Last Leg Of Our Road Trip To Alabama & Present update

                                             Tuesday 10/28/2014


          Just a quick note to update you on some present issues before I continue my blog. I ask for all your prayers for Mallery. We were woke up Tuesday morning at 5AM with her coughing and gasping for air. This use to happen all the time, but she has not done this for a very long time. We always had to calm her down by petting her and letting her know she was OK. When you wake up unable to breath, it sets off anxiety. Anxiety causing the situation to get worse, by causing inflammation.  Unfortunately we could not get her to calm down, and the labor breathing and coughing continued. We called and made an appointment to see a vet, but she couldn't be seen until 4PM. I gave her Benadryl, something I was told to do by previous vets because it has a calming effects. I was told I could drop Mallery off at the vets before hand, but I knew how much she hates vets, which would have made things worse. 1I was told the Dr had gone into emergency surgery, so I knew she probably would not be seen away. By the time she was seen at 4PM she was coughing and wheezing almost constantly with just a few 5 minutes stretches throughout the day where she finally would fall a sleep per exhaustion. As soon as the vet saw her and getting her history of collapsing trachea diagnosis at age 6 and a tumor in her trachea diagnosed in October, she took her and gave her a shot, 1/2 intravenously and 1/2 under her skin. The first was for immediate help, and the second for long term effect. She sent me home with antibiotics and prednisone with hopes the change to humid weather had caused inflammation in her trachea. It took almost 1 1/2 before Mallery started to calm down. By 12:00 that night she had started to wheeze and cough again. I was instructed only to give her the prednisone during the night if she really needed it, otherwise give it to her in the AM. I gave her her first dose at 12AM. It took 2 hours before she calmed down and then slept until 4AM. Again at 4AM she got another dose, with the same results of 2 hours of stress until she calmed down. She then slept til 8AM. Today I talked to the Dr. and because I got some result of quiet time, she wanted me to start the prednisone before the coughing started so it would not take so long to get the inflammation down, as well as increasing the dose. Today we have not had any coughing but still lots of whizzing, which is uncomfortable for Mallery somewhat. The hope is that her trachea got inflammed from the 11 hours of stressing from non treatment. If we can not get her back to the way she had been, than that indicates the tumor has grown and is cutting off her air and is the cause of the problem. If that is the case all the medicine in the world is not going to help. It is evening now, even though Mallery had a pretty good day, like most people, the evening is when things get worse. I gave her a dose and 2 hours later she is still wheezing and stressed. The Dr gave me some medicine that I could put on her gums that would calm her down in more of an emergency situation. I reluctantly gave her that because I didn't want her stressed anymore. In about 5 minutes she stopped wheezing and now is resting quietly. This couldn't have happened at a worse time with News Years Eve and vets extremely busy yesterday and today and closed tomorrow. Please pray that I make the right decisions and help Mallery get better or help her go in peace to her final home in heaven.

After 4 nights in Nashville it was time to hit the road again. It had been pretty hot and we were anxious to get to our final destination for the winter.

Our campground at Two Rivers Campground was on the NE side of Nashville right off I-65. We really had to be on our toes as Nashville had several quick turn off and lane switching one right after the other.

We were glad to be out of the city, and don't look forward to this route again though it is the most direct route from Boyne City MI. to Gulf Shores, AL. Maybe after a few times of doing this route it will become familiar, but with our memories I doubt it.

No mountains to go through on this route just hills.

We left Tennessee and enter into "Alabama The Beautiful".

Across the border is a rest stop with a space shuttle visible for mile. We didn't stop because we had only been on the road for a short while.

When we did stop for lunch Mallery took a nap after her short walk to take care of business.

As the afternoon drew late we hit fog, which you see a lot of in Alabama, and also more construction.

We were stopping for the night just north of Birmingham, AL., so I checked out the weather. A little cooler than Nashville with rain that evening.

The fog got thicker quickly.

Then the fog lifted as fast as it came upon us. I watched this truck from afar, and wondered what he was hauling. As I got close, I realized it was a transplant tree.

We arrived into Gardendale, AL. and right after we got off the interstate, we missed our turn. Our turn had lane barriers up and the GPS didn't tell us to get over until we missed the lane opening. We made the next turn in hopes to get back on track, only to see what Joe thought was a dead end,

so not knowing what to do, he made a snap decision and pulled into the Comfort Inn parking lot.

This is where we realized, making snap decision can create more problem, and if you are on a "not so busy street", which we were, it is best to just stop and evaluate the situation before making a move. Too late now, so we hoped this decision wouldn't be a big problem to get out of.

Once in the parking lot we saw the yellow poles at the exit and the exit was also way to narrow for us at the angle we would be coming from. First thought was " what have we got yourselves into this time"? Joe got out and walk around the Comfort Inn and thought there was enough room to go out that way. Next he walked down the road and found the dead end looking road was not a dead end after all. The barrier was to let drivers know not to go straight but to make a turn. That was good news.

With the driver back in his seat, we started our drive around the Comfort Inn. We were blessed that there were no cars in the parking spots or this would have been much trickier.

The back side of the Inn was no problem.

But turning to the next side of the Inn,

would have been difficult again if there were cars in the parking lot.

There was one truck parked, but it was in one of the last slots, so we cleared it. As you can see on the turn, we had to drive into the empty parking spots.

At last we were almost ready to exit where we entered.

Good bye Comfort Inn, so glad you didn't have many guest on this day.

We make the turn we should have done before we entered into Comfort Inn.

At the Super Wal-Mart, we see more yellow posts, but this one was for a low entrance. Luckily there was a truck entrance we could access to get to our Wal-Mart parking spot for the night. All the trials and tribulations of Rving.