Long journey halfway through.

Man, this can be tiring. And trying.
driving out of North Platte we started encountering high winds. Turns out it was 40 mph with gusts exceeding 55mph. There were flashing signs at the side of the road advising no light trailers. Makes you question if 12k lbs can be considered light. I think it is. We slowed to 45-50 and kept plugging. Finally made it in to Laramie after stopping at a truck park for an hour or so waiting out what we hoped was the worst of the wind.

The KOA in Laramie offered no protection from the wind. We slept in the kids room with all the slides in because our slide topper awnings were acting as sails and tipping the RV as well as the wear and tear on the toppers. Next day was better. still windy but not ARRRRRRGGGHHHH windy. We explored Laramie and went to the University of Wyoming campus to see some dinosaur fossils then hit the planetarium later Max couldn't sit through the show so I waited outside with him until it was finished. That night Michael and I went out and found some of the constellations they displayed in the planetarium. Kind of neat. More later as time permits. This travel thing is busy.

Back on the road

So we are back to traveling again. Feels good. There is a rhythm to traveling like this that we are still trying to find. Took longer than we hoped to get on the road this morning. Longer than we hoped but about as long as we expected. It is coming back slowly but surely. Crazy, after everything that has happened, that we can still do this. That we can still live like this.

It was again hard to leave family and hard to leave my new friends from work. Harder still because I was there longer and they were all so nice to me. Harder because there for a while we were pretty convinced this whole traveling circus lifestyle was over.

So, we are back on the road. Trying to figure out how to do this again. The window stays the same but the view changes.

Next destination

Got the next contract signed and ready. Headed to Vancouver Washington for 13 weeks. Maybe I'll start updating the blog regularly again. The trip to Houston hasn't particularly been anything I wanted to tell the world about.

Vancouver looks nice. Can't wait to get on the road. The trip alone will be more adventure and excitement (the good kind we hope) than we had in all of our stay here in Houston. I enjoyed working with the fine people of Houston Northwest Medical Center and will miss them. But...it is time to go.

A lesson in customer service.

There was a change in plans.

Instead of whisking away to the American Southwest for our next stop we stayed in Houston to deal with some oncological OB/GYN problems. This has been yet another trip through the healthcare system from the patient's perspective. This is almost always highly educational. This time is no exception.

We sat with contract in hand preparing to sign when the phone rang. It was Sarah's OB saying some blood tests had come back elevated and that cyst looked different and he thought it should just come out. So, we scheduled the surgery for two days later. YAY expediency! Still, probably not wise to commit to a contract a few states away until we had more info. Surgery day, the doctor comes out of surgery and informs me that he found some things he didn't like and it was either endometriosis (prognosis - irritating but not a big deal.) or carcinomatosis (prognosis - 18 - 24 months to live with multiple invasive and quality of life reducing surgeries to get you that far) He would know for sure by next week. Oh yeah, did I mention that this was on the LAST DAY of my contract here? Yeah, no stress. Luckily, my contacted hospital was willing to renew my contract for 10 more weeks while we sorted this out. This was a long ugly weekend. Customer service in healthcare lesson #1 "Don't tell someone they might have a horrible fatal disease unless you KNOW they do." Now, I see where this one can't be a hard and fast rule. I think he really believed that it was carcinomatosis. He wanted to prepare us for the worst.

Then we found out about a specialty in medicine. There are such things as Oncology OB/GYN surgeons. Turns out there are doctors who do nothing but deal with cancers of female reproductive organs. Now we had to deal with this guy.

Turns out our lesson from the regular OB doctor was but a minor quibble. That, is for the next post.

Next contract

Here we are. Next contract is in Yuma Arizona. I love my Houston people and there are some things here I am really going to miss while we are gone. That being said, I can't wait to hit the road. We stay way too busy and spend way too much money here. There is constantly someone to visit, somewhere to go, doctor visits, dentist, vet, family, Kaju classes. No time for much else. Including this blog.

Perhaps there will be a little more discretionary time on the next contract.

On the side of the RV we placed a large map sticker that is the outline of the USA. It includes individual state stickers. We will be getting three new stickers this trip. New Mexico, Arizona and California. There are rules about sticker placement, as there must be in this sort of thing. The RV must stay the night in the state with all of us in it or no sticker. I wonder how full we can get that map.

Good to be back to adventure.

So little time

I have so little time here in Houston. It seems like all the time I do have is used visiting family, going to Kaju or working on Irv. (Irv is the RV's name. Pulled by Flo. Yeah, I'm a geek. Get used to it.)

Already searching for the next contract. Hopefully it will be somewhere a little calmer, a little more scenic and a whole lot less people. I might even have time to update my blog once in a while and do a whole handful of those other things I have been meaning to do, but haven't been able to.

Hope you all had a happy holiday.

Seizures

For any of you that might be tempted...

It is almost impossible to fake a seizure so well that a trained ER nurse or doctor can't tell. We have our ways. Sometimes those ways are hilarious.

So, don't try it. you won't get away with it.