Winding down in NJ

September 1 – 14, 2014   

We are putting our list together for things to do before we leave NJ.  This is our last long stay before we hit south Texas and the RGV in a month.  For me that means doing some of the RV maintenance items that I do on an annual basis like changing the oil and filter on the generator, cleaning out the roof AC units, and cleaning out the hot water heater.  There are also some things I do on a regular basis that I have put off until we are stopped for longer periods like now.  This includes maintenance items like checking the house battery for water and electrical connections.  We also want to steam clean the carpets with our friends cleaning unit she has here (was ours when we had the S&B).

It seems that the bathroom grey tank drains slower than the galley grey tank.
The bathroom tank drain handle is the left most handle. Next is the toilet black tank drain handle.  Then all the way to the right is the galley grey tank drain handle.

I have not looked inside the belly of the RV so I decided to have a look and see if there was an issue with the bathroom grey tank drain.  This is a picture of the bathroom grey tank's level indicator wiring, 1st is 1/3 full, next up is 1/2 full and at the top is full.

This is the remote slide valve for the bathroom grey tank.  I didn't see anything wrong and not really anything to adjust.  I did note that this tank is the lowest of the 3 tanks so that is probably why is drains slower.  I sprayed silicone all over it and called it a day.

I decided to check the battery water level.
To access the battery I first need to remove the protective gas cover. 

This is what it looks like with the cover removed.The water level and electrical connection were fine.  

We also ended this week with Patty going to the hospital. She was in for 2 nights and is out now.  The consensus is that she became dehydrated causing her blood pressure to drop too low which in turn caused her to pass out. I’ll give more on that later in the post.

I started off the month (September 01) with a golf outing with a friend from work that retired before me, Tom.  Tom’s wife has been battling the consequences of pancreatic cancer so finding a time to play was difficult, but we did it!  It was a hot day but we managed to struggle through it.  Well, I struggled and Tom played better than I did but it was all still good. Thanks Tom for a great day and good luck to Sharon!

My friend Tom is on the left.  The other 2 on the right are Tom's
friends and I can't remember their names.

On the 4th we headed off to Buffalo to attend Patty’s nephew’s wedding party.  Her nephew, Adam, and his wife Jordan were married in June but are just now having the reception.  We were going to rent a car for this trip to save the 1,000 miles from going on the truck.  I figured the cost of fuel for the truck would pay for the cost of the rental car including its fuel cost.  We wouldn’t save anything but we would avoid the extra miles on the truck.  Our friends Cindy and Rob who are letting us stay in their driveway offered us their car for the trip! That was a great offer and we gratefully accepted it.   

We have made this drive many times from NJ.  It is a 400 mile drive that took us 6 hours.  That is double the amount of driving I like to do in a day.  The weather was great for the drive and we talked about future travel plans so the ride went relatively fast.  However, as usual, the last 50 miles always seems to take forever!

This is in the NY welcome center on I-81.

We stayed at Patty mother’s house, something we haven’t done in many years.  She is alone how since Patty's dad is now in a skilled nursing facility, so she likes the company.  We tried to make our visit there as non stressful as possible for her.  I cooked one night and we went out to eat the other nights.  

Interesting funeral home chain name in the Buffalo suburbs 

The wedding reception was held outside at a town park where they had the use of the pavilion.  The event was on the 5th, a Friday. Again, it was very hot for this event and there wasn't any AC except in our car.  Yeah, we went to the car a few times just to cool off!   We had a great time and we played a lot of corn hole. Just as the event was ending at 10pm a storm blew through from over Lake Erie.  That cooled everyone off and officially ended the party.  The lightning was even better than fireworks!

BBQ being made for the wedding event.

Creative use of pallets.

Sign in area.

Corn hole board.  We played this a lot.

Relatively new game called Jam Can that is played with a frisbee.

The bar needed to be taken out of the pavilion.  It was also a creative pallet design.
 Joe got it into the truck just as it starts to pour rain!

We stayed another day so we could visit with Patty’s dad, Tom.  To our relief, Tom seems to be settling in at the facility. It had now been a few weeks since we had seen him.  He seemed to be doing better than he was the last time we were there.  He still doesn’t want to walk and prefers to be pushed around in a wheel chair.  My guess is that since he is blind he doesn't know where to go to sit down if he walks around. The dementia also contributes to this as well.  He was able to hold brief conversations with us which was a good thing.  It will be a little more than a couple of months before we are back here to visit with him again.

On Sunday the 7th we drove the 400 miles back to NJ.  It was another uneventful trip on a nice September day.
Now the not so nice part of the week starts.  

Patty woke up on Monday feeling not so good.  She had diarrhea and was not holding down food.  So for the next 2 days she slept and used the bathroom.  She also didn't eat or drink much of anything.  I should have known what was coming next!  

We had Cindy's car detailed before we gave it back to her.

By Wednesday she was feeling better so we invited Cindy and Rob over for dinner.  It was great, Salmon for Cindy and I and Cod for Rob and Patty.  

On Thursday we went to Patty’s Physical Therapy session via bicycle.  It is a close 3 mile trip one way.  While Patty was in PT I went further to the Naval Base, Earl, another 6 miles farther away.   By the time we got back I rode 18 miles and Patty rode a little over 6 miles.  Patty seems now to be back to normal, or so I thought!

After PT, we went to an urgent care facility to have an upper respiratory issue Patty developed during the past few days.   They decided she has an allergy and prescribed a steroid for it.  Neither of us was convinced, but what do we know! 

From the Urgent Care facility we headed over to our friend's (Diana) condo on the ocean in Long Branch.  She had invited us over for lunch and cocktails.  We had a great time and stayed to watch the sunset from her 3rd floor balcony. 

We left for our RV around 8:30 pm and stopped on the way to pick up the steroid prescription.  When we got out of the truck Patty was very dizzy but recovered quickly, Hmmmmm. We were in Walgreen's for about half an hour and then we were on our way for the last 20 minutes back to the RV.  We arrived back a little after 10 pm.

Diana and Patty.

Looking East over the Atlantic Ocean at sunset.
Note that the flag is at half mast due to it being September 11.

I was hungry so I made myself a meatball sandwich in the oven from leftovers we had in the fridge.  Patty had some canned nuts for a snack.  I was going to play golf in the morning and needed to be up and out of bed by 6 am so I was ready for bed at 11 pm.  As I was heading for the bathroom before going to bed, I turned around and found Patty falling out of her dining room chair.  She was sweating a lot too.  Now I needed to figure out what was wrong.  It could be low blood sugar which I could correct in a short time or it could be low blood pressure which I couldn't fix on my own.  We got a sugar reading of 200 so I knew that wasn't it. I tried to get her blood pressure but I just couldn't get the cuff on as she was just too limp.  OK, now I need to get her to the hospital.  

The hospital is only 8 minutes from where we are so I believed the best way was to drive her there only if I can get her into the truck.  If not, a 911 call was going to be needed. I got her into the truck with not too much trouble and we were on our way arriving at the hospital a little after 11 pm.  She had a blood pressure of 60 over a not readable.  That got her admitted! As I thought, they found her to be severely dehydrated so they ended up giving her 5 liters of saline.  As the night wore on she slept, I sat in a chair and tried to read a book as her blood pressure gradually come back up to 115/50 by 5:30 am. 

I decided at that point, 5:30 am, to go home and get some sleep.  I slept until 9 am and went back to the hospital to find that she had just been moved to a regular room.  Patty was awake and mostly back to her feisty self with a desire to get out of the hospital.  The doctors had other ideas though.  
Patty was finally released the next day, Saturday evening the 13th.  They gave a diagnosis of a lung infection which she still has and that she was dehydrated from unknown causes causing the low blood pressure.  They tested her for ketones in her blood when she came which would have indicated a DKA.  DKA would have caused the dehydration.  So, the mystery still is, why did Patty dehydrated so severely to cause such a low blood pressure.  This happened in Texas this past winter but she had DKA that caused it.  My feeling is that she has something else going on to make her susceptible to sudden low blood pressure. Patty has had DKA many times in her past with dehydration that didn't cause this low blood pressure issue.  I’m feeling a little helpless with this as I can’t detect dehydration until the low blood pressure kicks in and it is too late.  She needs to stay hydrated but how does one know that in fact she is hydrated properly?

Enough of the health stuff. 

Chas and his girlfriend Lisa came over Saturday evening just to visit.  Patty didn't much feel like going out for dinner so we ordered Japanese delivery from a good local place for dinner.  It’s nice here in Keyport that here is so many good places that deliver food.   We had a great time and were up until all most midnight!

Sunday the 14th we went over to visit Chas’s store in Brick NJ.  That was our first time seeing the place that Chas manages.  

The Batteries + Bulbs that Chas manages in Brick NJ.

Chas in the foreground with a new sales assistant Ian in the background.

Then that evening, I played golf with Rob and his brother Craig.  We teed off at 4 pm and just made the 18th hole by dark.  It was a very weird day on the course for me.  I shot a 62 on the front 9 and a 46 on the back 9.  I went from terrible to being on fire!  Anyway, it was a great ending to the weekend and to our time here in NJ.  

Nice picture of the golf course at sunset.

Creative use of the flashlight app on Rob's smartphone.

Next up for the last 2 days here is to do some routine maintenance on the rig.  The weather seems to be cooperating so it should go smoothly.

Our next post should be from somewhere in Ohio.

Stay Tuned!