Goin' Road Trippin'

Day in and day out we’ve been trying to get the eBay store organized, making the house more of a home and trying to get doctors, insurance, appointments and such squared away. We all needed a break, and I found a great deal on Groupon to go to keepers of the wild! It was half the cost (10 dollars each) and would’ve been worth the full 20 dollars per person. For an additional 10 you can ride on a guided tour. A few of us took the tour, while the rest of us walked.

This is not a zoo, it is a sanctuary for mistreated, neglected or animals that have encountered causes to be taken in.

Mitch and I were of the walking crowd, but the sisters rode on the tour, and said that they learned the history and circumstances that brought each animal to them.

Some of the cats here came from the Tiger King situation. We arrived Tuesday the 7th of June at 10 am and it was already HOT.

Their habitats are well kept, and they are very cared for. We learned that the best time to take the guided tour is at 3 pm, because that’s feeding time and you can really see all the animals.

The raccoon was Taylor’s favorite animal of the whole place, that sweet face captured her heart.

Not all of the animals were visible, some were napping in the shade, but on the ride the tour guide does give them treats while sharing their history.

I sang to the lion, trying to get him to look my way, but instead he made a huge yawn, roared a little and laid his head down. I’m going to say he liked it, in my head he loved it.. everyone else around.. meh not so much. After watching my video back, I see why. I sound sooo much better in my head!

We shopped at the gift shop afterwards, grateful for the experience and glad to know these animals are in good hands.

We plan to return to www.keepersofthewild.org for a 3 pm tour in the future, learn more about each animal and give to a good cause. If you’re ever near Kingman Arizona and love rescued animals, this is a great place to visit, it is actually located in Valentine AZ.

Things get lost, that happens in life, but in the whirlwind of moving there are still things missing. We’ve officially been in the house a month now and I have a box missing, my blow dryer, curling iron.. no where to be found. Maybe some day it’ll show up.

Speaking of things getting lost, Mitch got me a Tile. I put it on my keychain, so if I lose my keys I can find it with my phone and if I lose my phone I can push the tile button twice and it’ll alarm on my phone! it has already come in very handy!

We sold a book on eBay, searched high and low and it seems to be lost forever. We canceled the order, but still keep searching.

In the midst of getting situated even my drill ( the lightweight house drill) had vanished for weeks.

There was a bounty for it, Taylor would receive an extra hour of phone time if she found it, she traded Mitch a foot massage if he found it for her. We all hunted throughout the house for days, to no avail. Just two days ago, Mitch was getting a bathroom vanity moved that he’d taken out of our bathroom and was going to put in the other one when… taadaa!

He inadvertently put it in there when the plumber was here and he too was working in our bathroom. He hasn’t cashed in the foot massage, so Taylor hasn’t been rewarded the extra hour yet.

Overall the chaos has died down, we helped Angel go through her storage unit yesterday, we got a truck load of stuff and plan to have ANOTHER yard sale this week.

our living room is lined with boxes of just had to have or I love it items that we are all parting with.

Taylor’s latest recipe of her great great grandma book was split pea soup with a side of deviled eggs. It was the best split pea soup I’ve ever had! With some bacon cooking assistance for Mitch. She did a great job

My hedgehog, Kiwi has a tumor that just appeared last week. It’s a mammary gland tumor, quite common in hedgehogs and once it’s detected they say it’s usually too late. As of now he’s still enjoying the finer things in life, his toilet paper roll, meal worms and running on his wheel.

I woke up around 8 the other morning and Mitch had already been hard at work for hours

He decided to spruced up the back patio adding pavers so we aren’t always tracking in grass.

The beautiful end results

I’ve been trying to organize as I go, I went through all our pens.

Mitch is onto another project.. changing out our kitchen sink. He wanted a different faucet and I wanted a different sink, off to Home Depot we went. We also ordered a new fridge and over the range microwave. Will keep you posted on that down the road. Remodeling the kitchen will be a rewarding endeavor.

Ummm… ok a few days have passed again, sink is in

My man the fix it guy

We had our yard sale

And This morning, Sunday the 5th we decided to work on the kitchen before we get our new appliances!

We plan to replace the lights with other light fixtures

We’ll keep you posted on our progress!

As I’ve mentioned before, we all take turns cooking. We tried The Who’s next plan, but it had some flaws, mainly us forgetting the order we would go, so we amended it, to pick specific days. Mitch is Sunday, Angel is Monday, I’m Tuesday, Taylor is Wednesday, Eli is Thursday and Nettie has Fridays. Saturday is fend for yourself day or whoever has an idea.

This past Tuesday as we sat around having dinner, someone asked Miss Taylor, who’s 12, what she was making for dinner tomorrow. She’s mastered the grilled cheese, Ramen noodles and spaghettios, and is an amazing assistant when I’ve been cooking or baking in the kitchen. She wasn’t sure what to make, so it was suggested she check out some cook books to get some ideas. I immediately go to the bookshelf and grab her a stack of recipe books.

In the stack, was a recipe book that her Great Great Grandma Baldock had created years ago.

She began reading the inscription, and got quite intrigued.

Not only did she decide to make a few things from the book, but she’s now committed to making everything in the book. Each week, when it’s her turn to cook, we get to experience the new generation honoring the past. She made a list of everything in the book and will check them off once created.

She made for us Beef steak bundles

copper carrot Pennie’s

and snicker German cake, so yummy!

She was in the kitchen for hours, slicing dicing and baking. It was all her, except for cutting the meat, which she asked nana (angel) for assistance.

As the evening died down, Mitch and I were still awake at midnight, digging through more boxes. Exhausted, we finally called it a night around 12:30 am. Approximately 2 a.m. we are woke by a panicked knock on our door, and Angela’s voice saying, “you guys! Taylor got bit by a scorpion on her chest while she was sleeping! I don’t know what to do!” We hop out of bed, skeptical that it was a scorpion because we just had the whole house sprayed for bugs on the 9th. When Mitch made it into her room, there it was laying on the bed…dead. Mitch grabbed a paper towel and took it off her bed. Taylor had already been up, icing it, fearful of the possibility that it could kill her.

Not only was she bit, under the sheets, under her shirt, she was bit on the hand. She was in quit a bit of pain, saying it felt like 5 bee stings, but mainly the fear of getting bit by a poisonous scorpion had her in a panic. Honestly, we were all in a panic. We decided to call poison control to ask what to do. They stated that we need to watch her eyes, if they begin darting back and forth, nausea and vomiting and difficulty breathing we should take her into the emergency room. Mainly in the first hour, otherwise use an ice pack for the pain and try to keep her calm to reduce the spread of the venom. The hour passed, all was good and she fell back to sleep before the rest of us did.

Nettie decided to go out on the back patio after all the excitement, and spotted a large black spider up on the ceiling.

So how did the scorpion get to Taylor you ask, well, I’d ordered her a day bed from Amazon but it wasn’t scheduled to be delivered until June! She had her bed, but no frame. Since the exterminators came and sprayed, we thought she’d be safe sleeping on the bed on the floor. Wow, were we wrong! Having a frame that keeps the bed off from the floor, is essential, as scorpions can’t climb up wood or metal. Our friends lent us a frame and box spring the next day. We canceled the daybed order and decided to just get a frame so she can stay safe and get it sooner.

We called patriot environmental (the exterminator company) and told them what had happened the night before and they sent someone back out within hours, and at no charge.

The next morning she said her hand tingled a little and the other area didn’t hurt at all anymore. Our tough little cookie took it like a champ, and now has bragging rights.

Years ago I wrote about caring for my sister in law, but since then she’s rarely been mentioned, and that’s because as her care giver, by law, I wasn’t allowed to speak of her. Now that we are in Arizona, and I am no longer getting paid to care for her, I can sing her praises and speak of her freely.

She is the sweetest, most considerate human being I’ve been blessed to know. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 5 years ago, aka bone cancer. If you know anything about this type of cancer, it is VERY painful, constantly painful.

Moving to Arizona from Washington state, you’d think the weather would be the biggest adjustment, you’d be wrong. Getting appointments, getting prescriptions filled, especially morphine has been crazy difficult.

Prior to our move, we set up an appointment with her new oncologist, but having to change Medicare insurance coverage proved to be beyond frustrating. After spending countless hours, days, weeks of calling different departments of Medicare, we finally get things set up. Or so we thought. Two weeks later we find out someone dropped the ball and everything was canceled and we had to jump through all the hoops again! There’ve been a few times in my life when I felt like I was on the verge of having complete and total mental breakdown. This was one of those times. No joke, Washington state is a standard to which Arizona can not even compare.

Here in Arizona the oncologist is NOT who prescribes pain meds, that is done through a pain clinic, and they are booked out so far that in May of 2022 their first appointment available was in January 2023.

Based on the situation, the doctor may or may not choose to prescribe meds to her until she could be seen by pain management. Thankfully, he did, but here’s the kicker… the pharmacies, every pharmacy in Kingman either runs out of morphine or will not accept new patients that are in need of opioids because their supply of morphine is maxed out with the patients they already have. If they took on anyone else they wouldn’t have enough for their current patients.

Finally, Monday the 8th of August, (since someone canceled an appointment) she finally got her first appointment with pain management. The doctor was awesome and was able to refill her meds that would be out on Thursday. So yesterday, Thursday August 11, 2022 at 7 am Nettie took her last morphine pill and we went to pick up her new prescription at Walgreens. They were completely out of stock! Again! This isn’t like a grocery store that ran out of my new favorite drink, 7up simple, this is a very necessary medicine! Knowing how severe her discomfort is I called EVERY pharmacy in town. CVS, Walmart pharmacy, uptown drug, Safeway pharmacy, KRMC pharmacy NOT ONE was able to fill the prescription because either they didn’t have it or they weren’t taking any more pain med patients!!!

Since we’ve been here (April-August) 5 months, when we’ve went to get her prescription filled, 4 out of the 5 times they were out of stock of morphine. When I asked the doctors, the insurance company, the pharmacist, their answer is all the same, “if it gets too painful for her you’ll need to take her to the emergency room.”

The accessibility of care for a cancer patients in Kingman is a joke. Doctors are over burdened, there aren’t enough in this town to care for the population. The age demographic is older here, so of course people have more issues. Being understaffed, overworked and probably underpaid contributes to providers leaving. Even the cleanliness of the hospital has so much to be desired, the restrooms at the dollar store were cleaner than the restrooms at Kingman Regional Medical Center. When I mentioned it to the receptionist that they needed attention, she acted as if I’d insulted her. I assume that the level of pay, the culture of the workplace and of course management has a lot to do with it.

While I’m on a roll let me tell you, don’t get dementia and be put into a nursing home here. I was told by someone who worked at a assisted living facility that a lady wasn’t checked on for 3 days!!! Workers took items from a residence room after they had passed away BEFORE the family had taken the items they wanted to keep! Also, an employee cleaned up a ladies behind and then applied lotion to her legs that had sores with the same gloves! The list goes on and on, it is beyond heart breaking. There are too many residents, not enough care givers and no real standard of care or cleanliness.

I could get into the politics of the parties, blah blah blah but what it comes down to is that these are people, Nettie if included, that are being given less than decent care. It comes down to flat out, blatant, disregard to the needs of the older generation here in Kingman Arizona. I know for a fact we aren’t the only people experiencing these problems, but who can fix them? The pharmacist I spoke to today stated that she put in an order for more morphine, Walgreens approved the order, but the wholesaler denied the request, saying she is taking on too many patients that are in need of morphine, who like Nettie, have a legitimate need for the medication.

24% of the people who live in Kingman are OVER the age of 65, based on the 2020 census. With that information alone you’d think that the AZ CSPMP (Arizona controlled substance prescription monitoring program) would take that into account and allow for people who need pain meds to be able to get them.

I know there’s an opioid crisis, I know that shady people had drive through drug stores giving meds to people who became addicted to pain meds before. But to make pain medications so sparse that my sister-in-law is crying because of how painful her bone cancer is without morphine, you’ve gone too far the other way.

I’m not saying every clinic in Kingman is shoddy, but I am saying that there is so much room for improvement in so many areas, this town, this state has got to do better. Had we known how drastically different Arizona would be, than Washington state in regards to Netties medical care, and accessibility to receive the meds she needs, we probably would’ve considered a different state to move to.

Do better Arizona.