Indy 500

This post is not about race cars or the famous oval, instead it is about being in Indiana (when we were supposed to be in South Dakota!) and our 500th post. Wow, 500 posts, that's a ton of talking on my part. :-) I started the blog shortly before we moved into our 5th wheel while selling the house. Well the house sold, then we sold the 5th wheel and are now "motor homers". We have made some changes along the way but the dream is still the same. We hope you continue to follow along with us because, as most of you already know, things are rarely boring around here. :-)

Today was surgery day and we were up and on our way to the hospital bright and early. We were the first people to check into the surgery center but there was not too much down time. The nurse checked Rudee's vital signs and had her change into one of those sexy hospital gowns. :-)
She had to have one last procedure before her surgery where they placed a "guide wire" in order to "guide" the surgeon to the cancer. They no more finished that and brought her back to her room when they came and got her for the surgery. I was ushered to the waiting room where friends Jim & Becky Owens along with our daughter Amanda and husband Ryan sat with me. They called me to the desk in about 30 minutes. I was a little nervous since they said it would take at least an hour. The surgeon came out and everything went well, Rudee was fine and they felt like they removed all the cancer. They will test the tissues to make sure but he was very confident he got it all!
We spent the next few hours in the recovery room until she felt well enough to go home. She has been resting and our next appointment is on the 17th and then she will start radiation on the 20th. Looks like we may be able to head out sometime around the first part of June ..... back on the road, yee haw! :-)

A friend of mine sent me some photos (thanks, Dan Meno) of the flooded campground. They are still shots from a video taken by the news helicopter while we were being rescued. That's us down there being led to our rescue tractor by a fireman!

Lots and lots of water!

Rudee will be taking it easy for a few days but we are thankful that we are on the road of healing! I'll keep you posted.

let the healing begin!

I haven't been posting a lot the last week simply because I have been in a blue kind of mood. We have had a lot on our plates the last month and are sorting through it all trying to get our lives back to normal. We did get a settlement check on our motorcycle but even that didn't lift my spirits a lot because it was about $1000.00 less then what I thought the lowest figure would be. No arguing on my part would change their mind even when I presented them with hard evidence of the bikes value. The adjuster even lied to me about the options he supposedly included in the value calculations. Turns out he didn't include any of the options even after assuring me several times that he did so he could "get you the highest value possible".  Geico's attitude was we're a big company and you are a little nobody so "tough luck"! I filed a complaint with the Indiana Department of Insurance who governs how the companies do business in Indiana. Geico will have 10 days to answer to the state why they think the value of a motorcycle sold in January in far Northern Illinois is a reflection of the value of my motorcycle here in Central Indiana in May. It will be interesting to see how they address the lies and misrepresentations they did when handling my claim. In Indiana cashing their check does not mean the claim is closed and we can still fight for additional $'s so in the meantime we have busied ourselves motorcycle shopping and found this:

It is a 2011 Harley Ultra Limited and we got a great deal on it. We bought it off a co-worker of my brother who purchased it new and then regretted it. The bike was too big for him so he hardly ever rode it and the odometer proves it with less than 2400 miles on the clock. He came way down on his asking price and threw in a brand new Harley leather jacket ($400 in the catalog), a cover for the bike and a hydraulic bike lift. We were very happy with the deal and are looking forward to "breaking it in".

We got a call late on Friday and they found "something" on Rudee's chest ex-ray ("what now??!!"). They say it looks like scar tissue from an old infection but want to have a Cat scan to be sure. Today we did the Cat scan and are waiting on the results.  Hopefully this will not have any effect on her surgery tomorrow. We are both so ready to start her recovery and get our lives back on track again.
The bright side to all of this is we have been getting to spend a lot of time visiting with our kids and grand kids. :-)

In our spare time between doctor visits and rain showers, We have kept busy getting the trailer ready to haul the new bike. The wheel chock, shelves, diamond plate, and e-track have all been installed.

I also mounted this on the rear door.

Maybe our luck will change. :-)

Tomorrow we will be up really early to make the drive to the hospital. We have to be there at 6:45 and it is about an hour away. We are planning on Rudee being released sometime in the early afternoon and will then rest up back at the motor home  We are attending a Goldwing rally in Lebanon later in the week and will move the motor home to the fairgrounds on Wednesday. This is all dependent on how Rudee is feeling but we have our fingers (and toes!) crossed. I'll keep you posted.

busy day

Yesterday we had an appointment for a consultation with a different surgeon for Rudee. Her original surgeon set up the appointment in order to explore our options of a different type of radiation therapy that is only available (in the Indy area anyway) at this surgeons hospital. We showed up at noon and met with the "team" and learned the radiation is a one time treatment done during the operation. The procedure is not new but the equipment needed is not available at all hospitals. The surgeon thought we would be a good fit for it and after our consultation with him we met with an oncologist for final approval. The oncologist did not feel that it would be best for us however. He went into a lot more detail of the procedures available and the fact no hard research had been done on the "one and done" radiation for Rudee's particular type of cancer cells. We decided not to be the test case. :-)
We did however make great strides in getting her surgery on the schedule. We decided to change to this hospital and surgeon for a number of reasons. The first is he is widely regarded as one of the best cancer surgeons in the area. The hospital is associated with the MD Anderson Cancer Network and they are, in my opinion, the very best in the USA for cancer treatment. Last and probably the least important is the fact they can treat us fairly quickly. Once our consultations were over we asked them to move us onto the surgery schedule and we were able to get all the pre-op tests done. Surgery day will be next Tuesday followed by a 1 week recovery and follow up appointment. At her f/u appointment the oncologist will insert a fairly large catheter that is used for the radiation and this will be left in for 7-10 days. She will then have radiation treatments two times per day for five days (6 hours apart), the catheter is removed and then she will be done.
We finally left the hospital around 6pm. Wow that was a long day but now we can relax for a few days instead of having appointments everyday. :-)

Leaving the hospital we decided to check out a trailer place nearby and ended up making a purchase. :-)

We decided to get a white one this time. No real reason for that except that the trailers they had on hand were discounted because they had some hail damage on them and the hail dents were less noticeable on the white versus the black. This trailer is a little better built then our old one and has some nicer features so we decided we could live with a few dents to get a better trailer, plus it was a few hundred $'s less than replacing our flooded one. :-)

We made a stop for something to eat on the way home since we were both starving and finally made it home shortly before 9pm. We will be keeping busy getting our new trailer ready to haul a motorcycle that we will hopefully be shopping for soon. I'll keep you posted.