Opportunity Missed

Day 4 at St Jo. I was awakened at 5:34 this morning by a call from the University of Chicago. They had a possible pancreas/kidney transplant match for K. I was terribly disappointed to have to tell them that K is in the hospital fighting a foot infection with antibiotics and surgery. This was (in more ways than one), a wake-up call for us. We were told our first call might be as soon as 3-6 months, but in fact it came in 2 weeks. I didn't feel like we were ready to go, but K had a completely different perspective. Sitting in her hospital room at St Joseph, she felt like she could just as easily be in Chicago. She told me to call them back, while she checked to see if her doc at St Jo would release her. The docs on both ends agreed this wasn't a good time, so we missed this one, and will plan to be ready for the next call. K was heartbroken at the bad news, and is very mad at her feet right now. She morosely wondered if the next call will ever come, and I asked her to focus on being ready when it does. I was going to sleep in today, but now that I'm all fired up, I figured I might as well let you all know what's happened.

Friday Night

I stayed with K until the late afternoon, then headed home to try to get an early night. I found some nice flowers in the gift shop, and delivered them to her room while I was waiting for my car to be retrieved. Our caring neighbors Ken and Freddie have been graciously watching Mandy while we're away from the house, so she's a very well cared-for pooch. Considering how much she seems to like those guys, I'd say she hardly misses us, but that would just be wrong. She spins in energetic circles when I walk in their door, which makes me feel very much missed and welcomed at the same time. At night before we fall asleep, it's clear she's wondering where K is, as she sits on the bed, and goes on alert at every noise. She wants her K home, as do I. On the other hand, I'm really glad she's in the hospital, and practically under armed guard that won't let her leave her bed. That's the most important factor in getting these wounds to heal, is to get off her feet. We got a light coating of corn snow this evening, while we were playing Rummikub after dinner. I'm still dealing with a dry cough from the cold that hit me 3 weeks ago. It sure will be nice, to be completely over that one.

Back in Room

K's back in her room. I waited 90 minutes for her to get out of a supposed 20 minute surgery. It turns out the waiting room attendant messed up in adding my name to her list when I'd arrived, and so no one knew I was waiting, and I got no updates on what was happening, or even the final debrief from the doc. The waiting room was very full, more so than I've ever seen, after several occasions of being there, and I didn't want to bother people unnecessarily by asking them about her every 10 minutes, but I guess I should have. After they sent her back to her room, someone finally came out, and asked if anyone had shown up for her. I said I'd been waiting an hour and a half, and they were caught completely off guard, thinking no one would respond. Boy, did that get me fired up. It's bad enough having this all happen, and worse to be completely in the dark, when they were supposed to be keeping me updated.

The surgeon didn't find the need to amputate anything today. He debrided wounds on both feet, packed antibiotic beads into the wounds, and bandaged up both feet very securely. The infectious disease doc came by to tell her that they'll have the results of the deep culture sample by Monday, and then they'll know what kind of antibiotic to use, to target the infection. So it looks like she'll be here awhile.

Out of Surgery

She's out of surgery and in the recovery room. No word on how it went.

Into Surgery

Day 3 at St Jo. The Ortho doc read the results of the MRI scan of her feet, and has scheduled K for surgery this morning, to address the multiple wounds. He expects to only do some debriding, and not any amputation today. The decision for that will rest mostly upon the blood circulation in her feet, and he'll get a sense of that during this first surgery.

Frustrating Day

Day 2 at St Joseph hospital. Today has been very frustrating for her. A broken MRI machine delayed getting the important internal picture. A big delay getting into dialysis, while waiting to figure out if the MRI machine would be available. When the MRI machine finally became available, they go the pictures, but the Ortho doc was too busy with other surgeries to read the MRI pics. Because of all that, her foot surgery has been deferred until tomorrow. She feels the foot has been getting worse very quickly today, and this was important time lost. Infections can move so fast, and we've seen that happen more than once, that it's amazing to me when things like this happen.

K at St Jo

Day 1 at Exempla St Joseph Hospital. I visited with K in her room late tonight. She's on an IV broad spectrum antibiotic. I think because this is an issue with infection, they gave her a private room, so maybe she'll be able to sleep through the night during this stay. The doc thinks she'll be there at least several days. The idea is to enforce the "stay off your feet!" directive she's supposed to have been following for the past several weeks. It seems like some surgery is required, but there's no discussion of it yet, aside from K asking about it. With any luck, having the pressure off her feet will help allow them to heal. Her dialysis center knows she's not coming anytime soon. It snowed several inches tonight, but our new CR-V made the trip to and from the hospital an easy and safe proposition. Mandy was disappointed that she had to stay in her nice warm bed in the car while I was up visiting K, but with the issue being infection, it didn't seem appropriate to take her up.

K to Hospital

K called from the cardio doc's office. She noticed this morning that her foot wounds are looking worrisome. The cardio doc agrees, and is making arrangements to admit her to the hospital. She'll need to be in a special area, because of her recent antibiotic use. They won't be able to admit her until 4pm, so Freddie will take her home for an hour, so she can grab a change of clothes before they go back for the 4pm admission.

K Driving Again

K drove herself to dialysis for the first time today. The RTD Access-A-Ride messed up somehow, and didn't show up at the appointed time this morning. It's clear she's feeling some independence, since she just called me from Whole Foods to ask what I wanted her to bring home for dinner.

My cold isn't letting go as quickly as I'd hoped. I woke up very wiped out this morning, and just shut off the alarm and went back to sleep. I dragged myself into work just before lunchtime, having missed a couple of important meetings. But I sure felt a lot better for the extra sleep!

Dorothy's the Focus

I'm not putting much energy into our K&S blog, because most of my available time is going into getting K to and from Dialysis, and making sure the blog for our niece Dorothy is up to date. In case you haven't checked over there, Dorothy's come out of the coma, and has been making incremental progress. They had planned to move her to a rehabilitation facility early next week. She had a setback on Friday, when they discovered her jaw was broken in two places, but they're planning surgery for that on Sunday morning. The jaw will probably delay her move to rehab.

K's still struggling with 3 foot wounds on her right foot, and now one wound on her left foot. The first wound on her heel has indirectly caused the other three, since she's been trying to keep off the heel, which puts more stress on the other parts of her right foot, and on the left foot. The month of dialysis has removed a lot of the swelling that was caused by the failing kidneys. She likes to say she's lost "three Mandys" to the dialysis, and is working on a fourth.

Dorothy in ER

Our niece Dorothy went into the E.R. at Twin Cities Hospital in Templeton Friday night, after a car accident. She's in a coma, and her condition is very serious. She can use all the good wishes and prayers you have to give. Her Mom asked me to create a blog for her recovery status. The address is http://dorothyhk.blogspot.com and it's also listed off to the side under my favorite links.

Back From CA

I was out on the west coast last week, supporting a tanking test on Friday. I got home safe on Sunday night, with no big taxicab adventure this time, other than taking a completely different route than I asked for. I felt a sore throat coming on Friday morning, and wondered if it was just from the cold moist coastal morning air, but no such luck. I've been home sick with a nasty cold for the past three days. Sore throat turned into a runny nose and headache, a touch of Laryngitis, and a lot of coughing, especially at night, making it impossible to sleep. I probably caught it before traveling on Tuesday. My first business trip in two years, and I come down with a cold while I'm out there. Dang. I thought about going into work this week, but I really am miserable, and also trying to avoid exposing my coworkers to it.

Approved for Transplant

Here's some really good news: K has had several communications over the past week, with various transplant people. While I was on travel, she found out she was officially approved to be on the Univ of Chicago transplant waiting list for a kidney/pancreas transplant. The opportunity could come as early as 3-6 months from now. The call could come at 10pm one night, and she'd need to be in Chicago by 7am the next morning. Special transportation arrangements would have to be made. She'd be in the hospital for the week after the surgery, then would need to be in Chicago, with a full-time companion, for the next 3 months. The logistics of that are a little overwhelming. Several coworkers have suggested that I telecommute from Chicago, so that I wouldn't have to take a leave of absence from work for that entire time, but my manager seems less than enthusiastic about that idea. Over the next few months, we'll be trying to identify people other than myself who would be willing to travel out and spend a week or more with her.

She also found out during the past week, that Kaiser is considering a relationship with a transplant facility here in the Denver area, so there's also a possibility that she may be able to get her surgery here, and not have to travel at all. That would be a huge relief. All very exciting news.

Post ER Update

Several people asked about what happened after K's trip to the E.R. last week. The visit and related treatments seemed to help with the symptoms at the time. The fever stayed down, and the chills went away. We're still not sure what that was all about, unless it was the beginning of an infection, and the I.V. antibiotic she's been getting has knocked it down. Or maybe she was just fighting something like a cold without other symptoms. Her big heel wound, which the E.R. doc said didn't look bad, because it wasn't deep, does look like it's healing up slowly. Unfortunately, while favoring her heel, she's developed two other wounds on the ball of her foot - one from pressure, and the other from tearing off skin while removing a bandage. So now we're watching three wounds. Sheesh.

K to ER

K got chills and a fever that was rising through 101.5 late Friday evening / early Saturday morning. We were quite concerned about the wound on her heel and possible infection. After discussing it with a Kaiser nurse, by 2am we were on the way to St Joseph ER. They ran several tests but couldn't adequately explain the fever. The good news was that none of the tests showed anything serious. They gave her intravenous antibiotics to address a suspected infection.

We took the dog with us, so I could run out to the car on occasion, and get my Mandy fix, as well as not having to worry about how she might be doing, in case K had to stay in the hospital for an extended period. By 6am they were talking about very good test results, and discharging her to home, and to her afternoon dialysis session. Mandy snoozed through the entire event, wrapped up snug and warm in her bed in the back seat of my car. We left for home around 7:30am, and stopped at Burger King and bought egg sandwich breakfasts for the three of us. We napped for a couple of hours, then I took K to dialysis at noon, where they gave her more IV antibiotics. She said she had one of the best dialysis experiences this time, probably because she asked for another more experienced technician to poke her arm this time.

New Year's Day Walk

Mandy and I dropped K off for her first dialysis session of the new year, then we stopped at Sterne Park and walked around in the snow for awhile. The lake was frozen over, and dozens of geese were comfortably parked there, enjoying the chilly blue sky day. Mandy's feet got cold about halfway around the park, so I carried her for awhile, then we came upon a great migration of geese, all heading for our location, as some friendly locals dropped by with a 50 pound sack of corn for them to munch on.

Quiet New Year's Eve

We're having about the quietest New Year's Eve of all time. I started out on a short walk to downtown Littleton this afternoon with Mandy, but she couldn't take the cold after a few blocks, so I brought her back home, and dropped her off before continuing on. It was chilly, about 27F, and a brisk wind came up after a few minutes. I was glad to have my hat and gloves with me. I really enjoyed that squeaky crunching sound my boots made, as I made my way along the snow covered paths.

This evening, K and Mandy are sleeping in the reclining chair by the fire, watching the New Year's Eve coverage on TV. We watched the big fireworks show in downtown Denver at 9pm, which they'll repeat at midnight. I woke K up at 10, and we had a quarter cup of Martinelli's to celebrate with the folks at the Times Square celebration. She's only allowed to drink a measured amount of fluid each day, because the dialysis can only remove so much, and we definitely don't want a repeat of that terrible swelling she's been recovering from for the past two weeks.

Home for the Holidays

Well, we've made it most of the way through the holidays -- knock on wood! K has suffered through several dialysis sessions now. They really do take a big bite out of our lives, but they give back life itself, so I guess it's a fair trade. The swollen legs seem to be improving, but very slowly. It's one of those things where we have to take it a day at a time. Then on top of everything else, she got a huge blister on her heel before Christmas, and now that needs to be watched very carefully. We got her to the wound care people two days later, which seems like record time, after our previous experiences. They trimmed it up neatly and bandaged it, and we'll be checking it tomorrow for the first time since then.

It's snowed several times over the holidays, totaling perhaps two or three feet. We even had a nice thick coat of fresh white snow on Christmas day, a real treat! I've been shoveling the snow off the deck, so the dog has a safe place to be outside, and lay around and experience the neighborhood sights and smells and sounds, when the sun is out. While I was taking this picture, I noticed later that a local fox was sleeping down under the pine trees in our neighbor's yard to the West.

Mandy and I are getting used to driving K to and from the dialysis center, in various weather conditions. She's been snuggling into her little bed in the back seat, all bundled up with a small blanket and a sheepskin cover, and has stayed very warm, even when the outside temperature has dropped into the single digits. We've tested our new all wheel drive on several occasions, and it passed with flying colors. The heated seats do help take the chill away quickly. Mandy and I have ventured out for walks in several unfamiliar snow-covered parks, as we've been killing time running errands and exploring. I've discovered that regardless of how warm her little coats are, her feet don't survive for more than a little while, after venturing into the deeper snow. She'll stop and lift a foot, as if it had been stuck by a thorn, and I'll pick her up and warm her feet, before we proceed on. She's not very keen on those little dog booties, but they sure seem like the best solution to the problem. I sure wouldn't venture out into the snow barefooted myself, so I'm not sure why I thought she'd be able to tough it out.

Mandy seems to have hit critical mass on dog toys. For the past few months, she's been totally uninterested in playing with any of the little toys we've gotten her. Then this week, a friend gave her a couple more little stuffed toys, and suddenly she's completely into hoarding all of her toys, moving them around the house from one favorite spot to another, and taking them out and playing with them. It's such a delight for us, to see her perking up and getting a new level of enjoyment out of life.

Here's a little movie clip, of our little toy monger discovering that her new goose makes a honking sound when she bites it just right. It's kind of like a "baby's first step" thing for us. We hope you enjoy it!

K Started Dialysis

The snow forecast for this afternoon started to fall around 1:30 today. Big fluffy flakes. Mandy was not the least bit interested in going out to investigate, although she seems very happy to lay here in my arms and look out the window at it.

K's been to two dialysis treatments since she got home from the hospital last Saturday. I think it's safe to say she's feeling a little better, although she's still feeling very badly. She's going to the DaVita Lakewood Crossing Dialysis Center at Wadsworth and Mississippi, which is a bit of a drive. She's on the Tue-Thu-Sat schedule. She was scheduled for a treatment on Christmas Day, but they're moving that one up a day to Monday instead. They've also moved her from the 2:30-6:30 slot to the 12:30-4:30 slot, which is more convenient for them. So far, she's found rides over there with our neighbors, and I've been picking her up after work. She's trying to setup a regular ride with one of the shuttle services that are available. She's also on a waiting list to get into a closer location in Littleton, but she's struggling with that, since she's been told the Lakewood Crossing one is nicer than the Littleton one.

We launched three rockets (one Atlas and two Deltas) in the past couple weeks. The last Delta II of the year, MV331, launched yesterday afternoon, just before we got off work for the holidays. It's nice to end the year with a successful launch.

K Back Home

Ken and I took Mandy down to Lee Gulch for a walk in the snow, then Mandy and I raced downtown to pick up K in the early afternoon, and now she's beginning to settle back into life at home. She had stayed an extra day in the hospital, hopefully to get the benefit of an extra dialysis today. Unfortunately, this morning's dialysis was unsuccessful, for various reasons, mostly unanticipated clotting and swelling, so they sent her home without it.

She's supposed to begin her regular dialysis sessions next Tuesday afternoon, at a dialysis center about 13 miles from home, about a 30 minute drive. That's pretty far away, but that's all they could arrange on short notice. We're hoping she can get on a waiting list for a center closer to home, and perhaps arrange for a shuttle service to transport her, so we won't have to drive her all the time.

K at St Jo

K was admitted to St Joseph hospital on Tuesday evening. Just before I left her, two doctors came by to consult, and both said she should expect to feel better soon. She had two hours of dialysis on Wednesday, three hours on Thursday, and four hours this morning. She doesn't admit to feeling much better, but I think she sounds more alert and seems to have a better disposition.

Our neighbors Ken and Freddie have been wonderful, taking care of Mandy during the days, while I've been at work. It's been snowing off and on the past few days, and that combined with the Christmas music on the radio, and the Christmas lights on the City and County building and everywhere else, have made the commute to and from the hospital a little magical.

I guess you must've noticed in the picture above, I snuck Mandy in to see her last night and this afternoon, and I'm convinced both my girls were the better for it. It wasn't much of a sneak, really. The after-hours guard in the lobby asked if they knew a dog was coming up, and I told him we were planning on meeting in the Solarium, and he said I was good to go. The Solarium is a big visiting room on the 9th floor with lots of windows. It was very pleasant, sitting in there with the lights out, enjoying the wonderful view of the Denver skyline, and dozing on the couch with the girls.

K to Hospital

K's been troubled with various symptoms that have all been getting progressively worse. Swollen legs and pain, low oxygen level, generally miserable all over. Difficulty sleeping - she's a walking zombie during the day. She falls asleep the moment she sits down to do anything that requires her to stop moving. Difficulty concentrating, and forgetting to do important things like taking her meds.

She consulted with her Nephrology doctor this afternoon, and he advised her to be admitted to the hospital this afternoon, and to start hemodialysis tomorrow.

Our neighbors volunteered to take her to St Joseph hospital while I'm at work, but I'm struggling with the desire to take off work, and be directly involved with that myself. We haven't figured out how we'll deal with the dog, but I'm hoping we'll have enough time and friends available, that Mandy will be well taken care of. Some of our neighbors are leaving town for the holidays, so logistics will get more difficult, but hopefully she'll be home by then.

I wish I were a person whose capabilities always rose to the level of adversity, and I guess with most issues I am, but as always when something happens to K, I turn into an emotional wreck, and my world closes in, until I can barely even think, much less do the right thing. But I'll be trying, as I usually do.

No Xmas Trip

We just canceled our tentatively planned driving trip to see family in CA for the Christmas holiday. K's about ready to commit to dialysis. She's been feeling lousy for a long time, but was holding on, and hoping she could put it off until January. The past few weeks she's been feeling even worse. Her legs have swollen until she has very little range of motion. She's thinking she needs to start soon, in which case, they'll want her in the hospital for the first day, and here in town for the first 30 days. After that, she'll be spending 4 hours at a dialysis center every other day, for the foreseeable future, or until she can get a kidney transplant. That will make traveling problematic, since we would have to find a dialysis center at every town we stop in, and reserve a treatment for her every other day. The people she's asked say that it's difficult to find places during the holidays, because a lot of other dialysis patients are trying to do the same thing.

So... I guess we'll be pretty much on our own for the holidays this year. Our little dog Mandy is trying very hard to be a good companion for us, and is doing a wonderful job at it, so I have hopes that we'll have an OK time, just the three of us.

Nice Day for a Walk

It's hard to believe the weather is this nice in mid November. Ken and I have gotten back to going out on weekend walks the past few months, and lately we're enjoying the unusually pleasant late Fall weather. Mandy quickly got used to our long walks, and now starts leaping and bounding whenever she sees me putting on walking shoes. Here are a few pictures from 11/11 - 11/16 - 11/17

Flush with success from our Chicago medical trip, we were thinking we'd try to drive to the West Coast next week, and spend Thanksgiving with family. We had to put the kibosh on those tentative plans, as K realized her new biweekly iron I.V. would be coming due that week. We're thinking of trying again for the Christmas week. Once we start thinking about that, we get all excited, and start trying to figure out how to visit everyone we know out there, which becomes a daunting proposition. Too many good folks, and not enough time. Still, we're considering stopping in Sacramento, Arcata, Newport Beach, and Atascadero, before heading home, although we haven't even done a strawman schedule yet. The hectic ULA work schedule may still get in the way. Hoping for a positive outcome, K has her liquid oxygen supplier out looking for a 75 gallon supply tank, that will fit in the car more easily than the 100 gallon tank we have in the garage.

Halloween

The ever so frightening ghosts, goblins, princesses, witches, race car drivers, and cell phone bill made their appearance, took our donations of eyeballs, fingers, and other edible body parts, and faded back into the night. K added some fun new apparitions to the exterior - skeletons hanging from the light fixtures.

Scary

K looked over at Mandy last night, as she was getting just one more thing before sitting down on the couch for a casual dinner. K realized that the dog had gotten into the pile of pills she'd prepared, to take with dinner. Some of those pills could easily kill an 11 pound dog. K couldn't remember which pills she'd laid down, or which ones she'd already taken, so the situation quickly spun up into an emergency. We weren't yet fully prepared for a dog health emergency, so we wasted some time calling around to various poison centers for people and dogs, and a couple of emergency vet facilities. We finally got her to VRCC in Englewood, after what seemed like an eternity to me, but was really about an hour. They gave her a medication that caused her to empty her stomach, but they didn't find any pills. Still, they gave her some activated charcoal to soak up anything bad, and kept her overnight to watch for possible symptoms. They were ready for almost anything, with a catheter and various resuscitation equipment. She hadn't shown any symptoms by this morning, when we picked her up, so it's looking like she may not have actually eaten any pills. We had quite a scare of almost losing our "companion dog", who has rapidly become a new family member, and I really hope we don't repeat the experience.

Fall Walk

After having Mandy try on her new pumpkin theme fleece coat, we ventured out for a midday walk with the neighbors. The Fall colors are showing definite signs of fading, but there were still a few rich and colorful seasonal indicators to be found.

Airliner Pressurization

My good friend mentioned a recent incident where he, and some other passengers in an airliner, began "gulping for air" during their flight. He asserted that the airline was recirculating the air as a cost cutting measure, and wasn't providing enough oxygen for everyone to be able to breathe normally. We discussed airliner pressurization systems at some length, and I referenced some articles on Boeing 737 and 767 airliner pressurization, but still he wondered why they didn't provide oxygen masks for everyone, since his experience in the USAF taught him that supplemental oxygen was required above 10,000 feet.

This oxygen question has always been a subject of interest to me, especially since it so directly affects private pilots. When a pilot friend of mine showed me his miniature Nonin pulse oximeter, I realized I "had to have one", and aside from being helpful on long trips over the mountains, it's been invaluable with monitoring K's O2 levels over the past few years.

He's right that oxygen is the key concern, but of course there's oxygen in the air, and if you get enough in the air you're breathing, you're fine without a bottle and mask. The percent oxygen is about 21 in Earth's atmosphere, which works out to a partial pressure of about 3 PSI at sea level. Partial Pressure of oxygen is what the lungs use, and a PP of 3 results in a blood oxygen saturation of about 97% in most people. The experts say most people need about 87% to function normally. Up here in the mile-high city, I generally see my O2 saturation at about 95-97%.

At 10,000 ft, the atmospheric pressure is only 60% of sea level pressure. That results in an oxygen PP of about 1.8, and a blood saturation of about 87%, which is enough for most people to function normally, according to the experts. The USAF and others recommend going on supplemental oxygen at 10,000 feet, in an unpressurized plane, because it's the conservative thing to do. USAF pilots also have to worry about someone shooting a hole in their pressurized aircraft, so they always use bottled oxygen as a backup. Just for the record, the FAA doesn't require supplemental oxygen for private pilots in unpressurized aircraft until 14,000 feet, and oxygen doesn't have to be provided for passengers until 15,000 feet.

About the "gulping for air" symptom. When I lived in San Diego, I attended a course in "Physiological Training for Civilian Pilots" at Miramar Naval Air Station. One of the things we did, was sit in an "altitude chamber" while they ran the pressure down until it was the equivalent of 24,000 feet, and let us experience that high altitude without supplemental oxygen. There was a safety officer in the chamber with us, and his job was to force us back onto oxygen if we didn't do it when instructed. At that very high (simulated) altitude, I did notice some subtle symptomatic clues that hypoxia might be setting in, but they would have been easy to overlook, if I hadn't been watching for them. There was definitely no "gulping for air" symptom in any of the dozen people we had in the chamber. Then many years later, I was flying between Denver and Telluride several years ago, at 14,000 feet in an unpressurized Piper Turbo Arrow, and not using oxygen, although I had a bottle aboard just in case. I was carefully monitoring my blood oxygen with my portable oximeter. I saw my oxygen saturation level go as low as 77%, which is pretty low, but I never got short of breath or felt faint. I easily brought my oxygen level back up into the 90s, by inhaling deeply a few times, even though I didn't feel any need for it. There was no sense of a need to breathe differently, and definitely no "gulping" for air. All the articles I've read about pilots who fly higher than they should without supplemental oxygen, describe them as being unaware of their low oxygen situation. They just start acting stupid, then pass out after awhile. The Payne Stewart Learjet crash is a good example of this phenomena.

Modern day airliners are designed (and required by regulation) to be pressurized to an equivalent altitude of 8,000 feet or below, at their highest cruising altitude, without over stressing the pressure vessel that is the cabin. That leaves the partial pressure of oxygen at more than enough to sustain normal functioning, on all commercial flights, with no oxygen bottles involved. Airliners are also required to have an audible warning system in the cockpit, to warn when the cabin altitude exceeds 10,000 feet. Pilots are trained to act immediately, by descending the aircraft when that alarm goes off, although in practice it rarely does, partly because the systems don't fail very often, but mostly because the pilots are monitoring cabin pressure, and catch any anomalies before the alarm goes off.

I just couldn't accept the assertion that the airline was too cheap to fill the oxygen bottles, partly because I know there are no oxygen bottles involved, but mostly because the pressurization system is a mandatory item -- at the very least, it's required to keep the pilots awake.

I wondered if his shortness of breath might've been related to his asthma symptoms, combined with the likelihood that the cabin altitude was near 8,000 feet. I asked if he had difficulty breathing when he's in the mountains, and he said he does. Maybe the nearby passengers saw him having difficulty, and got nervous enough, that they started experiencing symptoms too. That kind of thing has happened before...

Or maybe the plane had a pressurization failure, and the cabin altitude alarm didn't go off, and the pilots didn't catch it. That's a lot of things to go wrong at the same time, but it's happened before too... in which case, they would have been dangerously close to having the pilots pass out along with the passengers. It's weird though, that more than one person experienced that gulping for air symptom. That's so unusual for that situation.

Snowdog

It's been getting more and more cool, as Fall settles in. With Mandy already showing a dislike for the chilly outdoors, we've had a scenario in our heads, of how this little desert dog would react to her first snow with us. We expected something on the order of, "Are you KIDDING?!", when we first tried to take her out in the stuff. Sure enough, we had our first decent amount of snow this morning, about 4 inches, with the temperature right around 34 degrees. It was a nice birthday present for K! Mandy saw me dressing for a walk, and got all excited about going. She was twirling in circles, doing excited little push ups with her forepaws, and generally trying to get me moving out the door as quickly as possible. I put on my boots, coat, and hat, filled my pockets with dog-walk paraphernalia, got her nice new waterproof coat on, and clipped on the leash. I could barely hold her back, as she dragged me to the front door. I swung the door open, and a blast of cold air hit her. She stopped in her tracks, leaned forward and examined the layer of white on the steps and across the yard, watched the flakes drifting down, and sniffed a little. She spun around, and ran upstairs as far as the leash would let her, and looked down at me, with a look that said, "Are you KIDDING?!" K activated the fallback plan, and took her down through the basement, to a covered spot in the back yard under the deck stairs. We figured this was a great opportunity to try letting her off leash, but that backfired, and she used her freedom to sneak up the snowy deck stairs to the (usually nice warm sunny) deck. That didn't work, so she scooted past us, and back indoors without doing anything. K led her with the leash to the desired spot, and she finally was successful, if somewhat miffed.

I tried getting her out for a walk again later in the day, after it had stopped snowing and the sun was out. She wasn't all that interested, but I persisted, and soon we were on our way down the wet street. She didn't find much of interest at first, with all the grass covered in snow. Something changed when we got to the bottom of the street, and her favorite trail was also covered in snow, except for the flagstones, which had been warm enough to melt the falling snow. She pressed on, hopping from stone to stone, in a cheery and springy kind of way. Halfway down the path, she started exploring out into the belly-deep (for her) snow, looking for a place to go. Not finding her ideal spot, she returned to the path, and we ventured on, down into Lee Gulch. She boldly struck out into the layer of snow on the boardwalk, and onto the bridge across the creek, which was already burbling loudly with runoff, and headed up onto the main trail, where there were only patches of snow. This she loved. I expected her to stick to the dry spots, but it seemed that now that she knew she had dry spots to come back to, she got her usual sense of adventure back. She explored out into the deeper snow on a regular basis, sniffing around and pushing snow around with her nose, and dragged me onward with great enthusiasm, for a fairly long walk. It looks like we have a snow dog! Of course I couldn't resist taking pictures.

Fall Walks

Mandy got to see some really nice Fall colors this weekend. Well, being colorblind, I suppose her big thrill was with all the colorful smells she got to experience. Ken and I took her with us Friday for lunch at Panera Bread in Aspen Grove. The colors along Lee Gulch and the Platte River were very vivid. This was Mandy's longest walk so far, around 5 miles, and she did just fine. On Saturday morning when I woke up, I noticed Mandy watching me closely every minute, and it was clear that she was hoping for another long walk. As it turns out, we had one in the plan. Ken and Freddie and I took her down to the King Soopers at Broadway and Mineral, and then back by way of the Highline Canal trail, maybe 5.5 miles, and she did fine on that one too. Then this morning, Ken and I walked down to the Post Office, and on for a cup of coffee, and of course she breezed through that teeny little 4 mile walk.

We made a trip to Office Liquidators on Saturday afternoon, and came home with a few file cabinets. We have great hopes of using them to get just a little more organized. Then we went back today and ordered a couple of office chairs. We're looking forward to having comfortable places to sit while doing paperwork, email, and such. Mandy got a little chilly in the car, as a cold front blew through while we were in the store. I went out to check on her, and she was shivering up a storm, so I bundled her up in her warm fleece dog coat, and wrapped her in a nice wool blanket that I carry in the car for just such an occasion. She was snug as a bug in a rug. The next time we came out, she was so comfortable she didn't want to move out of her seat. It felt like it was going to snow, and I did see a few flakes, but then it just turned into a short rain shower. So it's official - Fall is definitely here!