Our NEW Life on Wheels

Hey, everybody! Thank you all for your strong support, encouragement and prayers in response to Suzy's two posts about her upcoming surgery. That was awesome and overwhelming!

You can imagine, perhaps, that our life is going to be focused for quite a while on two things: Suzy's new life and my term on the Saguaro Co-op Park's Board of Directors. I still have two years to go on the Board, and my expectation is that I will be adding some significant new duties starting next month.

For Suzy, we'll be taking baby steps, moving through the stages of recovery, learning what she can eat and what she can't. We've been to classes, we've read the books, we've joined an online support group, we've talked to others who have been through it. Now it will still be baby steps, but we are encouraged about taking them.

In the meantime, our RVing life will have to change. We have a major goal of getting to Nova Scotia in 2015, or at least starting our trip to there that year. The way we look at it, it will be a two-year trip. But first, we have to take a different set of baby steps. Suzy won't be driving the motorhome for quite a while, of course, and I haven't had much experience recently, so I have to re-learn the skills of handling the beast. We have to find places nearby where we can take short trips as soon as Suzy can handle them.

That takes us to our little journey Saturday. We had heard about Roper Lake State Park here in Arizona, so we bundled ourselves into the car and made the 175 mile round trip to check out Roper Lake, and to see what's is in that neighborhood.

Roper Lake, what a neat place! The lake itself is fairly small, but attractive; no, I didn't take any pictures, because we had a 15-minute pass -- no fee for that -- to simply drive through and take a look. There are three campgrounds within the park. One is a group campground with a few cabins and no hookups at the RV pads. The other two have nicely designed RV sites with electric and water connections. We made notes of the best looking sites, and will try to reserve one of them for a future visit or two. Those sites are near the lake itself and have great views of nearby Mt. Graham, which is currently decorated with the winter's snow.

From Roper Lake we drove a few miles further north to the town of Safford. We passed the Elks Lodge (small but no RV parking we could find) and ended up at the Manor House, probably the nicest restaurant in town.

The Manor House, with snowy Mount Graham (elev. 10720 feet) in the background

The Manor House was well appointed, decorated in an Old West theme. There were even big old wagons, three of 'em, hanging from the ceiling!

This lamp, showing an Apache couple in stained glass, sat on  the end of the salad bar.

Here Suzy got to practice her temporary new eating style in a restaurant. We both ordered a Poncho Villa Burger -- topped with pepper jack cheese, green chili pepper, tomato slice, lettuce and onion. But Suzy ordered hers without a bun, because she is not to be eating any bread, potatoes, rice, noodles, etc. prior to her surgery. As a side dish we each ordered a cup of pinto bean soup. Suzy is to be concentrating on protein the rest of her life, and those beans are high in protein. The burger was wonderful, the soup delicious. Suzy took the veggies from her burger and set them aside as a salad, which she topped with a very light balsamic dressing.

The past six days, and for the next nine, my lady gets two protein drinks a day, plus one "light" meal, for a daily input not to exceed 1000 calories.

One of Suzy's protein shakes -- 30 grams of chocolaty protein, lots of vitamins and minerals,  and only 160 calories.

Yesterday we calculated she managed to get lots of protein and all of 989 calories! She is not suffering from major hunger pains, and in these six days has lost 9.1 pounds!

On the way home from Safford, we noticed a wonderful cloud formation, and had to get a picture.

Suzy has mentioned going with other surgery candidates to a pre-operative meeting led by a registered nurse who had similar surgery many years ago. It is Gayle who was a major force in developing the hospital's bariatric program; she serves now as the Bariatric Coordinator of the hospital. She told us that she hears complaints from some people about all the stuff they have to give up to get this procedure: desserts, mashed potatoes and gravy, coffee, eating out frequently, drinking. Gayle's response to that is: what have you had to give up to get here? Mobility. Breathing well. Walking more than fifteen feet without having to rest. Pain-free days. You'll give up some other things, sure, but look what you will gain back: mobility, walking, freedom from at least some of the pain, buying clothes in normal sizes. And before long you'll be eating what you like, in very small portions.

Sunday morning we awoke to a gorgeous sky. I grabbed a couple of quick shots before my battery died, and by the time the battery had been replaced, the color was gone!

So that's what we are seeing this week in ... Our Life on Wheels.