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.