Cold Snap

And the cold and snow just keep on coming! Lately, when I'm wheeling K out to the car at 10pm on MWF, we're definitely re-thinking the advantages of having her dialysis scheduled so late. By the time I'm going to pick her up, my metabolism is slowing down, and the cold just sinks into the bone.

Doesn't it figure, the hint of a sore throat this weekend turned into a cold with all the symptoms today. Nuts. Just in time for the holidays. So we stopped at Rite Aid on the way home from dialysis, to get me some day/night Comtrex.

K got a ride from Freddie to wound care today, for her regular Monday morning checkup. She also had an ultrasound appointment to check out her leg circulation, which turns out to be quite good. So they don't think they can blame her slow healing wounds on that. They took Mandy in the car with them, but maybe didn't quite keep her as warm as I do, and now K is thinking she'll never take her out on a day like this again. She said Mandy appeared to be enthralled by the Cherry Creek Mall, which she got to experience from K's lap in the wheelchair. Her eyes were very big, and she was checking out everything and everyone they passed.

Brr!

OK, now it's getting to be just plain cold around here. We woke up to a beautiful clear, cold, minus 8 degree day. The Denver airport set a new record low for today, at -18 degrees. I tried to snap a sunrise picture out the deck door, but the outer door window fogged up the second I opened the inner door. At work we're wondering what brainiac decided that the men's bathroom, which is on an outside wall, didn't need to be heated.

Snow

It was a cheery 5 degrees F this morning! There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground when I took Mandy out for her morning ritual. She really hopped to it, and was ready to come back inside in about 10 seconds. Don't blame her. It was cold enough to sting my cheeks as I stood out there and waited for her. The snow has started up again, a very holiday-ish light curtain of white drifting down.

K told me yesterday afternoon that her foot is doing pretty well.

Cold Snowy Day

We woke up to a beautiful snowy morning! A nice brisk day for a trip to the dentist. K had a lousy night, and didn't get to bed until I was getting up this morning. Mandy wasn't too excited about going out in the snow this morning, but jumped at the chance to go for a short walk, this cold clear evening.

Lights

Mandy and I went for a walk around the neighborhoods, and enjoyed the Christmas lights that are starting to pop up everywhere. I thought it was kind of funny that she showed up in this picture. I didn't notice her silhouette until I got home and pulled it off the camera. Sorry for the blur. It's tough getting a decent night picture with any kind of hand held camera, much less the primitive one in my cell phone.

Mandy and the Fox

She's been so good most of the time, and then... I took her out to the side yard near midnight, for her pre-bedtime relief break. On this rare occasion, I didn't have any shoes on, and was shifting my weight from one sore foot to the other on the cold hard concrete, while admiring our neighbor's Christmas tree, and waiting for her. Then I heard a quiet little "rrr" and the rapid patter of little feet, and looked over to see her disappearing across the street, between our neighbors' houses. I could only presume that she'd seen a fox on a yard over there, and that the fox was leading her into the shadows behind the houses. I nervously watched for a few seconds, and sure enough, out from the other side of the house came a fox at full run, big fluffy tail floating in the breeze, with Mandy a few feet behind. I called for her to stop and come back, but of course she was pretty well fixated. They flew across the street, and disappeared into the space on the other side of our house. I guessed they were heading down the hill toward the fox's den under the juniper bushes. I went into the house and put on my boots, then went out on the deck with a flashlight, hoping I could see or hear them down there. I heard a jingle that I thought was Mandy's collar tags, and whistled and called for her to come home. No response. I ran down the stairs and went out on the patio to see if I could see her. Nothing. I realized the neighbor's dogs were out, and the jingle was probably them. I was losing hope every second, that she'd survived her midnight encounter with this fox. Then I thought hopefully that maybe the jingle *was* her, coming back up the hill, and went back upstairs and out the side door where we'd been, to see if she had returned there. Nope. I wandered around to the front of the house, and right then, here comes Mandy, trotting proudly back from around the front of the house and up the driveway in the dark. At first I thought she was limping, but then I realized she was having a hard time walking, because she was so busy strutting her stuff. She's such a lucky, lucky, lucky, dog.

Racine's

After watching a half dozen sappy holiday movies yesterday and last night, we slept (way) in this morning. It's snowing again today, not much, but enough to set a cheery scene outside the windows, and leave a thin layer on the roads. Mandy wasn't very excited about going for a walk, after a minute of tromping about in the slush, so we stopped in at our neighbors and visited for a little while, before heading back home. After missing breakfast and lunch, we had a relaxed early dinner at Racine's. Nice strong hot coffee!

Snow!

Our day started off early, with shoveling a few inches of snow off the driveway, coaxing Mandy to venture out in the snow for her morning ritual, then an (invigorating) drive on slippery roads, to drop K at dialysis for the 6am slot. She couldn't make her regular time last night, having gotten really nauseous just when we were packing her up to leave. I stopped for a nice hot latte on the way home, and have been popping my head out of the front and back doors, snapping pictures of our first real snow accumulation this season.

Lights Up

Man, am I sore. I did a few sets of pull-down exercises at Buck Center on Thursday, and I guess I haven't used those muscles in too long. I can barely lift my arms above my head today.

John and Michelle headed off in their rental car for the airport at noon. They missed out on the forecast snow, which just never showed up, and got to enjoy some beautiful sunny days instead. Michelle said the security line was quick and easy, a welcome change from their past experiences at DIA.

The afternoon turned out really nice, and while walking Mandy, I noticed several neighbors putting up their Christmas lights. That was just the little incentive I needed, to steel myself for the task. I wasn't looking forward to hunting for our lights in the crawl space, after all the frantic shuffling of boxes that occurred, as the remodel was finishing up this year. Miracle of miracles, we had already pulled out the box of lights, and it was waiting for me on the shelf in the furnace room. I was very happy to find everything I needed in the one box, to put up all the outside lights. This year we're trying those new LED lights that aside from being pretty, should also save a little energy every season.

Oops, I guess I spoke too soon about the snow never showing up. We looked outside before going to bed, and the lights on the deck railing looked a little funny. That's because they were under a layer of soft fluffy snow.

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty full day! I was up early. The temperature was at 30, then 32, then hovering at 29, as the weather tried to decide whether or not to honor the forecast for snow. I took Mandy for a chilly but relatively short walk, maybe a mile. John and Michelle arrived at 10. While John relaxed around the house, Michelle and I went for a short workout and a dip in the pool at the Buck Center. The jacuzzi felt really good on my tweaky back. We made a quick stop at Starbucks on the way back to the house. Next, we were off to the Brown Palace, for the Thanksgiving buffet at Ellyngton's, with lots of choices of very delightful food. It was over almost before we knew it. Mandy spent the afternoon snuggled up all nice and warm in her bed on the back seat of the car. When we got home, I treated her to half a can of "Thanksgiving Dinner" dog food - the ingredients sounded healthy - with turkey and a bunch of vegetables. She (amazingly) scarfed it down in seconds, which is pretty rare for her. The funny thing is, she's the only one that will have Thanksgiving leftovers tomorrow morning! We settled into Big Red and watched a fairly dark Philip Seymour Hoffman movie called "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." We never did get any snow. During the one last walk around the neighborhood with Mandy this evening, I thought I felt a few bits of cold precipitation hit my face, but I never saw anything. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night!

Mandy and the Geese

This morning much was nicer at 47F than yesterday's 22F. Mandy and I walked to downtown Littleton. I let her chase a few geese off the grass in Sterne Park. This time I was ready with the camera, and caught this video to share. Too fun. K says, "No wonder she loves to go on walks with you!" I had a tasty Gyro and Latte lunch at Abe's Cafe. She was so good. I invited her up on one of their patio chairs to wait while I went inside, and for the first time, she laid down on command on the seat of the chair, and waited there quietly, the entire time I was inside ordering.

Twitter Buzz

Brr. A bit chilly at 22F this morning. Beautiful and sunny, though. I really enjoyed the honking of the flock of geese that went by awhile ago. I'm looking forward to a walk for hot coffee and breakfast with Ken in a few minutes

I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what Twitter.com is all about. It seems simple enough, but there's this big gap between how much buzz it's getting on the net, and how little I can see myself using it. I did find their public timeline very amusing, and (apparently!) a great way to lose some time on a quiet Saturday morning.

Snowy Flying Day

It was snowing pretty hard at the house this morning, coating our deck furniture in a fluffy layer of white. We've been struggling with the decision of whether or not to put the protective all-weather storage covers on the new furniture for the Winter, but our inclement weather is generally so short-lived, that it seems like it'll be more trouble than it's worth. So we got to see how our "water-resistant" cushions handle the snow. As it turns out, very well, thank you.

Coincidentally, after being away from airplanes all year, I went flying with JB in his Comanche today, as he got in his six IFR approaches while buzzing around Fort Collins airport. Once we got away from the snow at our house, it was sunny and awesome up in the Northern territories where we were flying.

We stopped at Pita Pit in Boulder for lunch, for a tidy (!) and tasty Gyro sandwich, then picked up some hot and sour soup for K at Yen King on the way home. I got home and met up with Jen, a person K is considering for a part time home companion type of role. Our neighbors Ken and Freddie were also there, and my hat's off to them - they did an awesome job of preparing for the interview, with a 3 page handout describing ways to help K stay off her feet.

Busy Week

It seems like I spent this entire week at work in some kind of training or meetings. The Error Prevention training was pretty interesting, especially because I had the instructor with the great flying stories. When it came to the "tell about one of your personal mistakes" part in the PIC training course, I decided to tell my infamous biplane story. That was cathartic, even if I found myself experiencing the adrenaline rush yet again. The award luncheon for my 30 years of service was tasty and fun. I was slightly embarrassed to have someone at my table bring up my story from the day before, although it was done in a friendly way.

Catching Up

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of updates. Our current routine has been in effect for a couple of months, but I apparently haven't figured out how to fit K&S Updates into it yet. Things are mostly the same here. We just completed Session 9 of 11, of the Littleton Police Citizen Academy, on Thursday night. The Academy classes have been very interesting. Two weeks ago, we had an exercise where we had to enter and check out a dark conference room, looking for a person who was reportedly hiding in there, possibly armed. It only lasted a few minutes, but I came out of it with a pretty big adrenaline rush. Too many (potentially life-threatening) unknowns in that job! Last week was particularly fun, as we drove police cruisers around a big parking lot, with lights and siren going, pretending to chase and pull over volunteer "speeders". Our neighbor Ken took particular pleasure in being "the rabbit", leading his chaser in circles around the light poles. K went on a real life police ride-along last night from 6-10.

In two more weeks, we'll get our Thursday nights back, and we'll be moving into yet another weekly routine. K goes to Dialysis MWF nights from 5:15-9:45. Sometimes she gets a ride over there from a neighbor, and sometimes I get home in time to take her. If I take her, then Mandy and I usually go for about a 2 mile walk from the dialysis parking lot, along a few nearby popular walking/biking trails. My walking isn't quite as fun lately, since my feet started hurting a bunch. I'm pretty sure, based on some research online, and emailing my doctor, that I've got Plantar Fasciitis, and am dealing with it by using prosthetic shoe inserts for now. Notwithstanding the discomfort, I still try to get out for a couple of 4-5 mile walks with Mandy and our neighbor Ken each weekend. Mandy has been doing better and better with her short off-leash sessions. We'll stop at a big grassy area, and let her run her legs off, which of course she completely loves.

Yesterday, I let her off leash as we walked through the little preserve along the Platte River, and she stayed within two feet of us most of the time. Very gratifying, that all my patient training and bonding seems to be showing results. This morning I let her off leash for a few minutes at Sterne Park, and with my encouragement, she took off across the grass, and delightedly flushed a flock of about 200 geese into the air, and then another flock of 50 a minute later. They all seemed content to settle onto the lake a few hundred feet away. We continued on to downtown Littleton, for breakfast at Cafe Terracotta. The food was yummy as usual, but it was a bit chilly (47 degrees), sitting at an outside table with Mandy. Almost everyone who walked past us stopped to say hi to Mandy, or to comment on how sweet she looks. I had to agree, of course.

The house remodel saga continues. The main floor powder bath toilet cracked and ruined the newly refinished wood floor. After some back and forth about exactly what broke and whose fault it was, we've finally got a new toilet on the way, and the floor may fix itself as it dries out, so we'll just have to wait and see. It would be good to have that done, before John and Michelle arrive for Thanksgiving! We're slowly shuffling things around in the house, as K tries to adapt to the new living space and furniture. The dining room furniture has moved to the kitchen nook, as the dining room is morphing into a reading room. We're loving our new living room sofa and reclining chairs.

K's left foot is still looking good. She's trying very hard to stay off her feet when possible, especially the right one, so she's using her crutches and wheelchair a lot. Because of that, it appears the two remaining wounds on her right foot are finally starting to get better.

Work has been crazy, with our new company's two year "IT Separation" deadline fast approaching, and the occasional launch in the midst of all that, to keep things interesting. The next Atlas V launches from both East and West coasts have slipped quite a bit, but somehow that doesn't make things any less busy for my group.

We're heading up to the Chart House for dinner tonight with our neighbors - no particular occasion, just wanted to do something nice for ourselves. It's up in the foothills, and there's a bit of a nice view of the Denver area lights at night.

Fall Colors

Here are some pics of fall colors and leaves I collected with my phone cam, while walking with Ken and Mandy today...

Boulder Baked Reopens!

We drove up to Boulder for the grand re-opening of our friends' Boulder Baked Cafe at its new location, 1911 Broadway. They've found themselves a nice spot near the corner of Broadway and Walnut, and right next door to a Migun beds store, which is also someplace very fun to visit. Their desserts were as great as usual, and visiting the Cafe was a very pleasant experience. I told Katie their colors reminded me a lot of the Cal Poly University Union, which turned out to be very well accepted, back in the day. 

We had a fun day overall. We started by driving up to Arvada at noon, to visit with Dee, the woodworker who did great things with our window sills and the doors for the living room TV. At K's request for my birthday, Dee had made me a tool carry box from Aspen, a very light hardwood. It's a real work of art. She showed us around her workroom, and that was fun, looking over all her cool woodworking tools. Then K asked her to show us her train set in the basement, and that is something really amazing too. Seems like miles of track, and many assembled trains ready to run on many combinations of track.

Just before we left Dee's, I took Mandy over to the nearby Independence Park for a short walk. It's a nice little park, with a good sized expanse of open grass. Mandy loved getting off leash and prancing around the grass for awhile. Then I put her back on leash, and we got a little more serious about circling the park at a nice brisk walking pace.

I heard a train horn approaching, so just for fun, I moved us briskly over to the North side of the park, nearest the train tracks, and sure enough a great long freight came by. We enjoyed watching this real train, a long freight with perhaps six engines in front, as it came lumbering by on the nearby tracks, all of the engines working hard as it pulled the long stretch of cars up the hill.

Academy 3

Cold wintry day. We attended the third Citizen Academy class this evening. Fun stuff! We made casts of footprints and "dusted for prints" tonight. At the end of the evening, we were presented with a possible crime scene, and tried to locate any relevant evidence. I found the shell casing on the floor, and spotted the bullet hole in the ceiling :-o

Academy #2

Tonight was our 2nd Citizen Academy class. This session covered criminal investigation and street drugs. Even though I had exposure to some of the information over the years, I'm pretty sure I increased my knowledge by several times. Scary, dangerous, and very sad stuff going on in that world. Especially the part about meth users aging 10 years for each year they use. The term "tweakers" was new to me.

K's back on antibiotics for her right foot. It heals up for awhile, then she feels the need to walk around on it, and it deteriorates quickly again. She continues to have trouble with bouts of severe nausea almost every day.

I think I'm going to declare victory over my sore throat and coughing from that incident back in July. I still have a little cough that sneaks out every once in awhile, but I've been sleeping through the night for weeks now.

K had Mandy out on the deck yesterday, and she snuck a drink from the drip pan below one of the Meyer lemon trees out there. K got worried, since those plants had recently been fertilized, but with everything she had going on, she forgot to check in with the vet before it was too late. Not surprisingly, Mandy got me up every couple of hours last night, to take her out so she could hunt for grass to eat. The last time we went out, around 4:30am, the newspaper delivery car came by, and she took off after it, disappearing down our street around the corner. Sheesh, as if worrying about how she felt wasn't bad enough, now I'm worrying that she'll get run over, or be eaten by a local fox or coyote, on her way back home. But she came right back, after scaring that nasty old car away. I was disappointed, since she's been very good the few times I let her off leash. She seemed in great spirits after the big chase, though, so I guess it had some theraputic value. Today K took her over to the vet, who pronounced her OK, and clipped her nails and renewed her shots for good measure. She seemed fine to me tonight, while we were walking around the parking lot during a break in the class.

It's starting to get just a bit cooler around here during the nights. And I noticed on a short walk recently, that some bushes and trees are already starting to change colors. Well, I guess it's not unexpected that we'd be seeing signs of Fall in September, but it sure caught me by surprise.

Home from traveling

I got home this morning from a quick business trip to CA for a tanking test. Everything at work went well, though I didn't have much time or warning to visit with family, and they didn't have time for me either. I did get to play disc golf a couple of times, thanks to my coworker bringing an extra disk with him. I took the 6am flight to ensure I got home in plenty of time to get to the Littleton Police Citizen Academy class in the afternoon. I expected Santa Barbara airport to be deserted at 5am, but I guess all the other people were surprised too. The security line went out the door, and halfway around the block. A bunch of us would've missed our flight to Denver, if they hadn't pulled us out of line to go through security ahead of the others. Then they departed four flights at practically the same time. When I was walking out to the tarmac, and asked the first United employee I could see which of the four planes I saw ahead of me was going to Denver. "That one," he said, and pointed to the plane to my left. Then he paused, and said, "No, that one over there," and pointed to the plane slightly to the right. I didn't feel very confident at that point, so I asked the flight attendant when I got on board, just to be sure. Lucky me, on the right flight, after all.

While I was gone, one morning, K said she went to pet the dog in her bed on the floor, and Mandy was lying there very still with her eyes bugging out, and felt stiff to the touch. For a moment, K thought the dog had died right there, and she was momentarily overcome with grief. K stroked Mandy a few times gently, whereupon she started making her little happy dog grunting noises. Mandy must've just been very relaxed and just beginning to wake up. What a scare, but it ended in the best way possible.

We attended our first class of the Littleton Police Citizen Academy this evening. We got some interesting overview talks from the Chief of Police and her department heads. We're looking forward to the next 10 weeks of classes, which should familiarize us with the workings of the our local police, and give us some interesting things to learn and do.

GeoEye Launch

I had asked my coworker to support the Delta II launch of GeoEye on Saturday, but then there was a power outage at work for several hours in the early morning, and I decided I wanted to be there to make sure everything was working again. So I got to watch the launch on the monitors in the launch support room. The payload is interesting - a commercial earth imaging satellite that users including Google Earth will be using to upgrade their maps to a higher resolution in the future. Here's the writeup on SpaceFlightNow. 

Life's OK

Just a quick note to say things have been busy, but for the most part everything's fine here. K's right foot is onto one of the many uphill climbs toward being healed, but as always we're watching for a backslide, which could occur at any time. People are asking lately, "So, is the house finally finished now?" and it's always difficult to answer. A lot of the remodel work is complete, but there are still things to be done, including one or more big things that need to be reworked.

Mandy's continuing to be a happy little camper, and even she's enjoying our new basement living space. There's enough room down there to race around the couch and run herself out of breath, when the urge arises. She's still not very interested in using the dog door, but we're making a little progress each week in that direction. She reminds me a lot of the teenagers we've known, who didn't rush out to get their driver's license on their 16th birthday. The freedom's there, and I guess she'll take advantage of it when she's ready.

Dad and Adele were here from 8/7 to 8/25. We had a couple days of nice cool rainy weather, which worried them, but then it got back into the 90s which made them happy. Adele had an intestinal illness which put her in the ER and then a hospital room for a few days. That delayed their departure just a little, but they're safely home now.

Flu or something

I started feeling really sick on the way home from work yesterday, unbelievably nauseous and a powerful tingling, almost a buzzing, in my arms and legs. I got home to the neighbors' house, and all I could do was lay there on my bed in the basement, and wiggle my legs to help keep the nausea down. After talking to a nurse at Kaiser, I had my neighbor Ken drive me to urgent care, where they gave me an anti-nausea drug by IV with a liter of saline. I felt a little better by the time the IV was done, at least while lying down. Sitting up didn't go so well, but they kicked me out anyway, and Ken drove me back home. I felt a lot better in the morning, so go figure. We went to see WALL-E this afternoon, very sweet and really good animation of course, by Pixar. Afterwards, I had a free birthday burger and sundae, courtesy of Red Robin. So far I feel OK, if a little tender, so I guess whatever hit me yesterday has pretty much taken its course.

Painting

K's evening dialysis schedule is working way better than any of the other times. If I hurry home from work, I can take her there and then pick her up at 10pm. This way, she gets most of the day to do things like doctor's appointments, and talking to the people working around the house. The heel wound on her right foot isn't getting any better. They've got her back on oral antibiotics for that.

My illness, whatever it is, it acts a lot like a nagging cold that won't leave. It seems to be getting better during the days, but it really hits hard at night, and first thing in the morning. That's a lot like a cold goes with me, too, so I'm not too worried about it, although it's really annoying to not be able to sleep for all the coughing, runny nose, and watery eyes.

K really wanted Mandy to have a nice, covered, place to go, on rainy and snowy days, that she could get to from inside the house, without being at risk from the local foxes and coyotes. Well, her new "dog run" is almost finished, with a dog door from my office, a nice closely-spaced railing that lets the air in but not the predators, and even a plywood roof to keep out the precipitation. It just needs a little something waterproof to be laid over the top.

The interior painting seems to be going well, although the painters took one look at the house when they arrived on Monday, and announced they wouldn't be done until the middle of next week. By that time, Dad and Adele were supposed to be here, and sleeping soundly in their guest room. There's still a chance the master and guest bedrooms will be available by then. We'll just have to wait and see. Been doing a lot of that, lately.

Painting

K's left foot is still looking good - it's still off wound status. The surgery incision on her right foot is still open but slowly healing. She's watching the wound on her heel carefully.

I'm still suffering from whatever malaise I got from cleaning out the neighbor's freezer on the 17th, but I'm beginning to get a sense that it might be getting better. I did start taking an antihistamine at the doctor's recommendation, and maybe that's helping.

There's a huge team of painters at the house this morning. They'll be repainting the main floor and upstairs interior this week, so we'll be sleeping at the neighbors. This is the last really big thing we need to get finished, before we can start putting the house back in order. It's been a very long time, since we started getting a few little things fixed up last year, and then dove into finishing the basement back in March. I think all three of us (Mandy included) are just about wiped out by all the upheaval in our lives.

Minor Setbacks

More (minor) upheaval in the home improvement area - delays by folks finishing up current work have caused us to reschedule the main floor interior painting until next week.

K's new boot caused some dark red bruises on her right heel. They look like they might be deep blood blisters. She got instructions over the phone, to stop using the boot until her next appointment.

The cold that wasn't

I've been recovering slowly from what feels like a really bad cold, but isn't. I managed to really wreck my throat and lungs last Thursday night, while cleaning out our friend's freezer after it had stopped cooling for several days, while we were watching their house. The smell from all the spoiled food was so bad, it was almost like trying to breathe some evil liquid. Just breathing the air for a few hours during our cleanup effort left me with burning throat and lungs that night, and over the past few days, it's felt a little like having a cold, with headache, coughing, and runny nose. I've got the can't-sleep-while-coughing syndrome in the evenings, so I'm a bit of a walking zombie the past few days. I'd like to say it's getting better, but I'm too close to it, so I can't really tell. I still feel pretty miserable in the mornings, all stuffed up and achy.

Floors Done

The vapors from staining and varnishing the refinished wood floor were pretty toxic, so they shooed us out, and we spent the past week at the Park Meadows Residence Inn. We got to take advantage of their buffet breakfast, and the pool and jacuzzi. Mandy was excited to be exploring new territory around the Inverness area, during our evening and weekend walks. As much as she's a desert dog, she's not all that excited about the current heat wave. It got up to almost 100 degrees today, so we cut our morning walk short, and laid around the nice air conditioned room, until it was time to check out and go home. So, we're back in the house for the moment. Our next big event is repainting the main floor interior, which will evict us again next week. More upheaval to come...

K's been to the Ortho doc pretty regularly lately, and it's mostly good news. The left foot is still off wound watch. The right heel is looking really good. The smaller wound on the bottom of her foot is mostly healed up, and has been removed from wound status. She had a minor setback last week - with the new boot, and all the activity related to getting everything off the wood floors, she'd developed a new blister around the surgery site on the ball of her right foot. The doc replaced the boot with a different one, and the blister appears to be healing up quickly.

Great Visit

We had a really wonderful time with Mikele and family here. Our new basement space seemed very happy to have the kids move in for a week. We were very touched to see how well everyone got along with Mandy. Bob and I had a real blast with the kids, during our visits to Elitch Gardens and Water World. I can't say enough about how helpful everyone was, in getting our things out of the PODS unit, so we could have it removed from our driveway, and placate a few neighbors who were getting antsy about how long it was going to remain. I got Mikele and Bob out for a little hike that we thoroughly enjoyed - up to Devil's Head fire lookout, the day before they left. I was amazed at how Mandy turned out to be a rock climbing maniac.

I think everyone got a big kick out of the more volatile Summer weather here in Colorado. We all gathered out on our new deck, under the nice solid roof, and watched a big system of thunderstorms move by, complete with half inch hail and unbelievably beautiful cumulonimbus cloud shapes and sunset colors.

We were so sad to see everyone go. We went from a seemingly huge household of 8 (counting Mandy!), to our usual 3, in the blink of an eye. Here's a group photo at Denver International Airport, as I'm dropping them off. Thanks to Bob for springing for a really nice dinner at Pour La France in the airport!

So it's back to the everyday grind. There's still work being done on the basement and elsewhere around the house. I'm not convinced that everything will ever be completely done. About the time one thing gets finished, we notice several little things that need to be redone, so sometimes it seems our list is getting longer instead of shorter. The next big thing, is the people coming tomorrow, and for the next two weeks, to refinish the wood floor in the kitchen, after the dishwasher leak back in September damaged it severely. We put off having this work started, until most of the other work around the house was done. We'll need to move out of the house for part of next week, as the fumes from the wood varnish would just about kill us off otherwise.

K's feet are doing surprising well. She's been wearing "diabetic boots" which seem to help reduce the loading on her feet, and give them a chance to heal. The left foot is pretty much off wound status, which is great news. The right foot is looking much better, but still has a serious wound, and needs to be watched carefully. K's "new" MWF 6am dialysis schedule is beginning to wear on us, since we both have a difficult time getting to bed early, but we do like how they give her back the afternoons on those days.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

The HKs are here! Mikele got here on Tuesday a week ago, and attended the performing arts conference in downtown Denver for the week. She rode the light rail downtown and back, which is a pretty fun experience. Then the rest of the HKs arrived very late on the evening of Friday the 13th. Mikele graciously volunteered her entire family to help us move our precious belongings back down into the basement from the living room, dining room, and bedroom. It's amazing to be able to see the floor again in those rooms. And, as a special bonus, they also helped us empty the PODS unit, which was removed from our driveway yesterday. Hooray! What a relief. Thanks to Ken and Freddie, and all the HKs, for their unbelievably helpful contribution to getting that done! Oh, and we're having some fun, too. On Monday, all the boys went disc golfing at Ranch House in Ken Caryl. On Tuesday, Bob and I took all the kids to Elitch Gardens. That's Tyler, Dorothy, and me in the pic, on the XLR8R ride, which was very thrilling! Wednesday was a quiet clothes shopping day at Cherry Creek, for me and Mikele and the kids. Today we're heading out to Water World!

Monday Musings

We had our first relatively quiet weekend at home, in a long time. Nobody came by to work on anything! Oh, there was some excitement. I took Mandy out for her morning outing, and she was sniffing around the rocks at the neighbor's house, and suddenly jumped back, very agitated. I saw a wasp come flying out of the rocks at about the same time. She completely forgot about needing to use the grass, and slunk back into the house, periodically rubbing her nose with her paws. I called the Animal ER, and they were very concerned about the possibility of a bad reaction to a bee sting. They said that many dogs have a strong allergic reaction, especially at this higher altitude. She seemed to perk up after a few minutes, and really wanted to go out again, so I took her for a 20 minute walk down on Lee Gulch, watching for signs of swelling, or a rash, or difficult breathing, but she seemed fine. On the way back, I talked to a neighbor who mentioned a friend's dog was swollen up for weeks after a bee sting. That got me concerned again, so just to be safe, we took her to Animal ER, but after one look at her, and knowing it had been 45 minutes since the event, they recommended taking her home, and just monitoring her for symptoms. She seemed fine the rest of the day. Now I'm wondering if maybe the wasp just buzzed around in her nose, and frightened her, before flying away. Or maybe a wasp sting isn't as bad as a bee sting, or something like that...

We're trying to adjust to our new life with dialysis at 6am. It's always a race. We rarely get her there before the designated time, although we're usually within a few minutes. This morning, we were daydreaming about a day when we'd leave the house early enough, to be able to stop somewhere for a breakfast sandwich. What a concept. She's supposed to eat a few ounces of protein before dialysis, and it's hard to get that done, when we're just rushing to get ready to go, charging up the oxygen bottle, taking the dog out, all that stuff.

We're looking forward to a visit from my sister and most of her family! She's arriving tomorrow afternoon for a performing arts conference, then will be arriving Friday night. I guess her oldest, the newly certified lawyer in the family, will be hunting for work, now that he's got that crucial bar exam behind him.

Dang that foot

K's ortho doc called me (what a great guy) to report he removed the full contact cast on her right foot. This was the first of several weekly scheduled inspection and change appointments. He was very disappointed to find the wound was quite macerated, and she had another large blister on her heel. So we're kind of back to the beginning (pre-holidays), on the long winding path to healed up feet. On the good side, her left heel is looking much better. I hope I don't jinx things by saying it, but it seems like it's mostly healed up.

Just Another Day

We got K to her 6am dialysis almost on time this morning. I took Mandy for a walk down to Lee Gulch, and now I'm just puttering around the house, sweeping up stuff, doing laundry, and waiting for the various worker folks to arrive, to make sure they know what K has in store for them today. I had Mandy in the open garage on a lead, and she started barking at the first person who arrived, so I settled her into the car, and she seems snug as a bug in there for the moment.

Special Treatment

K's ortho doc has been very conscientious, making every effort to give her the opportunity to heal, and even calling me after every one of her visits, to summarize her status and his approach to her care. His latest effort today, was to put K's right leg in a full-contact cast. Here she is at dialysis, with her new day-glow pink accoutrement. He's hoping it will distribute any pressure on the foot more evenly, and give the wound on the bottom a better chance to heal.

Follow up

K had a busy day on Wednesday. House stuff, errands, dialysis, and a follow up appointment with the ortho doc, who said he's going to try something different, to help her feet be able to heal without being totally off them all the time.

Sunday

K's numbers (glucose, temp, pulse/ox) seemed OK this morning. She stayed in bed awhile, recovering from the stressful hospital visit. With her off-the-feet order, dog class on Monday seems pretty much out of the question.

I took Mandy for a walk up Lee Gulch to the pond at Ashbaugh Park, and even tried her off leash for awhile. She was so good most of the time. She really wants to be 50 feet ahead of me, but once she gets out there, she slows down and keeps pace, using the extra distance as a time buffer, so she can sniff around to her heart's content, without falling behind, as I catch up at my slow human-walking pace. When I start running, she lets me catch up, then lopes along next to me, and glances up occasionally with a sort of happy dog look, if you can picture that. Then came the moment when she spotted someone walking a couple of big dogs, off in the distance. She went on her usual alert, ears up, all four legs stiff, and started into her stalking mode. But wonder of wonders, she stopped on command, and waited for me to come up beside her. We had a nice run on leash, the rest of the way home. Here she is, running alongside me, although looking at it now, she's obviously barely putting out any effort to keep up with me.

The painters were here over the weekend, doing the windows and doors. The big room is looking pretty done, aside from the shelves not being trimmed in yet.

K's Home

K came home from St Jo tonight. My estimate was way off. Last night I was thinking that I'd have her out of there by 3pm today, with just dialysis to do in the morning. But with the confusion with the antibiotics, and other general hospital slowdowns, I didn't get her out of there until after 8pm. The antibiotic question was resolved in favor of having DaVita administer them during dialysis, but that's only every other day, so it's a poor compromise at best. She had a 100 degree temp just before checking out, but the tech was creative, and had her drink some water and measure again, which of course brought it down. So now we're watching her temp very carefully, and it does seem to be going down.The last thing they messed up was her prescription for pain meds on the way out. They forgot the pharmacy had closed, and sent the hard copy down in the pneumatic tube, so there was no way to get it back. It took nearly an hour to get everyone to understand what needed to be done, and to get a doc to sign a new prescription, and get it back to us. By that time, we were so tired, we just came home anyway - maybe she'll get it filled at Kaiser. She's on a no-walk no-drive order, and wearing a big unwieldy boot on her right foot, so it will be interesting getting her to the follow up appointment on the morning of the 21st, especially since that's her dialysis day. We'll be asking around to see if someone can take her. The good news is that the DaVita center was willing to slide her dialysis appointment back from 1pm to 5pm that day. Sigh. Another long day. I just got back from walking Mandy one last time before bed, and now it's time to get these tired eyes closed.

In Dialysis

They got K into Dialysis this morning around 8am. It's funny that it took so long, because the dialysis facility is on the same 3rd floor where she's staying, just a few feet from her room. Dr Brook called the house to tell me he changed his mind about allowing her to walk, and will be ordering that she keep all weight off her foot. I know it will be a great inconvenience, but that's really pretty great news to me, since it seems obvious that this latest round of foot problems is all about the trauma caused by walking around on the wounds. K called from Dialysis a little while ago. She says the antibiotic order is problematic. They'll want her on daily IV antibiotics for awhile, so she may need to have a PICC line inserted. The dialysis folks are concerned about losing a possible site. I'm not clear on this, but it sounds like for some reason DaVita won't administer antibiotics, which is forcing the PICC line issue. It sounds like they want to leave the decision to her, but I asked her to get the docs talking so they can resolve it as best as possible for her.

Post Op

K's out of surgery as of 5pm. Dr Brook just called to give me the details. He debrided existing wounds, removed the medial sesmoid bone, and planted antibiotic beads. He also loosened the Achilles tendon to prevent future problems. He's going to confer with an infectious diseases specialist about what antibiotics to use. The problem is complicated by the various antibiotics they've already had her taking recently. He says he'll be sending her home tomorrow after dialysis at the hospital, and wearing a cam boot, which has a rounded bottom to help prevent putting too much pressure on the bottom of the foot. It sounds like she's now in the best possible position, to be able to recover from the current situation. She has a follow up appointment with the doc and his nurse on Wednesday.

Waiting for Surgery

K says they never got around to taking her to dialysis this morning, so they'll either have to delay the surgery, do the dialysis later today after the surgery (doesn't seem likely), or have her do a make up session at the DaVita center on Saturday (not as easy as it sounds to schedule one of these on short notice). I think they should keep her another day, and do it in the hospital tomorrow morning. The cardio doc called the house this morning, to say the result of her nuclear stress test was "normal", which means her heart shouldn't be a factor in U of Chicago deciding whether or not she should go forward with a transplant.

Checked In

Mandy and I drove K up to Exempla St Joseph hospital this (Thursday) evening, to check her in for tomorrow's (OK, technically, today's) planned foot surgery. She's in the South wing on the 3rd floor, in a nice clean single room at the end of the hall, just across from the Solarium. She should be getting dialysis in the morning, and the surgery in the afternoon.

Basement Carpet

The basement made a big jump towards looking done, after the carpet was laid down. In this picture you can see the new carpet, the cabinets installed along the East wall, and the new French doors, which replaced the metal sliding doors we had there before. You can also see the new heater vent down low, which will heat the room more efficiently. We are so excited about how close this space is to being usable!

Nuclear stress test

K went for her nuclear stress test today. At least that's the name they used, when they called to confirm her appointment. Cool name for a fairly long (3-4 hour) test that evaluates blood flow to the heart. This is to collect more data in preparation for a possible future transplant operation some day.

Surgery Date

K was notified today that her foot surgery will be Friday at Exempla St Joseph Hospital. It was supposed to be a "day" surgery, but the person calling to notify her said she needs to check in on Thursday afternoon, and was unable to explain why.

On a positive note

Our homeowners association held the annual spring cleanup and brunch today. The brunch was held at the house just down the hill from ours, so we got to see what our new deck, with its trellis and roof, looks like from below. Everyone seemed to like it.

Things are coming along swimmingly on the inside as well. The baseboard is installed, and the closets are sprouting shelves. The big room is currently full of freshly painted interior doors, left to dry by the trim people. Here's Mandy exploring the "door art".

I took Mandy for a walk down to Sterne Park this afternoon. I just love the sundial by the rose garden across the street. Mandy wasn't all that interested, but I caught a regal looking profile shot of her standing in front of it.

Bone Infection

K heard back from her Ortho doc (Pino) this morning, before she left for dialysis. The MRI was difficult to read, but he and an associate think they understand it now. It looks like there is a localized infection in a small bone that's between the big toe and the rest of the foot, and that bone must be removed to prevent the infection from spreading. So the good news is that right now it looks like a relatively minor surgery. This will require a day surgery, after which she'll wear a special protective boot for her foot. She'll need to be on daily IV antibiotics, which they'll administer in dialysis (if they don't blow it again). The scheduling is problematic - they can't get her in, until sometime next week, and Dr Pino will be out of town then, so another surgeon will have to do the work.

No news (is tough to bear)

K got to the Ortho doc on Wednesday morning, and he didn't have anything to report. The scan images were available online instantly after the MRI was taken, but he wanted the official interpretation of the scan from whoever does that stuff. So we still don't know the status of her foot. The good news is she's been taking antibiotics since her first meeting with him, and there's a reasonable possibility that any infection is being held in check, or (hopefully) being beaten back. The doc said to call by Monday if we haven't heard anything. My stomach is in knots waiting for this info, when I have time to think about it. I suppose the good news is that I rarely have that kind of time these days.

The Univ of Chicago transplant group called today, to let K know that she's been moved to their "inactive list". The KP transplant coordinator had called them to report that K's foot wounds are still not healed.

Got an MRI appt

The Radiology dept called and had found an appointment for K for Tuesday evening. We'll know more after that. She's got a follow-up appointment with the Ortho doc on Wednesday morning. In the meantime, K is extremely worried and depressed about the possibility of serious foot surgery in the near future. I'm not holding up so well myself.

Foot concerns

K's previously recovered heel has reverted to wound status, but it's not as serious as the balls of her feet, which have both been deteriorating. The right one is looking especially bad. The Ortho doc on Friday thought he could touch bone through the wound with a Q tip. He put her on oral antibiotics and ordered an MRI. He wants it done before the follow up appointment on Wednesday, but the MRI dept doesn't have any openings before next Saturday. Typical. There's so much going on in our life right now, that everything seems to blur together, and it's hard to get anything done, especially when the system doesn't cooperate.

Walk

I took Mandy on a little walk up Lee Gulch to the high school and back. A great Blue Heron flew by, throwing a huge shadow over us for a second, then settled gracefully onto the bank of the gulch, and hopped down to pick at grass and minnows in the creek.

Mandy has this thing about just going right up to the top of any steps we pass by. I think she must've once lived with someone who had a house with steps up to the front door. Either that, or her adventurous soul can't resist the opportunity to see what's up there.

The spring blossoms are coming out beautifully about now. They're looking especially good on the plum and crabapple trees in the front yard.

Railing

The decking is all laid down, and now the railing is going up. The vertical supports will have composite material around them to keep the weather out as much as possible. This Trex material looks really good, and feels wonderful to the bare foot. I'm thinking it will be a real pleasure to wander out there bare footed, and not have to worry about splinters!

Decking

Most of the decking material has been laid down. The ends are ragged, but that's just a matter of buzzing them straight with a saw. This time around, we're opting for composite decking, to eliminate splinters, and also to hopefully extend the service life a little longer than last time.

Textured

It hardly took any time for the basement walls to be textured. The pattern looks really nice.

Primed

The basement walls are all primed and ready to be textured. Here's my office. I'll even have a bit of a view of the Rockies, or at least a little of the Front Range, off to the Southwest.

Deck Supports

They're making rapid progress on the deck now. All the demo work is done, and the new underpinnings are in place. For sure it will be treated wood this time around, so maybe it will last a bit longer.