New Bifocals May Be Hazordous...

I exited the Caboose with energy and purpose....we were off to explore Crilly Trail and walk along the McKenzie river before we took off for the Rogue River.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that hikes with new bifocals can be treacherous.... the steps got me.  Michael walked back to the campsite and brought the van to retrieve me. I settled in with ibuprofen and ice, while the kids continued their hike and he ran a couple of errands in preparation to moving.

I had a bit of crying jag and realized it is because I so desperately want to make a zillion fun, family memories in face of Michael's recent "transition diagnosis."  Then I realized - this is our LIFE. If we miss this hiking trail, or this evening of s'mores - there will be plenty more. We are not camping.

Armitage County Park

This beautiful campground is located inside a Lane County park, on the outskirts of Eugene, OR.  The park provides lots of picnic areas and fields, a horseshoe pit, boat ramp, 2 acre leash-free dog park, hiking trails and a volleyball pit or two.

The campground itself has approximately 31 full hook-up sites,  as well as tent sites and group sites in a lush, wooded area. There are some pull through sites.  Each site is allowed one RV and two tents or three tents - making this a great place to meet up with friends or let kids have a side-adventure.  If you reserve online you will be told if your site has strong, fair or weak wifi. The sites along the river have "weak" which means you can see they are there and may be able to log on, but won't be able to post or upload photos or videos, unless you have a wifi extender.  The sites near the camp office have "strong" wifi.

 

The bathroom/showers are CLEAN and well-maintained. The laundry room is state of the art, shiny and again CLEAN and well-maintained.  A load of wash is $2 and the dryers are .25 for 15 minutes.

The highlights of this campground are the hiking trails - right alongside the McKenzie river at mile 7.3, as well a Crilly Trail.  Armitage boasts lots of fishing spots and swimming holes, boating etc.

The day use park closes at dusk and the park becomes very quiet. Lane county does a great job of maintaining this campground. With the full hook ups and laundry, minus the pools and hot tubs....Armitage feels like a blend of state campground and RV Park.  We'll stay again. It's a blessing to so quickly find a nice campground close to family so we can make lots of visits.

You can make reservations online  - and from what I see it's advisable to do. There is a reservation fee which doesn't go towards your camping fee.  We paid $30 per night. Reservations and Information - 541-682-2000; campground office 541-357-5481. Located at 90064 Coburg Road, Eugene, OR.

Work and Family

Arielle is going to college full-time, doing a 10 hour a week work study, and working at Fred Myers. The available time to visit with her on this trip is at a premium.  We saw her at dinner the night we arrived, and this a.m. we drove across town and met her for breakfast.

We were able to spend time with BreAnne yesterday and today Krista worked 1/2 a day and was able to join us at the trailer. She was JUST what I needed. She is an organizational whiz and was able to help organize the boxes still left in the trailer. It will be fun to remember her help as we benefit from the new "homey" feeling.

I need to buy some wire to hang more photos with command hooks - but we're getting there.

We've been on the road four days - today we looked at a new rig and took our first load to St. Vincent's.  We'll soon have all this stuff situated - in time to pick up the remainder of our possessions at Matt and Rachel's.

The kids are already finding their "happy places" in the trailer.

This afternoon we met my parents at the theater and watched, "War Room."  Another great movie from the Kendrick brothers. We met Bre, Will and Sherri over at Mom and Dad's for dinner and the Seattle Seahawks game.

Some played games and did nails instead.

We got a lot done towards settling today. The bathroom is totally reorganized, all the boxes are gone, water filter is installed....this is one of my favorites:

Tomorrow we head down the road a couple of hours. I'm not sure if we'll have wifi again until Sunday evening.

Here We Go Again - PLOT TWIST TAKE 3

I will most likely edit this post - but here is the text of an email I sent to a few sister-friends this a.m. Michael said it would be simplest to just post it .

I realize we left you hanging after the neurologist appointment. We wanted to talk to the kids before I emailed or posted anything online so  there was no chance of them finding out family news online.

Anyway - we lost internet when we arrived at our campground. We're back now.

Our appt was 1.5 hours long. They listened. They asked for my input on questions where Michael wasn't sure or hadn't noticed problems. First he saw a "fellow" who did quite an exam and then he saw the neurologist  - who did the same exam. This was at UC Davis...then they brought in more to observe him walk etc. Upshot....she has diagnosed Michael as having Parkinson's Disease rather than essential tremors....based on the history and her exam she is confident in saying he appears to be in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease. She agreed with the base doc (and us) that if he had "atypical essential tremors" the beta blocker would have worked by now and that it is stupid to keep increasing the dosage. His resting heart rate is now 53. We are happy to cancel further appointments with neurologist #1.

She said the DAT SCAN does not always show changes early on and that PD is one where the doctor needs to make a clinical assessment. She noted his right arm doesn't swing when he walks, the tremor, the quiet voice (which is getting quieter), he sways when he gets up from sitting etc. She said the jitteriness he feels is not him being crazy - it's an internal tremor and the external tremors usually follow.

To confirm a diagnosis of PD she will start him on the Parkinson meds and if he responds, he has it. If not, it IS something else odd....and she said we will track it down. Much better response than, "I TOLD you - I don't know."

The complication came when she remembered he's on the beta blocker. A person doesn't willy-nilly stop this med.  They don't want to start another new drug while weaning him from the beta blocker. They are slowly weaning him off it. We will see her again in Nov, she will evaluate him again (looking to see if the symptoms are progressing) and then start him on levodopa.  I feel like we dodged the bullet before but this time it found it's target - and yet the treatment for ET simply isn't helping much - it's always good to have answers - even when they are answers we don't like much.

She said to continue on with life. She said there are new treatment options and we will get through this together. We are trying not to consider the implications too much just yet....we are focusing on adjusting to RETIREMENT first.... Michael sees the military doc on Tuesday to discuss the way forward as it impacts care and VA claim.

 

Let go my soul and trust in Him

The waves and wind still know His name....

The One Where Family Gets Involved in Organizing

I woke up this morning and simply could NOT believe we are LIVING in The Caboose. It was a good disbelief. We are still amazingly over-crowded and unorganized.

Yuuki and I took a beautiful 3 mile walk along the McKenzie River. I also started a couple of loads of laundry. I washed Yuuki's bedding (which she didn't totally appreciate, everyone else does) and the curtains from our home.

Ah the visual clutter - we're working on it

When everyone finally began to rouse, we tried out the showers. Stacia and I can take 3 min showers. The others could - but they seemed to think the 9 min limit on the free showers invites one to luxuriate after finishing the essential "get clean" 3 min part of the shower.

BreAnne took the day off of work and we savored spending time with her!

We headed over to Mom and Dad's next and unloaded 3 van seats, 8 suitcases, and several tubs and boxes of books we may need before we are ready to see ALL of our household goods again.

I hoped to work on a project while we visited. I thought the curtains from our bedroom and the patio could be repurposed to curtains for the kids bunks. They are good quality black out curtains and we need curtains NOW...so it made sense to use them rather than store them. Mom took pity on my unorthodox cutting methods and together we finished the project. To be honest, I sewed up one set and then it was time to run to lunch. She sewed the other two sets. ::snort::

We stopped at Best Buy and bought a wifi range extender - BEST BUY EVER. I feel much more at peace if I know others can reach us - and I can reach others. Found out many of you feel the same way about being able to reach us.  We looked around for a Vita mix.

We left Yuuki at Mom and Dad's while we went to lunch. She was having a great time with their two pugs and we thought she'd be happier waiting there than in the van. Turns out she seems to be worried we'd finally left her. I've not seen her so excited in years. She ran around and around us when we returned.

We all went to dinner at Jung's Mongolian Grill .....well except for Arielle who had college, work study, then work at Fred Myers. After dinner we headed to Fred Myers to pick up a few things so we can begin to sort out the caboose - curtain rods, COMMAND HOOKS and COMMAND VELCRO STRIPS.  We found Arielle and tormented her - though she was happy to see us all - even with the group of fellow-trainees around her.

Back at the trailer, we hung curtains, moved stuff from one spot to another again and installed with wifi extender.

We really need to find a day or two to focus solely on organizing. The visual clutter is wearing on me - but I expected it. I will continue to choose joy while we wait for the magical moment when we're settled.

GUESS WHERE WE ARE

We're in OREGON for five days. We brought a load of stuff up to family, so we can load the things at Matt and Rachel's into the trailer. This is our "shake-down" trip -  a chance for us to discover what is working, and what isn't working, before we get too far away from our tether.

THINGS WE'VE DISCOVERED SO FAR:

We've discovered the trailer is VERY squirrely. We stopped a couple of times and rearranged the load. We've never had  a problem with this before, but today was positively faith enhancing. I think the pass-through storage in the rear is a design flaw. A trailer should have 60% of the weight in front of the axle  - but the big storage compartment is at the very back of the trailer.

We've discovered you can park RIGHT UNDER THE WIFI ROUTER and still not get wifi.

We've discovered if you PACK TIGHTLY things won't spill over and run down your walls.



Yes, that IS a couch pillow!

We've discovered Krista and Arielle have a darling house - and are great cooks. They treated us to Veggie Pot Pie and Chicken.  We unloaded our pantry and a box of things Arielle had left behind.

We've discovered we like Armitage County Park/Campground...nice campground right on the McKenzie River...and our home for three nights.

It Worked!

We've attempted to grow watermelon for years. This year Michael had saved some seeds from a Texas Rattler Melon. He faithful watered the, fertilized them and tended them in our container garden.

Unfortunately, we had to move from our home before they were ready.  Michael harvested the two biggest.

Personal size

Tonight he cut them up and we had them with dinner at Krista and Arielle's.

 

He and Shannon carried the rest of the containers over to their house. We hope they will continue to grow.  Shannon was wonderful enough to stop and offer to use his leaf blower to clear out our garage and driveway. Kyle and Michelle showed up and we exchanged a deposit check for a house and keys.  It's been a busy few weeks.

We miss Shannon and Valerie - great neighbors

 

YES , we needed to drop things off in OREGON so we could organize.