Oh No, Not Again

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 85, low 68)

The summer rainy season has started and we're getting our afternoon showers, which often bring strong storms with a lot of thunder and lightning.  We are very anxious to get back up to the mountains.  It's stifling hot and humid here.


When we go to the Keys, we have no mobile RV repair person that we know and trust, so we always try to do repair or replace anything we think may go wrong, before we go to the Keys.

If you remember from my previous blog posts, our preventative maintenance didn't work well this year, when our our almost new RV toilet broke while we were in the Keys.   Of course we didn't have spare parts (we do now) and had a bit of a dilemma trying to repair it ourselves.

Our Thetford Aria Classic toilet is porcelain including the bowl and the base, but unfortunately, the foot pedal mechanism is plastic and poorly designed.

Well, guess what?   Not two months after we repaired the toilet, the foot mechanism broke again!   Grrrrrrrr.  That toilet was only a year old when it first broke.

We called Tim Stratton our favorite local mobile Rv guy, has relocated to North Carolina, so now we have to find another repair guy.   Grrrrr

We found another local mobile guy and have an appointment for the repair.  He's a bit young, so I hope he has enough experience to be able to handle all the potential things that can go wrong in an RV.   The bolts on the closet flange on our RV are lined up at an angle. They don't move, because the closet flange is all one piece and all a part of the holding tank.  When we tried to install another toilet, the bolts didn't line up correctly and we were unable to install it.  Just as an FYI, apparently this is quite common and there is a part you can install to make it work.   We just found that out and I don't know what it's called.

We have to decide whether to replace or repair the toilet.  He said all Rv toilets are made pretty much the same way and they all use cheap plastic parts.   We think our Aria toilet wasn't put together properly from the factory and one part isn't centered like it should be.   We were afraid to take it all apart and try to center it correctly when we were in the Keys because if we messed up, we would have been without a toilet.   Maybe our new Rv guy can do something with it because we feel that is the cause of the foot pedal breaking.   We will have to see how it turns out.  Sorry for so much toilet info, but I like to document things because for sure we won't remember in a year or two.  :)



I went to the doctor earlier this week because I've felt some pressure (if that's the correct way to describe it)  in my chest.  It felt more like a lung issue than a heart issue and since I used to be a smoker (30+ years ago) and I did a few Google searches of my symptoms,  I felt it might be a good idea to get it checked out.  They did a breathing test which I passed with flying colors, an EKG, just as a precaution  and a chest x-ray and everything appeared fine.  I felt pretty good afterwards after passing those tests.  I decided to wait and see if I start to get better before I followed up with the doctor.  We both had a pretty good respiratory bug a few months ago, so maybe it's still there a little.  I wondered if I had pneumonia. I guess the tests ruled that out.

A few days later, we met a neighbor who just lost her husband a few weeks ago.  They had just sold their house in Tampa, and were planning on spending the summer in Maine.  He felt ill, and went to the doctor.  They did a chest x-ray among other things and said he was fine.  A few days later he ended up in the ER where they did an MRI and discovered he had lung cancer and his lungs were completely eaten up with cancer.  Eighteen days later he was dead.  That just goes to prove how short and unfair life can be.  I felt  so sorry for this poor woman and her husband.  

Of course, when she told me the x-ray of his chest didn't show his lung cancer, my good results from my medical tests don't make me feel as secure as they did before I heard about him.

The breathing issues I was having seem to be better, but if they don't clear up, I will go back to the doctor.  I'm just wondering if some of the respiratory bug I had had started to surface again. I've been taking my echinacea and will definitely keep an eye on things, and although I am not  big on seeing a doctor, I will follow up if I need to.


Al is getting his annual physical today.   He also had an appointment with the surgeon as a follow up on his rotator cuff surgery.  His surgeon is the doctor for the Tampa Bay Lightning (hockey team) and they will be playing in the Stanley Cup finals starting today. He got a call from the doctors office canceling his appointment and all others this week.  I guess the hockey team has a higher priority than Al.  :)



I heard that Live Writer has partially fixed their program but the pictures still won't load.  Since my last experience posting via Blogger worked out so well, I decided to try again.

I am posting some pictures from last summer in the mountains, just to test blogger again.

BTW, does anyone know where in Blogger can you tell how many words you are posting/writing?
The word count showed up in Live Writer, but I can't find it in Blogger.

I am posting these in the large size.  I usually use medium because if I remembered right, the large were too large for my blog pages.  It looks okay, we'll see, I guess.

I think I just may stick with doing my blog posts in Blogger.