A Change of Plans

On Sunday evening after New Years, when I talked to my mom on the phone, she told me that she was feeling unusually weak.  In fact, her right arm and leg were so weak that she didn't feel comfortable driving to church on Sunday.  She thought that maybe she was just having an unusually bad day with her MS because she had done a lot the day before putting up Christmas decorations.

On Monday morning, however, I found out that her right arm was so weak that she couldn't write or type on the keyboard or use the mouse on the computer.  We began to get very worried.  I asked a neighbor/friend of hers to go check on her and she reported back to me that something was definitely wrong.  We enlisted the help of Chuck's uncle and aunt, Donald and Anna, and they took her to Vanderbilt Hospital.

Anna kept us apprised of what was going on while we were busy packing our bags and booking a flight back to Nashville.  We were concerned that maybe she was having a stroke but after an MRI and CT scan, it was determined that she had a subdural hematoma on her brain that was putting pressure on the left side of her brain and causing her right side (arm and leg) not to function.  The neurosurgeons determined the best course of action was to insert a drain through her skull into the hemotoma to drain off the excess blood that was causing the pressure.

We arrived in Nashville early Tuesday morning and when we got to the hospital, she could just barely squeeze our hand with her right hand or move her right leg.  However, the brain drain worked wonderfully and by the time we left the hospital that evening, she could squeeze our hand very well and could lift her leg.  They left the drain in until Friday when it seemed to no longer be draining.  After performing another CT scan, they decided that most of the hematoma had drained out, removed the drain, and moved her to the step-down portion of their critical care unit.

Isn't my mom just beautiful -- even in the hospital!

Originally, the doctor wanted her to go to rehab for a few days to help build back up her strength but we ran into problems with getting approvals from both the rehab facility and insurance.  Because she was doing so well after 10 days in the hospital, the doctor released her to go home on Wednesday, January 14th, so long as she had someone with her for a couple of weeks and home health for physical and occupational therapy.

On Thursday, my mom's sister (my Aunt Shirley) came over and stayed with her through the weekend so we could fly back to San Antonio to get the motorhome and then drive back to Nashville.  On Friday, we visited with Terry & Gloria, Warren & Joslyn, and Tim & Nancy, and then said our good-byes on Saturday morning.  They are all such wonderful and caring friends.  They looked after our motorhome, picked up our car that we had left at the airport when we flew back to Nashville, picked us up at the airport at 11:30 at night when we came back to San Antonio, and continually expressed their concerns and prayers for my mom.  Thank you, guys, so much!!!!!

On Saturday morning, we headed out of the campground.  Chuck tried to toot the horn to tell everyone good-bye but the horn wouldn't work.  We thought, oh well, we'll just have to check it out after we get back to Nashville.  Our drive was going along very well without any mishaps until we were just north of Waco.  Chuck decided to just try the horn one more time.  The first time he pressed the horn, it still didn't work.  Then he hit the horn again and not only did the horn work, it wouldn't shut off.  And this is not a horn like you have on a car.  This is the great big tractor-trailer truck kind of AIR HORN.

Great!  We were on I-35 north of Waco and Chuck looked for the best place to pull off which was just past an entrance ramp.  We tried turning off the motor.  The horn still blew.  We pulled the fuse for the horn.  The horn still blew.  We tried turning everything off with the battery disconnect and the horn still blew but it started getting weaker and finally quit.  However, when we turned the battery disconnects back on and started the motor up again, the horn started blowing again.  So we turned the motor back off and turned the battery disconnects back off again to get the horn to quit blowing.

We called Coach-net and after what seemed like 15 minutes of interrogation with their getting all our information, they gave our information to a tech who called us back within a few minutes.  After talking with the tech, he helped us to realize that the reason the horn was continuing to blow is because the air line was stuck open to the horn.  Every time we would start the motor up, the air would begin to build up again and the horn would start blowing again.  However, the air gauge would never get above 70 because it was blowing out the horn.  Besides the extremely loud noise, the other problem is that the motorhome would not be very safe to drive because the air would not build all the way back up.

Chuck tried several things the tech suggested but nothing would keep the air line from remaining open to the horn.  So Coach-net said they would send out a mobile repair service but it would be about an hour and a half before the mobile repair service would be there.  We waited and waited and waited and waited...for 5 hours...on the side of the interstate.  Finally, a mobile repair service came by that really did more work on big trucks.  But they tried working on it and decided to remove the baffles on the horn which kept the horn from making that awful loud noise but still didn't resolve the problem of the air leaking out.

All afternoon I kept looking on the internet for anything that would give us a clue as to what the problem might be.  Finally, while the guys (and Chuck) were up on the roof of the motorhome, I found where the solenoid for the air horn might be located.  When they came back down, I told them to look in the basement under the driver's seat where the fuse panel was.  When they opened the door, they heard air leaking, found the solenoid, tapped it with a wrench, and it stopped leaking...as simple as that.  We sure wish we had known that 6 hours ago.

Chuck was so wired after all that had happened that he could have driven all night but I was so stressed out that I just wanted to drive an hour or so and go to bed.  We drove to an RV Park in Corsicana, Texas, that was recommended to us by Warren and Joslyn.  After we got there, I started to let out the rear slides, and the driver's side rear slide acted like it was hanging on something.  So I immediately stopped it and let it back it in and we left in.  What's going to happen next????

Surprisingly, we got a good night's sleep and headed out around 7:30 the next morning.  The weather was cool but sunny and clear.

We wanted to get to the east side of Memphis...

...so that we would not have to fight the rush hour traffic on Monday morning going into Memphis.  However, there are very few choices of campgrounds on the east side of Memphis.  In fact, there are very few choices of campgrounds between Memphis and Nashville.  We pulled into two different campgrounds in Jackson and both of them were awful.  So we ended up driving all the way to Nashville and pulled into Jellystone (where we normally stay when we are in Nashville) around 9:30 that night.

The next morning, we checked in with Jellystone and moved to one of their monthly sites.  We discovered the problem with the rear slide-out was a cabinet door that was open and hanging on the slide which was fortunately an easy fix.  And, Chuck replaced the solenoid for the air horn while we were in Nashville so we hopefully will not be scaring anyone off the road for a while.

And the best news of all, is that my mom, continued to improve and get stronger every day with the help of her physical and occupational therapists and mostly with her dedication to the exercises to make her stronger.  I stayed with her for about 10 days at her condo after we got back home and she continued to get stronger every day.

The bummer about staying in cold weather (besides the fact that it is cold) is that you continually have to worry about pipes freezing, conserving your gas, and there's not much to do outside when it is so cold.  We did walk at Opry Mills Mall several days.  We also went to Costco one day.  They finally had their Tommy Bahama beach chairs in stock.  We just wished we had a beach to use them on!  :)

We were also in town during the time my Aunt Shirley was celebrating her 80th birthday.

Aunt Shirley with my cousin Rhonda, David & Natalie

The Mobley Sisters:  Aunt Linda, my mom & Aunt Shirley

Valentine's Day occurred while we were in Nashville.  I told Chuck that what I really would like to have for Valentine's Day was a hot fudge cake from Shoney's.  I had not had one of those in probably 20 years.

And it was just as good as I remembered.  :)

The weather had been cold but not extremely so until the week my mom was scheduled to go back to the doctor.  The forecast was for a 100% chance of snow on February 16th with temperatures diving down to the single digits maybe even below zero.  On Sunday, February 15th, we decided to drive the motorhome to Atlanta and then drive back to Nashville in the car to take my mom to the doctor on Wednesday, February 18th.

One of the other reasons we wanted to go on to Atlanta is so that we could surprise Crystal, our daughter for her birthday.  Her sister, Tafanie, had already surprised her wonderfully by taking her to lunch with Crystal's daughters, Avery and Hannah.  But then, we walked in and surprised Crystal again while they were at lunch.  She was so surprised!  We got to spend the rest of the afternoon babysitting Avery and Hannah until Crystal and Grant got home from work.  :)

Nashville ended up getting more ice than snow and most everything was closed down on Monday.  When we drove up in the car on Tuesday, we saw some snow up on Monteagle Mountain but we started seeing the ice around Beechgrove, TN.

It really was beautiful!

Fortunately, by the time we got to Nashville, most of the main interstates and roads were clear so we didn't have any trouble.  We spent the night at my mom's Tuesday night and it snowed a little more overnight.  Chuck drove us safely to see her doctor at Vanderbilt on Wednesday morning and her doctor released her with a clean bill of health and said she was free to resume all of her normal activities including driving.

We headed back to Atlanta as soon as we had taken my mom back home and drove through some more Winter Wonderland before we headed up Monteagle Mountain.

We got to spend some time with our VW granddaughters, Bell, Emmaline and Ruby.  They are so much fun and growing up so fast!  A group picture can be challenging!  :)

On Saturday morning before we left Stone Mountain, we had breakfast with Crystal and Grant before they were heading to the College Football Hall of Fame.  The Hall of Fame was having a special Tennessee day today and even Avery was dressed in her UT orange colors!  :)

We are now headed south to warmer weather and with our first stop being getting our annual service work done at Alliance Coach in Wildwood.  We're looking forward to spending time with Ken and Bonnie around the first of March back at Pine Island.  And we're really looking forward to not wearing winter coats.  :)

It has been a colder couple of months than we would like to experience this time of year.  In fact, it has really been the first real winter (including cold temperatures and snow) we have experienced since we first started full-timing three years ago.  But we are so very, very thankful that my mom is completely well and we want to thank everyone who has been praying for my mom and for us.