You know the rest of the saying…when it rains, it pours. Or perhaps it would be more apt to say when it snows, hunker down for a blizzard.
I was planning to write an Ava medical update today, instead I probably need a little space for a rant. Or as my dear friend Mary used to say, I need to have a little “come apart.” Because coming apart is pretty much how the Muir-N-Slager clan is feeling right now.
We made it through surgery number one last Thursday, surgery number two (the nose) was Tuesday. The good news, really the only important news, is that Ava came through the surgery just fine! It was a relatively fast surgery, although the aftermath has been much more painful than we imagined it would be. We were all hoping for an external fix – essentially an ENT whacks the nose back in the other direction and sometimes it stays put. Unfortunately, that kind of fix didn’t work for Ava. According to the ENT, he tried an external fix first and, as he described it, “after I moved her nose back into place, the OR staff watched her nose slowly move back in the direction of the break.” So, the ENT had to do a septoplasty. Essentially, he had to correct her deviated septum in order to get her nose to stay where it is supposed to be. I am pretty sure this is run of the mill ENT stuff, but when you are 13 it is pretty awful to have your nose surgically fixed and wake up with splints inside and outside of your nose. It’s a terrible mess and hurts like hell.
But still we are making medical progress! So, Dan and Hazel decided to head back to Moby, currently parked in Reno, NV. I was excited for them. We all miss the trip and miss Moby and were of the collective opinion that Dan and Hazel should carry on for the next week while Ava and I stay holed up in Big Sky waiting for our surgical follow ups on Monday, February 10. Our plan was to get Ava medically cleared and then Ava and I would fly to San Francisco and meet up with Dan and Hazel on February 11. We still have a long road ahead, 6 total weeks on crutches and then several months of rehab, but at least we would be traveling down the road together in Moby.
So yesterday everyone but Ava and I cleared out of our rental house here in Big Sky. I was making it through the day with Ava when Dan called from Reno to tell me that Moby had a problem with DC power. AC power seemed to work ok, but DC didn’t. Also, there was a problem with the water, Dan wasn’t sure what it was. It was late afternoon as he was figuring all of this out. I suppose at some point he and Hazel packed it in for the night, hoping to find some solutions this morning.
Apparently, this morning didn’t come with solutions. Dan, who never gets overwhelmed, called me sounding overwhelmed. Moby has some serious problems. Our battery array is completely shot and we seem to have multiple leaks in our water lines – Dan can’t tell how extensive the water problem is but it seems pretty bad. To make it worse, the RV repair shops in Reno (like most shops it seems) are backed up. One of the shops told him it would be a month till they could help us repair the water lines. A MONTH? I am all about taking one day at a time, but A MONTH?! Are they $&%@*& kidding?!
So, in summary, we have a kid with a broken knee and nose. We have an RV with broken water lines a bad battery array and maybe something else wrong with the electrical system. We were supposed to be headed south through California preparing for our final turn east – home on the horizon. Instead our family is disbursed across two states trying to plot a return to health for our eldest and our home on wheels. It’s hard to see how we continue this trip injured and homeless, but I will be damned if we don’t find a way.
Wish us good energy and a great repair shop. We need all the positive energy we can get.
Wow. Hang in there! Sending positive thoughts and prayers of healing for the kid AND the RV.
Carolyn….. what a post! Good golly day!! So I am sending good, strong, solution-based thoughts, wishes, and prayers your way. I’d say you have a flash flood on your hands and need Noah! Seriously, I am sorry for your woes. If it helps, we have had crummy yucky weather here in Charlotte. Rain and wind. I sure do hope your luck turns soon. You are due some about now. Hold on to the good and hope you can chuck the bad soon and get on the road again. Moby needs a good hospital too it seems.
Hang in…xoxo
Lucy
MAJOR positive thoughts on the way!!! And some good books and a LOAD of Chocolate!!
Wow, that is a lot happening at the moment. If you were all together, it would be easier to laugh and focus on finding the way. Maybe Moby doesn’t want to move without the family intact? We all know you guys will make the best of it…and, I will say a special prayer for y’alls. Looking forward to the next update about the family. Still love that you have done this trip!!
OH, Carolyn, that is SO frustrating! Sending prayers for Ava and also for a quick fix for Moby!!
You all, every one of you, are amazing. Hold that thought, Carolyn. You will get through this and will have an even stronger family and massively more memories and stories to keep you for decades ahead. All of out here are pulling for you and we hope you can feel that.
Love to you all.
Prayers are with you, hope all will be alright going forward.
BTW thanks for all the posts
Carolyn, leave it to me to make this cheesy, but maybe this is one of those huge life lessons where the kiddos get to see what it means to have big bumps in life and work their way though them. Being in Big Sky when Ava had her accident and witnessing Dan and you handle things so beautifully, calmly and in such a level-headed and reasonable fashion was something to behold. You two set the bar for approaching problem situations in the correct fashion. Hang in there. This, too, shall be figured out by you guys, who happen to be an amazing team.
Hi Carolyn – so sorry to hear about Ava and the surgeries. Sounds painful. Also, so sorry to hear about the RV problems. I listen to a podcast called The RV Entrepreneur by Heath Padgett. He has interviewed some nomad RV repair people on some of the podcasts and I found 5is group on his website. http://www.thervgeeks.com/ Also, there is another group not referenced by Heath here: https://nomadrvsolutions.com/. I do not know if either one can help but maybe they could provide some ideas. What an awful turn of events but hopefully things turn around for all 4 of you soon! Ardath
Oh man, it’s a double-whammy for sure! Glad Ava came through surgery and hope her pain subsides soon. Now we just need to find the RV ER that will do the trick for Moby. (And perhaps find a liquor store for you and Dan for something “for medicinal purposes,” as my dad used to say.))
Dear Carolyn,
This is Jim Nechas again, the guy from Pennsylvania who went to high school with your father-in-law, Bill Muir, and I want to say that the accounts of Ava’s medical adventures have hit home very hard for me. When I was very young, perhaps 3 or 4 and certainly less than 10, my nose was broken by a metal toy truck that a friend (and surely a future delinquent) was swinging around on a rope. As the nose’s history-to-come proved, it was badly broken, but no one involved seemed to know it and nothing was done to correct things. Over the years of my childhood, the nose’s inadequacies showed up time and again, but these blips seemed minor, and they, too, were ignored until all sorts of congestion problems befell it and I began to have trouble breathing whether I had a cold or not. As a result, I had an operation in the eighth grade to remove some defective (and apparently spare) parts, and all was thought to be honkey-dory again. Unfortunately, I continued to commit football with Bill, and my inadequate nose was continually waylaid in those days of either no face masks or their early and flimsy fiberglass imitations, the ones that sometimes snapped in cold Ohio weather. By the time I reached high school, I was breathing exclusively through my mouth (which sometimes complicated dating) and often asked by coaches which direction my nose had been tilting when the game started. The public school upshot of all this was that my high school graduation picture revealed that I looked like Carmine Basilio, a boxer-thug much made fun of in those days. To make matters somewhat worse, I needed a football scholarship to get to college, and I continued to play until I discovered that colleges had classes as well as football teams and that I both liked them and was pretty good at their subjects. So I gave up nose-breaking, got an academic scholarship, and my parents made plans to, as we said then, have the nose put back in the middle of my face, which, in turn, led to a summer in the Cleveland Clinic between my freshman and sophomore years in school. The two operations and their recoveries were more or less bearable and more or less successful, but I’m very glad that I made my way through them. My parent’s’ healthcare policy refused to pay for a third procedure that would have provided me with a bridge, which resulted in the infant’s nose I continue to carry. And yet the Clinic rebuilt the sinus cavities on either side of the nose and over my eyebrows, which meant that for the first time since I was three, I could breath through my nose, a skill it took me well over a year to relearn.
The upshot to all this and my reason for writing is that I was delighted to hear that it had been decided to surgically fix Ava’s nose after its encounter with a tree. Given my sort of similar childhood accident, I was sure that was the right path and didn’t want her to follow my mouth-breathing footsteps into young adulthood. She’s a beautiful little girl, and my wife Eileen and I wish her a speedy and easy recovery and a comfortable path toward a date to the prom.
My other reason for writing is to tell you how much Eileen and I have enjoyed your other Montana adventures. For 15 tears we have traveled to the state to ride horses at the mountain lodge of friends, a place called the Broken Arrow Lodge in the Beaverhead National Forest just south of tiny Alder, Montana. If you check the map, you’ll see it is very close to Big Sky and Twin Bridges. In fact, we’re at a giant outdoor show in Harrisburg, PA, right now, helping them to convince folks to come to the lodge to ride, hunt, and fish. While I’m doing my huckstering, I’m wearing my 70th birthday cowboy hat, a gorgeous thing that was custom made for me by a woman who has a shop in Twin Bridges. She calls herself the Montana Mad Hatter, but her real name is Sheila Kirkpatrick, and she’s a member of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.
Eileen and I wish you the best of luck and a quick return to the trail,
Jim Nechas
Hi Jim, I meant to reply to this but forgot. Thanks for sending, sounds like a crazy journey for you. We are grateful indeed we were able to get the nose repaired quickly and successfully. We don’t forget for a minute how lucky we are to have access to fast, quality medical assistance. Best, Carolyn
Carolyn, this is perhaps the “slough of despair…” hopefully all gets better from here! Good thoughts, prayers, and vibes headed your way…
We are so happy to hear that the latest surgery went well and that you’re able to leave it behind and forge ahead! In addition to gratitude for Ava being on the mend – I think you and Dan probably both need a tequila shot. Safe travels to San Francisco. Keep the greasy side down.