Where To Next?

We’re driving south today for the first time since we hit Florida in April and the second time since we left Texas this winter.  It’s like we’re sweeping up and down the eastern part of the country, which certainly was not the plan. We’re biding our time, basically, waiting for word from various doctors, to see where to next. 

A good example of how convoluted our plans have been is my freaking struggle for a computer. I use an iPad for my medical notes, a backup for navigation while we’re towing the Airstream, blogging; basically my life is on my iPad.  Back at Watkins Glen the charging port failed and I tried to buy a new one. After several false starts, I picked one up in Albany, and I was sitting at the Apple Store prepping the old one to recycle—which was tricky because it was almost out of battery—when an Apple person pointed out that there’s a charging port on my keyboard.  

Let me repeat that: there’s a charging port on my keyboard.  I’ve been using this sucker for four years and never noticed that.  I am officially an idiot.  But a happy one, because this means my old iPad is still functional and I don’t have to shell out the big bucks for a new one. Now I’m back in action, marginally better at proofreading my own blog posts, you’ll be happy to hear.  

Researching and typing on my tiny phone is part of my excuse for being a mess lately, the other being, of course, thinking I had a freaking brain tumor.  The relief when I found out I don’t have one lasted a few glorious hours, but then Tracy and I were back to:

Well, what now?  

If anything, I’m a bigger medical mystery than I was before, since I have all the symptoms and labs indicating a tumor, but nothing’s there.  In other words, something else is seriously f*cked up, and I best be figuring out what. 

I had high hopes for a doctor in Richmond, but that’s most likely not gonna pan out because she can’t get me in until late summer, and after that she can’t do telehealth across state lines. Why didn’t I think of that impediment sooner? I haven’t canceled her appointment though, because right now it’s all I’ve got. So we’re headed back to Virginia just in case it’s all I’ll ever get.

I’ve got other irons in the ole medical mystery fire that I won’t name here for fear of jinxing myself. I swear, I get all worked up on promising leads, but then the complications of medical records and appointment dates and finding a place to camp worm their way in and wear me down.  

My real problem is other people’s fatigue of me: a syndrome I’m causing among friends and medical staff from coast to coast.  Let’s call it Shelly Fatigue.  Tracy warned me about this, that if I call/email/message the staff at my primary care provider seven million times, they’re gonna start avoiding me. And now this Boy Who Cried Wolf (the Girl Who Asked for a Referral?) is having to pay the price, because I need this one final referral; this is the one that’s gonna stick, I just know it.

In the meantime, here are my last photos from our last few days in New York. It really was a grand time in all the ways that help a person get through Self Fatigue.

We met my friend Matt and his son at the campsite for a couple of hours of real-life chatting, which was super welcome considering I’ve known Matt online for years but had never met IRL. See the smiles? IRL is superior! Thanks for making time to visit with us, Matt. Next time I hope it’s the whole dam fam.

We drove right over the border to Massachusetts to walk with friends Whit and Melanie through a favorite botanical garden. They, too, made time in their busy lives—to walk and talk with us while planning the growth of their own garden at home. What a pleasure. We took several great photos, but below is my fav.

Whit’s Led Zeppelin IV reenactment is uncanny, right?

The top photo is from the children’s section of the botanical garden, where Tracy says my young self must’ve written this on the wish tree. Because, I did meet an octopus once, and it was all I could hope for.

Thanks, friends, for not succumbing to Shelly Fatigue. At least not yet.