Candy Apple Red

And in this corner... a candy apple red electric scooter! We have a new sense of freedom for K, while attempting to move about the house. We've been struggling for so long, trying to find a way for her to move around, without putting any weight on her foot. We finally took a deep breath, and went out looking for an electric scooter. There were so many choices, we were somewhat overwhelmed at first, but this one has a very slow "turtle" speed, which we think will help her to avoid all the corners and other obstacles around the house. It's a big commitment, and it brings a whole new set of challenges with it (note the oxygen tube in the picture), but we're hoping this new gadget will help her foot to heal. Mandy seems fine around it, which is both a good and scary thing. K will have to stay on the lookout, to avoid running her over!

Shopping for a Scooter

We've been talking about getting K one of those little motorized scooters, so she can get around the house without the huge temptation to use her wounded foot. She test drove one model last year, while looking at other handicap paraphernalia, and thought it could be pretty handy. Tonight we had a visit from a salesman who demonstrated one low end model. He didn't have any units immediately available, so we're heading out tomorrow, to visit a distributor up in Arvada that has some in stock.

Walk

We really enjoyed our beautiful 70 degree warm spell this week, sitting out on the deck and soaking up the experience. It didn't last very long, though. We had another little poof of snow last night, that started just as we were heading out to take K to the dialysis center. It ended almost as quickly as it started, before it was time to pick her up, and only deposited a fraction of an inch, mostly on the grassy areas, and pretty much nothing on the streets.

Ken and I took Mandy for a walk down to Abe's Cafe for lunch. We were glad to have our jackets, as it was just a bit chilly at 31 degrees. We stopped to marvel at the large equipment they're using to repair the light rail track, after the freight train derailing last week. They have a little self-sufficient train with its own digging shovel, and several cars to receive or dispense dirt. The shovel moves on tracks at the top of the cars, so the operator can select which car the shovel is accessing. They're digging pretty deep, but it's understandable, after looking at the pictures of the wrecked cars all dominoed up - they took out a long section of the retaining wall below the light rail track.

As we passed Sterne Park, we noticed the geese on the Lake looking pretty cool, casually lounging around on the ice. With the surface ice partially melted into puddles, some of the ones standing appeared to be walking on water.

K has a new wound on her right foot, on top of the arch, caused by pressure from the new boot. This is very disappointing, especially since the boot is supposed to protect her foot, and it seemed to be helping the original wound on the bottom of her foot to heal. The good news is that wounds on the top of her feet tend to heal fairly quickly.

Successful Launch!

After a few false starts during the week, we successfully launched DV337, a Delta IV Heavy carrying an NRO payload, last night. So much for my Saturday! They're not saying much about it, but SpaceFlightNow seems to have some good information. It was the longest mission I can remember supporting, with a 9 hour countdown and a pretty long flight too. I went home after the rocket was safely on its way, and handed off the support of the flight to my very capable coworker. I'm not positive whether or not the entire mission was completely successful, since they invoked a news blackout immediately after liftoff, and I don't want to bother my coworker, who was at work into the wee hours of this morning. But the liftoff sure looked good, and when I left several hours later, everything was going fine.

The wound on the middle of K's right foot appears to be responding to the new treatment approach. Not so sure about the heel wound, which isn't necessarily getting any worse, either. The new boot arrived last week, and she's trying to be careful using it, to avoid having it cause problems instead of helping. There does appear to be a bruise on the top of her foot that was probably caused by the pressure from it, and she's watching that closely. She's still experiencing severe nausea pretty much daily, and is looking at alternative medication that might help, with no success yet.

Miles & Monk

Ken and I took a chilly walk with Mandy, down to Blueberry's for an egg croissant, then to Savers looking for gloves to replace the nice knitted ones I've worn out, then stopped at the library and checked out some music CDs, before heading home. The snow promised for today never really arrived, except for a few flurries that never stuck to anything.

While K was at dialysis, I dedicated this evening to learning how to use the new turntable we bought last Spring during the remodel. It has a USB output, so supposedly we should be able to play one of our many records, and capture the output into the computer, convert each track to an MP3 file, and then be able to play the album with our new Sonos player in any room of the house. If that all works, then we should also be able to burn the music files to a CD and play it in the car. So goes the theory anyway. Naturally, my first stumbling block was that I couldn't find the user manual for the turntable, and for awhile it went downhill from there. As soon as I plugged in the turntable USB cable, my computer speakers went dead. Then I couldn't capture anything until I discovered the neat freeware audio editing application named Audacity. Then I could only record mono sound, left channel only. Then I could only generate one huge MP3 file with the entire album on it, until I learned how to label the quiet spaces between songs and export to multiple MP3 files. Sheesh. Eventually, I learned how to do everything I needed, and as I write this, I've just finished capturing the "Miles & Monk at Newport" album and have been listening to it through the computer speakers for the past few minutes. Nothing like success to cheer me up a little, before heading to bed!

Eagle Eye

We woke up to a gorgeous 25 degree morning, with the sun shining, and a medium thick layer of white frosting on everything, including the local foothills. Later in the morning, the deck furniture looked like someone had scattered a thick layer of diamonds on it, as the snow melted and the sun caught the beaded water drops. The temp never left the 25 degree mark all day, until night fell. Now it's a nice chilly 12 degrees out there. We watched Eagle Eye tonight with K&F - a thrill a minute! K says her foot wounds look about the same - no miraculous healing (at least yet) from the new treatment.

New Foot Regime

The two wounds on K's right foot are still serious, and have kept her off the Kidney/Pancreas transplant list throughout 2008. This week we visited the vascular surgeon who performed her Fistula surgery last year, this time to hear him report on the ultrasound scan that was taken recently on her feet. We hoped he might be able to surgically augment the arteries in her legs to improve the foot circulation. The good news is that there's still healthy circulation in the large vessels, and the not so good news is that the problem must therefore be in the smaller vessels, which means there's not much he can do to help with it. However, he did have some new ideas about how to treat her wounds, and she's now onto his new program. Wish her luck!

My cold symptoms are doing their usual drag-on thing, mostly just a runny nose, and an occasional sinus headache, but they're not keeping me from doing anything important.

Mandy feels so soft and fuzzy after her bath yesterday, very pettable. On our walk today, I was always on the lookout for her to lunge for the grass, and try to grab a quick roll. I'm hoping we'll get through a month without any more of that.

The weather's been just awesome the past several days, sunny and in the 50-60 range. I see the forecast calling for much colder tomorrow, and maybe even a couple of inches of snow.

Happy New Year!

We're wishing everyone a really different and wonderful year in 2009! We had an awesome New Year's Eve dinner at The Melting Pot, with our neighbors Ken and Freddie. K had her regular evening dialysis at 5:15 (no special schedule for New Year's), so we went to the 2:30pm dinner. Mmm! A beer-cheddar fondue with bread and veggies to dip, followed by a bubbling broth fondue with Filet Mignon, Teriyaki steak, Chicken, Shrimp, and Salmon, followed by a decadently delightful Cherries Jubilee chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, and various cakes. We used the convenient handicap parking and lower entrance, so K didn't have to climb any stairs. It was dark enough inside, to need a flashlight to order, and coincidentally I had brought my LED key chain light, a handy contraption I got for Christmas. We finished just in time to get K to her dialysis. We reconvened after dialysis, to watch the Dog Whisperer and the New Year's Eve countdown, and exchange Christmas gifts.

I slept in late enough this morning, that I only caught the last half of the Rose Parade, but I did see the Cal Poly float, which was a very cool little amusement park this year, complete with a roller coaster. Ken and I took Mandy for a late morning walk, in search of brunch, but everything was closed except Starbucks, so they got our business. Mandy took advantage of an off-leash exercise, to roll in some fresh goose poop, yet another first in our lives, and only a week after her first bath in practically forever. (Coincidence? I wonder...) Ugh. She's been such a wonder, I was hoping we could skip that little doggie trait. Of course that called for a bath after we got home, and it was nice to get through it smoothly, after our initial home bath experience that didn't go so well. After all that excitement, I went down and relaxed for awhile in our new basement steam shower.