San Antonio Blues - Apr 2006

We returned to San Antonio and the Blazing Star RV Park on Friday, April 15th. Our plan was to spend Easter weekend with family and friends before we left on Monday to began our next round of travels, but fate stepped in again and instead of three days, we spent nearly three weeks there.

It all started with a routine vision check for Frank. His optometrist discovered that Frank was having some loss of peripheral vision and suggested that he go see an ophthalmologist as it could be a symptom of glaucoma. We were lucky that a highly recommended ophthalmologist in San Antonio had a cancellation on Good Friday and Frank was able to get in to see her. After a very thorough exam, the doctor concluded that it wasn't glaucoma -- thank goodness. She said that he had unusually shaped optic nerves and that he's probably had some degree of limited peripheral vision his whole life, but no one had ever detected it. The bad news is that there's nothing that can be done about it, but the good news is that it's not likely to get worse.

Since Frank's vision check included an update to his glasses prescription, we decided to order a new pair. That meant having to wait for them to be made and since that was going to take about a week, we decided to go ahead and take the dogs to the vet for a couple of minor things. Rudy had some skin sores that wouldn't heal and Scotty needed to get a blood test to make sure his arthritis medicine wasn't causing any detrimental side effects. Saturday morning, we took both dogs to our new vet. She diagnosed Rudy with a skin infection and a bacterial infection in both ears so he got an ear swab, a blood test and a round of antibiotics, prednisone pills and some ear medicine. We thought Scotty got off easy with just a blood test. Well, two days later, Scotty's blood test revealed elevated levels of creatinine -- a pretty good indicator of the early stages of kidney disease, so then it was back to the vet's -- this time to get a urine test. Another week went by as we waited for the results. In the meantime, I researched diets that would help to keep the kidney disease in check and started making homemade food for both dogs when they refused to eat the K/D prescription dog food. The news came a week later that, while he didn't have protein in his urine, he did have urate crystals -- a sign of possible bladder stones. After discussing all this with the vet, we opted to continue with the diet, get his kidney functions re-tested in a month and hold off any further tests for bladder stones until he presented symptoms.

During all that, both Frank and I came down with an intestinal virus that had us -- um, shall I say coming and going -- for several days each. At those times I'm always reminded about the meaning of true love -- forget flowers and candy -- it's taking care of the one you love and cleaning up the messes when they are sick. I'd like to thank Frank for being especially wonderful and caring and patient for those two days when I was not in control of my bodily functions.

One last emergency kept us all in fear -- our nephew Brian was rushed to the hospital and due to a swelling in his throat was unable to breathe and was put on a respirator. He remained on the respirator and was highly sedated for several days while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong. We all gathered and hugged and prayed for days for his recovery and were relieved when they discovered an abscess was causing the swelling. He spent almost a week in ICU and then was released from the hospital the day before we left town. Thank goodness he's going to be ok.

Needless to say, those few weeks were stressful. Thankfully, we were in the midst of caring family and friends and had lots of support as we went over each bump in the road.

While in town, we also enjoyed gathering for a barbecue and game night (Trivial Pursuit this time) with friends Ron, Missy, Mike, Cruz and Cindy. Thanks again for welcoming us into your circle -- we've thoroughly enjoyed all our evenings together and look forward to more good times.

Since our travel plans did not have us returning to Texas until next January, that made it very hard to even think about saying goodbye, so during our time in San Antonio, we gathered close to our family as often as we could all the while thinking we would be leaving soon. We ended up having numerous goodbye events -- each one sad and sweet at the same time. Our final farewell was on Tuesday night -- a typical get together where we ate and talked and ate and talked and ate some more. We love these gatherings so much and will miss them terribly.

To end on a happy note -- here's the newest member of our family. Young Peyton is sitting with his Aunt Sue who is holding Daisy -- an 8 week old West Highland Terrier/Chihuahua mix. That now means that the family dogs almost outnumber the people when we all get together!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!