return any of our calls.

When they finally called back, they said the parts were not there. Furthermore they weren't sure exactly when they would arrive (probably Monday, the day we plan to leave). After much back and forth both on Friday, they said one of our parts showed up, the replacement hose. We drove the 40 miles over before my final appointments only to find out it really was not there, a technician had driven downtown to get the hose but the insulation that we paid for would have to be shipped to us.

After scrambling and arguing with them (because they wanted to charge us to ship the insulation even after they told us it would be there Thursday and we paid for it already along with a very steep diagnosis fee), we finally prevailed. (Only because John threatened to void the credit card transaction as a dispute and let them fight it out with the credit card company). Because of all this hassle we were cutting it very close to my appointment at the Mayo. I was very upset but alas it came in the nick of time for us to race to my appointment. It really shouldn't have been that stressful, though. The communication at this place was horrible and so we will have to wait for our repairs yet again.

At the wrap-up appointment I learned my x-rays revealed no real concerns other than "normal" wear and tear for my age and all my other tests were positive as well. So glad am I it is all done and we can get back to the business of having fun again...

Sharon Talks About Her Mayo Visit and Our Cummins Service Center Experience (Part 1 of 2)…

After spending the night at Walkabout RV park, Monday morning we drove over to Jacksonville Cummins Service Center. John had previously made an appointment for Tuesday for diagnosis of our engine whooshing noise. The Service Center had back in electric and water sites so we checked in after hooking up. The technician said there was a possibility they could see us that afternoon so we dropped off our keys and took off in the car to do some grocery shopping. Upon our return we discovered they had been unable to get to our RV.

On Tuesday we again left Cummins our keys and left early in the morning to begin my scheduled visits at the Mayo Clinic for a full physical. First came a consultation with Internal Medicine then downstairs for bloodwork and Urine sample. Next was a flu shot for us both then my mammogram.

Lastly I visited dermatology where the doctor did a biopsy on a suspicious spot on my tummy. He also found some precancerous areas on my lower lip and prescribed a chemo cream for me to use twice a day for two weeks. He warned this would be an unpleasant but necessary treatment. He also recommended a lip protectant sunscreen, Vanicream, for me to use from now on as prevention. He also recommended using Vanicream sunscreen but he did say the one we get at Trader Joes is just as good. So it was off to the store we went to buy some lip cream. Thus ended our first day. Meanwhile we kept expecting a call from the service center with our diagnosis. John left several messages but we never got a call.

Upon returning to the center, the technician explained our problem was a hole in an intake hose caused by an overhang of wood from our "dog cage housing" rubbing a hole in it over time. They also indicated we should redo the insulation which had fallen out near the engine. We paid for the diagnosis and the parts. Parts were ordered and were expected to arrive on Thursday. We debated staying at the service center and cancelling our reserved stay at Hanna Park but both of us really love the park so we just decided we would just schedule the RV repair the following Thursday, Friday or Monday around my appointments once the parts arrived.

The next day had me going in for bone density, an EEG and some x-rays of my back because I had suffered a back strain earlier this year and although it was getting better, the doctor wanted me to have x-rays to rule out a fracture. Next I had a gynecology exam appointment ending another day of appointments. John found a Groupon at Mello Mushroom so we had pizza and beer in the Avondale neighborhood. It was a very nice end to a long day fighting traffic and going to appointments.

Como Park, Maze Trail, Dakota City and more…

After our initial appointments for our annual checkups at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester we both discovered that we needed further tests. I had two punch biopsies of moles taken off my body both of which had to be sent for testing.  Sharon also had a polyp to be biopsied after her colonoscopy. It seemed to take forever to hear the results but we finally got good news we were hoping for and were cleared to leave….

While awaiting our results we stayed at Dakota County Fairgrounds in Farmington, MN which was the perfect location. Not only was there plenty of space at our water and 50 amp electric site (for $25/night) there also was a cool historical village called the Dakota City to explore adjacent to the RV park.

We took many strolls around Dakota City checking out each of the restored buildings and marveled at how well they were displayed to project the time era in which they were built. Some from the late 1800’s and others from the early 1900’s made for some whimsical walks. They do give tours, for a small fee, two days a week and the tour guides dress in era appropriate clothing.

My favorite building was a early 1890’s house that was meticulously landscaped and had an exquisite garden outback with beautiful ripening heirloom tomatoes. Eggplants were fruiting and lettuce, cucumbers and pumpkins were in the ground waiting for their turn. It was very, very tempting to pick some of their tomatoes but we fought the temptation and left them for others to enjoy..

Lastly, in the park, there was also a rather nice hiking trail or maybe a better wording would be a hiking maze in the prairie beside the park. These mowed trails through the neck high grass and wildflowers interconnected allowing one to wander around for hours taking in the sights of the prairie. A few garter snakes and a leopard frog were spotted as well as some sparrows and goldfinches. It really was relaxing and pleasant to wander through the maze of trails…

   

We did make one last excursion back up to St. Paul to see the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. This was another free, donations accepted facility.  It is interesting how many of the communities in the northern states have set aside land to take care of injured wildlife by providing homes for them in these community zoos. In these zoos we noticed there were regular “zoo animals” as well. This one was nice and well attended.

Our favorite exhibits were the monkeys and apes as many of them were carrying their babies around with them. After leaving the zoo we drove over to see the Minniehaha Falls. It really was quite a beautiful waterfall right in the middle of town. We had to pay to park to see it but the money spent was well worth the attraction.

Another day while waiting for our results a blog reader, Jim Stein drove over to meet us.  He and his wife have a new Winnebago Motorhome and are excited about traveling full time in August.  It was really fun getting to know Jim and we hope to meet again perhaps this winter in Arizona.  What a treat it was to have this nice visit.

We needed all these distractions until we finally received our release from the Mayo. We were so relieved and more than ready to get back to traveling. Now we plan to head further west and see what adventures lie in wake for us On the Road of Retirement…

NOTE: We are now sitting for a few days in the Mel Rieman COE Campground in North Dakota…

Rochester MN and the Mayo - Rochester is the Mayo!

We certainly enjoyed our 18 day stay in Wisconsin but the main reason we spent so much time in Iowa and Wisconsin is that we had scheduled our annual checkups at the Mayo Hospital in Rochester Minnesota. Most of the campgrounds around Rochester MN are pricey so we opted to stay at a local park just outside the town of Zumbro Falls, MN.

After scouring the internet for an interesting place to stay I came across one called the Sportsman Park Campground. This park has 50 amp and water, no sewer and no dump station, but was right on the Zumbro River. With the heat predicted for the area to be in the 90’s we certainly wanted 50 amp service to run our A/C’s and being next to a river is a bonus. All this for $20 per night with the only downside being we would have to drive 20 miles to Rochester for our appointments at the Mayo.

We won’t bore you with details about all of our appointments but between the two of us we had appointments in Rochester for four straight days. Sharon is a breast cancer survivor and I had a melanoma before so we don’t really look forward to these appointments but know that they are necessary and are vital to our well being.

After four days of appointments we were certainly tired of all the prodding and poking as well as all the mental anguish but we must say that the Mayo Clinics really are wonderful places to have medical concerns taken care of. The quality of care, friendliness of staff and punctuality of appointments are unheard of at any other hospital or clinic we have ever been to.

Since we didn’t spend every moment of every day seeing doctors we took the guided tour of the Mayo one day and I also did the self-guided tour of the art inside the Mayo while Sharon was at an appointment. We highly recommend when in Rochester Minnesota to take the time to take the tours as they are well worth the effort. We also strolled around downtown Rochester only to learn that Rochester is the Mayo!

What began as the Mayo Clinic goes way back to the practice of a frontier doctor, William W. Mayo, who was an Englishman that settled in Rochester MN in 1863. In 1883 a tornado ravaged Rochester and Mother Alfred Moes, the founder of the Sisters of St. Francis, proposed to build and staff a hospital in Rochester only if Dr. W.W. Mayo would provide the medical care. He accepted and his two sons joined him in the 1880’s and they founded the first Mayo in 1889. Shortly thereafter more physicians (of like mindedness regarding patient care) were asked to join.

Their passion for medicine and their attention to patient care become known worldwide as visiting physicians would come to learn from them. What these three doctors started eventually gave rise to the renowned medical facilities that make up the Mayo today. We have now visited and been treated at all three of their major clinics, the one in Jacksonville Florida, Scottsdale Arizona and now the one in Rochester Minnesota.

There have been a lot of medical innovation at the Mayo’s. Cortisone was first identified by American chemists Edward C. Kendall and Harold L. Mason while doing research at the Mayo Clinic. For their efforts the Nobel Prize in 1950 was given to Mayo doctor  Edward C. Kendall  "for their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects."

At the end of all our appointments we walked over to the Ground Rounds Brew Pub and cheered the end of our appointments. We plan to leave the next day heading an hour NW to stay at the fairgrounds just outside of Minneapolis/St Paul MN. We need to stay close to Rochester in case any of our results require further appointments. We are certainly hoping that isn’t the case…