Storyline: Thinking in Autumn Colours
After the mad rush home, I parked Doranya in our driveway and for a few days forgot about it. It stayed completely abandoned for about 2 weeks. When the events around Alex’s mysterious illness began unfolding and his health conditions went straight downhill, many things rolled though our heads. Previous posts shaded some light on my emotional state. What about Doranya, our campervan? Perhaps we should sell it. “Sell it”, Alex says, but I don’t think either of us was in a fully functional state of mind at that moment.
There was and still there is a big demand for camper vans due to shortage of microchips that affected the supply chain for vans, so selling it should not be a problem. Alex was in isolation after being for 2 days in emergency due to lack of beds. Although all his Covid tests were negative, the hospital’s protocol required him to be in isolation for 3 days. As we joked, he is in the royal suite, where he enjoys being alone, disturbed only by the nurses and staff taking care of him. They left him there a bit longer. I guess at the time there wasn’t any other candidate for the room. So, we discussed what to do with Doranya. He helped with the features I was supposed to list on Autotrader, etc. But first things first – it had to be emptied and cleaned. The holding tanks (black and grey) were full from the drive home. This had to be done before anything else. A daunting task for me, especially when under tremendous stress. After all, Doranya was Alex’s toy, and the dirty work was his. I’ve watched him do it but I have never done it myself. Our friend Stuart offered to help.
And so, one sunny September morning (Sept. 15 to be exact) I drove to Courtice just over an hour away, tears filling my eyes. At that stage I didn’t even know if I would get Alex out of the hospital in the foreseeable future. Just a few days prior he was diagnosed with a paralysed vocal cord and epiglottis, the reason he couldn’t swallow. But no one could tell why. Something was very wrong with him, but what?
I took the slow roads, picked up Stuart and we drove to their municipal dump station. Too bad it’s so far out. It really is a nice one. I had Alex’s instructions scribbled on the back of an envelope. We follow them to open the tube where the dump hose is stored. Stuart, having a travel trailer in comparison to our lilliputian van, has hoses that are long and have all the ends attached. Ours on the other hand is quite short and the ends are taken off after use and stored in a box. Again, I’ve seen Alex screwing the ends to the hose and then clipping one to the tanks’ dump station. Stuart struggles to attach it and I am of no help. Eventually the end goes on and he attaches it to the dump station. And as he pulls the valve of the black tank open, the bloody end comes loose and shit shoots all over him. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” (No kidding, shit it is), he jumps, runs to the fresh water city hose and washes fast. (His words actually were F*k repeatedly.) He is all soaked, but says nothing went to his eyes and face. Then he screws the end on again and tests it by pulling it to make sure all is well connected. Then pulls the grey tank valve slowly open. All goes well this time. I offered Alex’s working clothes that were still at the back of the van together with a big towel. He was OK he says. We cover the passenger seat with the towel and I drop him off at his place. It sounds funny now, but then I felt so devastated. Not only was Alex laying flat in a hospital bed (and missing all the fun! – A), but I couldn’t imagine asking our friends for help again. In the afternoon I tell Alex what happened. He was in a semi-private (2-person) room having the window bed. He sent Stuart a text via Facebook messenger which has been a good communication tool for when data is available but not WIFI.
“Hey Stuart. Thanks for helping Diana today, and I’m so very sorry that your good deed was so severely punished. Hope you had a nice long shower and fortified your insides with a wee dram or two. Hope to see you both soon. Alex”
“No worries. My fault. Anything we can do to help. Hope you’ll be home soon”
“He is a good friend”, Alex adds just before he falls asleep.
Soon is a relative term. We did see them both in about a month. But that month felt like an eternity to me and Alex because of all he endured in the next 3 weeks that changed our lives dramatically.
A few people to whom I mentioned selling the van talked me out of it. “Why sell it? It sounds so final”, his sister would say. Then I posted on the Coachmen Beyond Facebook group a few photos from our unfinished trip with a note that unfortunately due to life changing illness we would have to put it for sale. I got overwhelming support and best wishes from many in the group. Complete strangers opened up. Most were advising not to rush. I didn’t mention anything about Alex’s illness because at the time we had no idea what it was. People told me they had cancer, they were given a few months to live and 2 years later they were still enjoying their campervans. My Alberta virtual friend Shauna told me she underwent chemotherapy 2 years ago and now her husband was going through it. Their van was their way to escape from it all. “But Alex will be with a feeding tube”, I mentioned. Perhaps this would be his life from now on. She assured me that she has a friend with feeding tube who camps with his van regularly.
And so Doranya was left undisturbed in the driveway. I had emptied most of it and piles of accessories and amenities lie everywhere around the house; in the garage, in one of the bedrooms, in the basement.
Fast forward to October 14. We were sitting on the front porch with our friends Stuart and Jane and chatting. They brought us antifreeze for winterizing the van. In the afternoon we’d empty the fresh water tank, bypass the Truma (the hot water and furnace unit) and drain the pipes ready for antifreeze. This was quite a task for Alex then.
On October 19 he was feeling well enough to face the winterizing and filling the pipes with antifreeze. It really is a small job for a healthy person if they know what they were doing. But it is quite an achievement for someone who just a month ago was transferred to oncology and a G-tube went into his stomach for feeding and everything else. We still don’t know how long to recovery and what the recovery will look like. But we are confident that even with his feeding pump we’ll be able to at least do short trips in the spring when we de-winterize Doranya. Availability of running water is essential, especially when a daily chemo drug is carefully delivered via the G-tube.
And in the end, we may still decide to sell Doranya in the spring. It will all depend on Alex’s progress and a few other factors we have to consider as we adjust our lifestyle.
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