Still seeing the eye doctor…

You may recall that a couple posts ago I mentioned that the VA surgeon down in Tucson had used non-dissolving sutures in my eye though he’d told me face to face that they would be the dissolving type, but the other eye surgeon, the one that put the bubble of gas inside while teaming with that doctor didn’t seem to notice they were the wrong color during the post surgery visits? But the optometrist here at the Walla Walla clinic sure did easily enough. Not only was that surgery in Tucson 6 hours longer than they told me it was going to be, I woke up at 6:30 PM and had gone under at 10:30 AM, but the one doctor used the wrong sutures? And the other surgeon didn’t notice? WTH?

Anyway, now that I’m up here in Walla Walla the VA eye clinic sent me to another local eye clinic that works with veterans (no cost to me) that has an ophthalmologist (rather than an optometrist that’s available at the VA clinic), and he removed the sutures 3 weeks ago. Took 5 weeks to get in to see him. After he removed the sutures he’d found some weird green thing on my cornea and prescribed a new eye drop to be used in conjunction with the ones I was already taking. And it seemed to work right away, because as soon as I started using it, the discomfort went away. He also put a clear soft contact lens over the cornea as protection. The next visit he thought the green spot might be an ulcer so scraped off a layer of my cornea (which had also happened down in Tucson earlier in the year). This last visit, he wants me to keep using the eye drops, left the protective soft contact lens off, said the green thing is still there but looks smaller/better, and I go in again in 2 weeks rather than one. And the first couple days it seemed fine, but after a week, it’s started to really bother me again. Grr. Wondering if I’m ever going to have comfortable vision in my left eye after all this. And it all started with a torn retina that happened in my sleep, back in February.

Well, whatever, aging and stuff. Not fun.

So, I’m hanging out here in Milton Freewater, trying to do stuff with one eye, and enjoying hot weather that is in comparison to further south, balmy. Here’s a few shots of where I’m parked now, I was previously parked over in the space on the right in this picture where my LR slide abutted the fence (can’t see it here), but now both sides of the RV are clear so I’ll be able to work on the slide eventually. And I now have a tree that helps shade the side of my RV in the afternoons. I’m hoping the park manager will be able to help with the slide problem but it’s really hard getting him to commit to anything at a certain time. Oh, he eventually gets ’round2it’ it just takes a long long time. He is pretty busy though.Some things he never gets to. The park manager is now using that space I was in to park his vehicles and the park’s big work trucks.

You can see another RV in the background…we park tail to tail in this RV park. But the park was designed wrong. All the services are on the wrong side as everyone wants to park facing the street, not the ass end of another RV so we all park wrong on this side and then connect to the other side’s services however we’re able. Like I’m supposed to connect to the services at #5, but actually connect to #6’s services. It’s glitches like this that keep the owners from raising the rents too much too fast though, so that’s good. But everything, WES, all work well so I’m not complaining about having to screw around with a power, sewer, and water setup that’s a bit uncomfortable.

The space is out in the open mostly and that will lead to lots of nice warm sunshine hitting my RV as winter rolls in. Right now though, with the temps in 80’s, it is a bit warm. Happy that my heatpump is working well and keeping me cool during this heat wave. It’s on the nightly news that this area is in a ‘heat advisory’ situation but here where I am, I’m comfortable. Walla Walla valley tends to be cooler then surrounding areas. It sure helps having AC though. South of us 45 miles or so is a wild fire where there is grassland and sparsely treed land, I think they have it under control now…

And here’s the pot farm my neighbor behind my RV set up on top of his RV. His license plate tags expired in 2019 so I don’t think he’s going anywhere soon, so building something like this isn’t that unusual. It’s not an access ramp or front porch, but it’s something…

We had a big wind storm not long ago and the work was good enough that it didn’t fall over onto the back of my RV, whew, so I’m okay with the construction. It helps that prevailing winds are pushing it away from me rather then towards. Incidentally, the last big wind storm we had where this construction did fine, blew my daughters steel building off it’s foundation, crumpled it up, and tossed it over the nearby creek. Total loss. I am happy this construction passed that test.

I finally got the ambition and removed the dishwasher from the back of my car and set it up next to the passenger’s side of my RV, hooked it up, and it’s broken again. Dammit! It worked fine for a couple months last year but this time, it’s computer is acting all crazy like. There’s a plastic pipe that cracked and is leaking. And that pipe that developed the crack is difficult to replace, pressurized water tube that rotted out and split open when I tried using it, then crumbled into tiny pieces along a portion. I’m trying to figure out how to fix it or replace it now.

Here’s where I have it set up. I have a plastic cover for it that I put on when the weather gets bad.

It’s only 18″ wide so I was hoping I’d be able to remodel my RV’s kitchen and put it next to the sink. If I can’t get it fixed though…dammit, $80-$90 bucks down the drain so to speak.

Here’s a close up of the plastic pipe that’s crumbling. I put Eternabond tape around it to stop the leak, but it was just to high of pressure and while it worked long enough to get one load of dishes done, eventually it started leaking around the tape. That solid cement epoxy patch there where the pipe enters the cabinet  near the rear edge is where I fixed a leak last year that worked surprisingly well. Once that was fixed I used it all the time to do my dishes. But if I’d been able to store the thing inside instead of in the back seat of my car for nearly a year, I don’t think that pipe would have rotted and cracked.

And of course, after hours of searching, I can’t find that pipe as a repair part anywhere. Dbl Dammit.

It’s a custom piece too. Eventually, after some internet searching I found the manufacturers USA web site with exploded views of parts, found the part I need, prepared to order only to find that the part is discontinued. Dammit!

I’m going to try using reinforced clear plastic hose from the hardware store to replace the broken pipe and hope that the leak is what was causing the computer to say there’s a problem. So maybe after I get that leaking pipe replaced with something, whatever sensor is signaling the computer of a problem will shut up and I’ll be able to use it again. If I get it fixed this time though, I won’t ever put it in the back seat of the car for storage again. I expect to be here in M-F until mid-November when I fly to Costa Rica for a months vacation so that will give me plenty of time before I leave and after I return to do sometime with the dishwasher. Junk it or install it inside my RV and bolt it to the floor, or perhaps get the RV park to let me store it in one of the park buildings.  As I said though, plenty of time to get something done with it one way or the other. If this replacement hose doesn’t do the trick though, I’ll probably just junk it.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[Update]: The reinforced plastic hose I got from True Value hardware worked great. What I did was cut the side section of pipe off (the left one of the two pipes that go down the side in the picture above) near the top, stuck the hose over that pipe, then on the other end I was able to just push it inside the hole that was there for the old plastic pipe. Then I used some 2 part water proof epoxy to seal each end. I let it harden over a couple days in good weather and when I tried it, it worked! No leaking!

So I used it for several weeks washing my dishes. In early November, I drained it as best I could and then on Nov. 8th, headed to Seattle for my flight to Costa Rica. By that time I’d asked the manager here (nicely) if he’d move it inside the storage building for me and he said sure several times. When I got back on December 16th, it was still still outside next to my RV. I did have the foresight to cover it with plastic though. Hope it’s not ruined.