The Adventures of a "Not-So-Traveled" Travel Nurse

I should probably provide a warning that the contents in this chapter could be labeled as a “rant”.

We survived the blizzard conditions from last week. I can say that a tiny part of it was magical. We took the dogs out for a walk at night while it was actively snowing. They loved it! Wookie wore his little snow suit (of course), but Wilson was made for this type of weather. I swear he thought it was tropical conditions. My husband and I found ourselves discussing the differences in weather that we had encountered just in the past 8 weeks (Hawaii to the great plains in winter is a huge difference). We have been experiencing negative temperatures here for a week now.

The rest of the blizzard was annoying. Once the snow melted off of our vehicles, we found both of our windshields cracked all to hell. Nothing makes me more angry than a damaged windshield. Nothing.

As far as our camper life, the first night the pedestal froze (despite being wrapped in electric heat tape) and we found ourselves without water. My husband was able to defrost it using a blow torch, so that didn’t last long. The next night, our water hose froze (despite being sleeved in an electric heated wrap). This was more challenging. My husband had to put it in our heated storage compartment to defrost it (such a mess) before reconnecting it. He has since replaced the whole hose with a new one (electric heated and wrapped in foam). Once those issues were resolved, the water lines in the camper froze. We have not had water in the kitchen or half-bath since last week. Thank goodness we still have water to the master bath/shower/sinks/washing machine.

I have had a respiratory illness for over two months now. It is hard to say whether it is related to the extreme changes in living conditions (tropical to artic), the exposure to constant heaters here (dry air), the physical stress from traveling and relocating repeatedly, or the exposure to new microbiology forms in each environment that I have traveled to. The symptoms seem to have a response to acute treatment, but they never go away. Arrangements are being made for me to see a pulmonologist when I get back home. What I can say for sure is that my body is tired.