Priorities

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry.     I have been planning to take a Waddles trip to Red Lodge Montana this month with a couple things in mind.  One, to drive the Beartooth Highway, which looks amazing.  The other is to deliver some historic photos and documents to the Historical Society in Red Lodge.    I was hoping to leave on this trip next week, but....

I have two cats which are the reason I don't travel in the winter time.   In the summer another person lives here and can care for the kitties if I'm gone.    Well, for the second time in her life, one of my cats is crashing.   She is a small cat, now about 10 years old.  When I got her at the shelter, at the age of about 2, she weighed 8 lbs.  5 years ago she got really sick and lost a lot of weight.  At that time she was tentatively diagnosed with a nasty, fatal disease and was not expected to live long.   Well, she recovered and has been well since then, though she never got her weight back up over 7 lbs.

Recently I noticed that she seemed really thin, weighed her, and she was down to 5.2 lbs.   I took her to the vet who ordered blood work.    Nothing abnormal, so they took X-rays (thinking there may be a mass in her stomach or something like that, she has a history of digestive issues).   This showed that, although she's eating, her stomach, intestines and bowel were completely empty and she was dehydrated.    The options they offered me were more tests, lots of money and lots of trauma for my poor kitty.   They really had no clue what was wrong.

Yesterday I took her in for a urine sample (she weighted in at 4.8lbs!). They suspected a Urinary Tract Infection yesterday and sent me home with antibiotics and probiotics which I started giving her immediately.    Yesterday she didn't eat much, last night she spent the night sitting in the darkest tightest corner she could find in the house, and I was pretty sure I was going to have to put her down today or tomorrow.     This morning, after 3 doses of meds, she was eating and seemed almost perky.     The Vet called with the test results and confirmed she has a UTI, which could be affecting her kidneys, which possibly could cause the weight loss.   He said that I should see a marked improvement in her behavior over the next 24-48 hours.  She will get tested again after 14 days to see if the infection is completely gone, and to see what her weight and well being are.

So, I'm tied to home, giving her lots of food, and meds for the next 14 days to see if she can overcome this setback.    I love this little kitty, so am happy to make her my priority.    Red Lodge can wait.

In the mean time I've been doing some work on fixing the Waddles issues I mentioned in the previous post.

Door Locks:
I think this one is operator error.   It seems that one of the locks throws the dead bolt, the other keeps the outside latch from being opened.  So evidently they work fine, and I was just clueless.

Front bin bolts:
I called the NuCamp Warranty number and they are sending me the missing bolts for the bin on the tongue which holds the propane and the battery.    Interestingly they said when they ship the trailers to the dealer, the bin is stored inside the cabin, and the dealer attaches it to the tongue, so it possibly was never attached correctly.

Converter:
They said someone would have to test the converter and the Refrigerator to determine what is going on with them.    I could not get an appt at the dealer in Portland until the end of October, so my resident mechanic is helping me to trouble shoot some things to see if we can figure out what is going on.   We have tested the converter by running big things (fridge and fan and AC) and running just small things (like the LED lights and the phone charger).    My mechanic thinks the noise it makes may happen when there is only a very small draw on the converter.   We will keep testing this.

Refrigerator:
The NuCamp person told me the Fridge temperature fluctuations could be caused by having the hatch on the back of the trailer closed so there is not enough air circulation.    Reading the Fridge manual, it sounds like this is a very real possibility and the space the Fridge is in clearly does not allow for the proper air circulation no matter what.  

I'm also looking at replacing the 20 gallon propane tank with a narrower 10 gallon tank (it is only used for the stove burners, which I don't use that much), to make room for 2 golf cart batteries to replace the bigger RV/Marine battery that is there.   My understanding is that the 2 will hold a charge longer than the 1.


Stay tuned!