4th month in Texas for the winter

February 12 – March 14, 2015   

Hard to believe we have been here in one place for 4 months now!  The weather here has been the worst in South Texas history, according to long termers here.  Last year was not real good, but this year was even worse.   

As I write this it is raining and the temperature is 65 at 11 am. The average temperature for this time of year is 78 and rain should only be ¼ in for the month of March.  We have had maybe 2 days at the average temperature this month and we have had something like 4 inches of rain and it is only half way through the month!  For the next week the temperatures are just going to be in the low 70s with rain.   We are still planning to return next year though.

OK, what have we done in the past month?  Here at the resort we have had 3 dance nights and we had the Fun In The Sun (FITS) event.  My team won the Wii bowling event and came in second in the water volleyball (same as last year).  I have golfed 1-2 times per week with Patty playing a few times too.  I am inching my way down to under 100 with my last score at 102.  Tomorrow Patty and I play in a golf scramble tournament held by another close resort.  Hopefully the weather will hold out as it is calling for rain showers and a high of 68.  It will only be 58 when we tee off though.

Literally a hole in the wall restaurant in Raymondville TX.  This is the same town where the illegals stormed the prison last month that made the national news.

Inside the restaurant.  I had a really good fish fry with catfish.

We are still battling issues with Patty’s health.  We now have diagnosis for the symptoms she has.  She has Pancreatitis, Autonomic Neuropathy, and Bronchial Radial Pruritis. Pancreatitis causes Patty to have digestion problems.  With this, Patty is lucky so far as she really doesn’t have many symptoms and the ones she does have are mild.  The bad news is that it is not curable; only can limit the progression. Autonomic Neuropathy causes bowel incontinence and maybe the fainting episodes due to low blood pressure.  Again, no cure either but we can limit the progression and treat the symptoms.  Brachial Radial Pruritis causes her to have the itchy arms.  This may be treatable with neck surgery, however, there is a lot of risk with this procedure.

To stop and limit the pancreatitis, we both are now alcohol free!  Yea, that is a big one for us, but it was time.   So far, it really has not been an issue with either of us.  Well, maybe I'm now drinking way too much root beer though! At the end of the month Patty has a consult with a proctologist to discuss a surgical treatment for the incontinence.  We are very hopeful about this.  This may require that we prolong our stay here in south Texas but that should not be an issue as we are very time flexible.  Patty also has a consult with a neurosurgeon about the neck surgery in a few days.  We are not very hopeful there.  We are just not sure that the risk is worth the possible cure.

Bottom line here is that we are moving forward with what we need to be doing to keep Patty as healthy as possible. 
  
This past month I had more work done on the truck.  The truck needed a routine oil change and the fuel filters changed.  Also, the climate control has never worked right since we owned the truck.  We can’t adjust the temperature in the cab either as a whole or using the dual temperature control.  This just meant that we turned the AC all of the way up and then just used the manual fan speed to make ourselves comfortable.  This winter we experience a new problem with the climate control in that the driver’s side doesn’t have any heat, only outside air.  We are rarely driving or in cold climates so this is mainly just a nuisance issue.  

Anyway, I had the Ford dealer fix the climate control once and for all.  I really had to choke though because it cost $1k to fix it!  The parts were $70 with the rest being labor.  The entire dashboard had to be removed to replace the two $35 parts. Luckily I had a credit for $138 and a free oil change which reduced the entire cost some.  Now we can finally set the temperature in the cab and the system controls the temperature for us.  Such is the life!

We are now watching the entire season of Breaking Bad.  We didn't see this while it was on TV, guess it ended in 2013. There are 50 hours of 6 seasons.  We have watched 3 episodes so far.  It's really good!

That’s it for now!  We should have more information on our future travels and a more definitive plan with Patty’s health next post.

South Texas sunset from our site in the resort.

Stay tuned!