Saturday, January 08, 2011

Another Doctor Visit

I took Mom back to her primary physician for a follow up visit.  It turns out she has severe sleep apnea and will need a CPAP mask to sleep.  They did a 3 night in home study and found that she had many episodes every night.  It turned out she stopped breathing around a hundred times a night, and for up to nearly 2 minutes!  The doctor thinks that may be causing a lot of her problems.  I can't imagine an 81 year old woman holding her breath for 2 minutes, yet she was doing it while she slept.  It's amazing she woke up.  The doctor said if you snore you should be tested for sleep apnea.  I think we'll get Al tested pretty soon because he snores a lot.

We have occasionally noticed a faint propane odor in the motor home when we turn on the water heater.  I don't keep it on all the time, just before we want a shower, or I need to wash dishes.  We checked the fittings and found a small leak.  We tightened it,  but we're still noticing the smell.  We've tried to trace the water heater propane line, but it goes under the floor and we can't get at any connections in that area.   Now the propane detector has started to sound too, so it's even more alarming.   I think the detector is working properly because when it sounds, I also smell propane.

I found a mobile Rv repairman that was recommended to us.  He's coming this morning.  In the meantime, we're not using the hot water heater.  Hopefully he will be able to find the problem and repair it without us having to take the motor home into a shop.  It's much more difficult with animals.

9 comments:

  1. Not that you shouldn't get it fixed, but can't you use the electric for the HWH?

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  2. Did you put soapy water on the parts you could get to? To see if it had any bubbles where the leak could be?

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  3. Yikes! That's pretty serious when you can smell propane and the detector goes off. Glad to hear you're getting that looked at real quick!

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  4. Jim wears a CPAC at night - at least when we have hookups. And it really does make a difference. I actually get more sleep because his snoring isn't keeping me awake.

    Sure hope you get your propane smell fixed really quick.

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  5. So glad you got a reasonable answer to your mom's problems. Good luck with the propane, that's a bit scary for sure. Your last sentence was a big deal. I hadn't thought much about how difficult it could be to deal with repairs to your motorhome when you have animals. whew.

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  6. Hope you find that propane leak quick. In the meantime, no flames--- no stove going -- no candles ?

    Glad your mom is on the right track to what is ailing her and finding some answers!

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/

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  7. Do you have carriers for the cats?

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  8. John and Joan,
    No electric HW. Ours only runs on propane, unfortunately.

    Kenny and Angela
    We have some propane/gas leak detector solution. We've been told soapy water can cause corrosion on copper tubes, so we don't use that. We did find a connection that needed tightening, but that was all we found.

    Merikay
    Yes, we have carriers for the cats. We feel it's safer that way.

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  9. Good idea to call for help, propane is nothing to fool with.

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