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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200219 MN DOT This page is not a trip, it is about how my DOT medical exam went this year. I posted a few details about my last years DOT about a year ago and maybe a few details about my wife's DOT in July - Aug last year. My wife has been on blood pressure meds for years and when it came to the DOT that was not an issue. Always right where it should be. But she went in last year and it was off the charts (not quite) and it took weeks to get it back down. The only company she drives for will accept a three month card (at least once) so we were good after a few weeks and then fine after the three months. My wife now carries a blood pressure machine with her and I started checking my BP in the mornings a couple of weeks ago and every thing has been fine on the first or second test. We get three shots with the DOT so I thought I had nothing to worry about. There was one day that the BP didn't come down but that was the worst night I had been sick and that was a few days ago. Took my BP again this AM, passed on the second try. Easy ride to the clinic, nothing to get stressed about. I FAILED - It would not come down. So they adjusted my meds and we will see how Friday goes, that is the real test. In the course of general conversation I found out that this clinic does have an eye dr and they are not on strike. ??? When I walked up to make an appointment and they said "8 AM tomorrow" I said yes. I didn't have them look any further or ask about today. Down side is that I will be leaving my house at about 6:30 AM tomorrow morning to get there. But at least I'll have it done. Un-related to the DOT test. We had taken a 2nd car to IA, one that had hit the curb and wasn't ridding right. That was the wrong thing to do. I checked with one shop this AM and they said I had likely ruined the tire running that far and that speed. Later, took the car into a 2nd shop and they showed me how bad the tire was out of round running off the car. Turns out the other tire was just as bad. So bought two new tires and a new wheel for our 'crash.' Not sure if we would have had to if it had got to the shop the day after this crash. 200220 MN DOT FAILED AGAIN Blood pressure that is. Checked it in the AM at home and I was fine on the first take. Got to the clinic for my eye check up and that all went OK. Right eye is failing a little faster than the left, left didn't change at all from last year. And the issue that I had last year with my eye is not something they even test and the DOT shouldn't either. It is beyond what is needed to drive. Once I was done with my eye checkup I had my BP checked again. Figured it would be a breeze. Worse than yesterday. ... and the other reason I am always stopping on the way out of town at the clinic, that was way off also. It was so far off that I had had it checked yesterday and went back today because I thought they had mixed my results with someone else. Nope, I am messed up. Came home and called and canceled my DOT for Friday. BP needs to be down and stay down before I go in. So my DOT Medical will likely expire before I pass. I could work a few more days on my current card but I am still dragging and that may be why my other numbers are so far off. I'll stay home and try not to get anyone else sick. No visiting old people either. If there wasn't snow I might go take pictures at the cemetery, -12 below this AM. We ain't in CA anymore. The day ended with 33 on the load board. We saw all the RV's parked in their staging area where they have been for months. I thought now is when they were going to start shipping them. Two to CA, but they are going to south Los Angles so we wouldn't have taken those. 200224 MN DOT Still home. Blood pressure has stayed down with the new medication so I went back in this AM and passed at the clinic. As long as I was there, I had them call and get me a DOT appointment for tomorrow / Tuesday. But looking at our notes, it takes a day after we pass for my other company to 'see' it. Board is only at 27. But there are two that we could work with if we could have gone. Not sure how soon dispatch will let us lock in a run. I'm guessing not until the computer is updated. My prior DOT is still good but I haven't felt like pushing it and working for my local company. Dr said this could likely hang on for two weeks. 1-1/2 behind me so the end is near. Lots of time to work on the computer, but one day at a time is better for me. I really have a problem just sitting for hours unless the view out the windshield is changing. 200225 MN DOT Appointment this AM. Blood pressure was OK at home but up when I got there. Came down enough to pass ... but the Dr saw that I had been to a specialist after I had problems with my eye last summer and wouldn't give me a DOT card until I have a follow up appointment. They didn't put any restrictions on my driving at the time, but this Dr is holding all the cards. Earliest appointment I can get is in June ... four months from now. So I'm just not supposed to work for four months? I didn't find this out until right before 5 PM so I will need to follow up tomorrow. As long as we were in the area, my wife and I thought we would stop and have a buffet at the casino ... seems they quit serving buffets on Tuesdays and Wednesdays a couple of weeks ago. ??? Not much was going my way today. Still not much for good work. Likely would be something if we were watching the board every few minutes but what's the point at this point? Load board is at 23 ... should be 100 more than that this time of year. If there is work coming back to MN, BB will likely grab it and I can follow her so we stay active. More fun to come. 200226 MN DOT Don't expect things to move fast, at least not always. Called first thing this AM and left a message for the Dr. Sometime after noon the Dr them self called back. They were not backing down, they said they had sent out an 'urgent' email to see if ANYONE was available. 2nd choice would be to see someone outside the system and likely out of pocket. 3rd choice would be to get a '2nd opinion' but they didn't find that likely. I had decided to wait until the AM to call the clinic again for the specialist. But within minutes of the 1st call, the clinic that didn't have anything until June called me with an opening tomorrow. ??? But I am realizing that this may be it. I may have already done my last road trip. Knew it was / or has happened someday, just wasn't expecting it today. Or I could be good for a few more years. At this point I am expecting to at least have to have another MRI that could take a few days, then wait to hear back. Even if everything is OK I have to go back to the DOT Dr. So easily could still be sitting until next week. If the Dr saws no, then both my wife and I need to decide what we want to do for the next 5-6 years until we can retire. There isn't enough money in just moving one RV one way to pay the bills. Not sure if we'd try it a few times just to get some 'paid vacations' in. Load board is up to 48, a couple of loads we would have grabbed 200227 MN DOT 51 on the loadboard by the end of the day. I try not to look at it right now. Went to my appointment today and they didn't seem to think this was a big issue, but they also didn't want to sign off. Everyone wants to push it off to someone else. So now I get to do a driving test ... March 30. That was the soonest they could get me in. Something I thought I could live with, until I got home and looked at my mail that said if I don't turn in my DOT Medical card by March 28 I loose my class A licence. And that was from the DMV. So something will have to change. Didn't feel like dealing with it today so either Friday or Monday I will call and see what my other options are. When I go to leave the clinic, I'm waiting for a green light so I can go straight. At this light the walk light went on before my light turned green. I notice a car in the cross traffic coming up fast, it doesn't register that they may not be stopping. They don't stop, and there was someone who had walked across 2-1/2 lanes of traffic before the person in the car got to the intersection. Luckily no one was hurt, by now I've been sitting at a green light watching all this. A couple of intersections later someone blows through again, this time just after mine turned green. ??? and someone is worried about me being on the road ??? 200228 MN DOT It's been less than two weeks since I delivered my last unit but it seems like forever. Last summer we were mostly off from April thru Nov, only driving about one day a week. TODAY. I waited until about 10 AM to call the clinic to see what I could do about my appointment. I had to leave a message to be able to talk to the person doing the tests. Within an hour or so they called back. How about Monday, 8 AM. !!! but ??? I barely touched on the reasons it was an issue. ??? Now I just need to pass, not do anything stupid that looks like I'm loosing it. :) But once that is all done I still need to the the specialist to communicate with the DOT, so don't know how long this all could take. And I still have to have my blood pressure down. Looks good at home, but we'll see what the Dr sees. Loadboard isn't moving much, 48 tonight. Nothing we want. BB is now under the weather so she isn't going to want to go anywhere anytime soon. Hopefully ... sometime next week? Spent time today to get on the new DOT drug list. What a waste. All that security so that no one, including me :) can see if I have a drug issue. Long password required. If the computer thinks the password is too easy to guess, you can't use it. And if you don't want to BUY an encryption device for your computer, the DOT needs to sent you 10 digit PIN to a separate device so I can look at a blank screen. It's not blank, but I have no offences. And about the only thing that would get me to start drinking is having to deal with all that security every day ... Monday ... long weekend ... 200302 MN DOT Made sure I was to my appointment on time. I was going to have to drive in rush hour traffic so I didn't know what to expect. Got there any hour before the appointment. No rolling of the eyes by the staff, they just stuck to the facts. They said they should be able to keep it to an hour instead of the usual hour and a half for most people. I was out of there in 30 minutes. And passed everything so they may have been just doing the basic and as long as I passed that there was not a reason to know where my limits were. It sounds like most people they see are ones who have been through months of rehab so I was kind of out of place. Now to see if one Dr words everything in a way that the other Dr accepts it. Still have to get the Dr to sign off and then 2nd day for all the info to get in the computer system so we'll be in town at least through midweek. Loadboard ended the day with 56 so there would be something we could work with. Nothing ideal at the end of the day but may have been during the day. 200303 MN DOT Received a phone call that the 2nd Dr had signed off on me, left a message with the original Dr. ... but I'm not going to assume this is a done deal until I leave the DMV. Load board is up to 70. We'll see what tomorrow brings. 200304 MN DOT I PASSED Shortly after 8 AM, I get a call to come in to the clinic and get my blood pressure checked again and pick up my DOT card. When I get there things are a little confused, a failure to communicate. When checking my BP on our machine I have been legal every day for the last three weeks. We get three tries each day, I have only had to use two at the most. But once I got to the clinic I was way high again. I was legal by the 3rd try but not as low as two weeks ago. So I am going to have to talk to my Dr to get my BP low enough so that when it goes up at the clinic it is still OK. Next stop was the DMV, a line there but no issues. No charge either, the info just needs to be entered into their computer. Actually we stopped at Q Cumbers, a buffet we haven't eaten at before. It was Wednesday so Mystic Buffet was closed so we tried this one. Someone had mentioned this on to me maybe a year ago and we hadn't made it down here before. Very small hot food but lots of salad, four soups and a fair number of deserts, mostly fresh fruit. Maybe it's the section of town this place is in but it is not your usual buffet staff or clientele. Very upscale. The two hot foods I had were chicken lasagna and a gluten free pizza. Very, very good. Never go away hungry. Then we headed to company #1. They looked at my DOT med card in detail and for a while I thought maybe I would have to be off work until my BP came down but they finally said OK. BP is the same as last year but the way the Dr recorded it is different. We had faxed my DOT info to company #2 and last year it took a couple of days. This year it was a couple of hours. When I called company #2 dispatch about going to their safety meeting tomorrow my info still wasn't in the system but a couple hours later I could see that I was cleared. We went home and re-packed. We have been off the road for two weeks so we had to check and double check that we had everything. We left out about 5 PM and at one point we thought we would get to Albert Lea and have our usual buffet. But later we realized that we still weren't hungry and it would be after 7 PM before we started eating so we stopped in Owatonna at Jimmy Johns and each of us had a Slim Jim. A few more loads on the board today but nothing we wanted. Until after they closed at 5 PM. Then they put a bunch more out including 5 for Sacramento and 5 for down by LA. Both with work for us so we will be on the phone at 8 AM tomorrow from our safety meeting to get something. Because we are going to the safety meeting first, we won't get going until about noon. IF we get going at noon we should be able to make it to Omaha and then be on the same timeline as last trip, delivering Monday. The day ended with 73 on the board. |
