Setback

K's left foot, which had been doing fine, and was off "wound status", developed a wound recently, and it's now turned quite serious. K saw the doc on Tuesday, and he did a lot of cutting to remove infected tissue, including scraping the bone. They're waiting for the results of the foot X-Ray, to determine if the infection has gotten into the bone, in which case I assume that additional and more serious surgery will be required. K's right foot wounds are continuing to look better, although they're still serious.

Happy Memorial Holiday!

Going through emails this morning. This link, forwarded from a long time friend, really caught me off guard. I'm still recovering from that tightness in my chest, and yes, I'm pretty sure it's not just a heart attack. Felt like I had to share it...

Walk

Walked to Panera Bread for lunch, with neighbors and their visiting family. Stopped at See's for a snack - Mmmm! Got rained on just a little, while walking back. Saw two gopher snakes, a young one sunbathing on a tiny ledge in a slate wall, who hid in a crevice when we approached, and a mostly grown one sunning in the middle of the concrete path by the creek, who slithered frantically into the creek.

Now the real storm has hit - thunder, lightning, downpour, flickering lights, the whole bit. Got soaked while rummaging around in the yard, looking for a missing downspout, but finally found it in a clever hiding place.

K's been doing better in general over the long term, although she's having a tough time today. She was going to meet us for lunch, but called it off due to intense nausea. We were hoping to get out for a movie this afternoon, maybe go see Transformers with our neighbors and their visitors, but it doesn't seem likely now.

Snake Hunter

What an awesome warm day! I walked Mandy along the Platte River, through the nature preserve. She stalked two snakes in the high grass, a quick squirmy little 3 foot Garter snake, and a bit larger and slower 5-6 foot gopher snake. She was doing the jump-hop thing that we see the foxes doing, when they're after a mouse or other small critter. She's a fearless wonder! I was especially proud, when she was really good about obeying my command to leave the snakes alone, after she'd had her moment of stalking fun.

K's feet continue to improve, but they're not healed. I'm amazed at how long it's taking. I would so love to see nice healthy skin where the open wounds have been for the past 18 months. Lately it's looking like a probability (more than a possibility!) that they will heal up, after all. Having the scooter, and getting her off her feet by having a helper here several times a week, both seem to be helping. Not to mention the nurse visits every day, to re-bandage the wounds. Whatever. It's working.

STSS Launched!

We successfully launched MV-341, a Delta II rocket carrying the STSS payload, this afternoon.

K had her worst low glucose in a long time, this morning - down to 35. It figures, it would happen the morning she had a medical appointment, but with Freddie's help, she pulled it together to make the appointment. Her feet are doing well enough, that they've got her down to just one appointment every two weeks. She saw the doc today, and he's very pleased with the progress of all the wounds. 

K and I had dinner at OSF with Freddie and Ken. On the way home, we stopped by the fox den that Ken and I discovered recently on one of our weekend walks. We spent a few minutes watching the 3 very young fox pups playing around their den, a few blocks from our house. They were having the time of their lives, pouncing around on each other. Two brown and one charcoal. Very fun to watch!

More White Stuff!

We went to bed last night, with a little rain spritzer going on outside, and woke up to a 2 inch thick wet layer of snow this morning. Most of it had melted off before I got home from work. Mandy and I went for a walk down Lee Gulch this afternoon, and it felt so comfortable that I was thinking about how Summer's just around the corner.

Day at the Zoo

Weird Spring weather! It rained on us at the Zoo this afternoon, after a half day of beautiful sunny weather. We had plenty of opportunity to enjoy the lions, hyenas, leopards, the new baby Giraffes, and the polar bears. K rented one of their scooters, and it sure was a zippy little thing! The harbor seal and sea lion show seemed like the event of the day, partially because waiting for it gave us the opportunity to have a nice hot lunch!

Sun Melts Snow!

It's sunny out there! What a beautiful day! Mandy went out on the deck to enjoy the sun. She seemed pretty happy, lying there with the sound of melting and dripping snow on all sides. In just a few hours, all the deck furniture was bone dry. Now, if it would only melt that 3-inch layer of heavy wet stuff out there on the driveway, I'd have it made...

Hey! It did! How cool is that? I *like* these Spring snows! The sun's been out all day, and the temperature got up into short sleeve comfort zone. Mandy and I took advantage of the nice afternoon, grabbed Ken, and went for a walk through the neighborhoods. 

Lots O'Snow!

We've been hunkered down in front of the fireplace and TV, as a Spring snowstorm moves through. The forecast is calling for an accumulation of 6-18 inches today and tomorrow. I heard one weathercaster say there's enough moisture in these clouds that if it were just a bit colder, we'd be getting around 4 feet like we did in the Spring of 2003. I'm happy to settle for a foot or so. This stuff is very wet, and quite a challenge to shovel. Mandy's not very excited about going out any farther than the side yard. I keep shoveling her a little spot on the lawn, but it keeps getting covered up. 

K's foot wounds have been continuing to heal over the past few weeks. It's a very slow process, but we're very encouraged to see them looking better each time they're uncovered. I'm a little concerned about how this snowstorm is interfering with the regular routine. The nurses have missed both morning and evening visits today. Hopefully someone will be back tomorrow morning. They'll have to come later than usual, since K was feeling awful today with stomach pain, and skipped today's dialysis, so we have to get her to a make up dialysis tomorrow morning at 5:30am. Not the most fun thing to do on a Saturday morning. 

Happy Easter!

We had a quiet Easter weekend. I took Friday off, courtesy of some overtime worked earlier in the week. The paramedics arrived at K's dialysis center the same time we did. It's always scary to wonder what's going on when that happens. Mandy and I went for a few walks. There were some scattered rain showers, nothing like the snow that was forecast. I came down with something on Saturday that gave me major nausea and a gurgly stomach. Luckily it came and went quickly, and it didn't slow me down for a great dinner with Ken and Freddie at the White Chocolate Grill this evening. We had ice cream cake for dessert. Quite the extravaganza, in our own quiet way.

WGS Launched!

We launched AV-016, an Atlas V carrying the WGS communications satellite, last night.

K's had a nasty cough since last week. She's wracked with convulsions when a bout of coughing hits, which has been happening every time she tries to talk. She skipped dialysis because she couldn't face being stuck in the chair for 4 hours while having those intense coughing fits. Her doc diagnosed her with pneumonia early this week, and she's been taking a daily antibiotic, which seems to be helping.

Walk on the Platte

I took Mandy for a walk in the snow, while K was in her special Saturday evening dialysis session. We started at Aspen Grove at the Starbucks, and got a hot chocolate "for the road", then wandered along the Platte River for aways. We ended up at the Apple store for a half hour, ogling the 24 inch iMac and 17 inch MacBook, and learning about the clever 3-finger touchpad swipe.

K's home nurses, who are coming morning and evening to change her bandages, all seem to be in agreement that her foot wounds are looking better than they were.

Snow!

We got a pretty decent dump of Spring snow today. They closed the plant at 1pm. Thinking I'd beat the traffic, I jumped in my car at 12:30 and headed down the hill. I got about 100 feet, then sat in my car for a hour, not moving an inch, as the entire plant (apparently) spilled out of the parking lots into the main road, and slowly made their way over the slippery roads, and out the gate. I should've just stayed and worked late! K's dialysis center called to say they were canceling all Friday sessions, because there's more snow forecast, and she should expect to come in on Saturday at 5pm.

Scooter Outing

We got K out on a scooter outing around Littleton on Sunday! Our intended goal was the Old Littleton Deli, but they were closed on Sunday. We didn't have to settle much, by having a Mediterranean lunch at Damascus Grill. Mandy lounged around in the sun, peering in the glass doors from her perch just outside the front door. The scooter put forth an awesome performance (especially considering that we didn't think to charge the batteries the night before), covering the 4.5 miles over hill and dale with no difficulty. K was enthusiastic about getting out and feeling the wind on her face. The pic is on the trail around the Littleton Natural History Museum.

Week of 3/13

I spent much of St Paddy's Day trying to get AV-016 launched, without success. We're supposed to try again late next week. In the meantime, we have a Delta II launch scheduled for Monday night / Tuesday morning.

Dad told me on Saturday, that he'd taken a spill on the tennis court, and suffered a badly torn up left arm. He was going to see the doc on Monday, but I haven't heard how that went.

We had Sunday breakfast at IHOP with our friends Ken and Freddie. The adjacent pet store was closing, so after breakfast, we loaded up on a bunch of things for Mandy, like food and a reflective leash for night walks. Then we went up to Bel Mar for some shopping at Whole Foods. Ken and I took Mandy for a walk around the Bel Mar Mall, and I ended up getting some long overdue replacement walking shoes and boots at DSW. K picked up some great corned beef, and has been making me tasty sandwiches for lunch all week!

Kepler Launched!

We successfully launched the Kepler planet-finder satellite on a Delta II rocket tonight! Its mission is to search a nearby region of our galaxy for Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zone surrounding stars like our Sun. The habitable zone is the region around a star where the temperature permits water to be liquid on a planet’s surface. Liquid water is considered essential for the existence of life.

K's had major stomach problems this week, worse than ever. Could be a virus, or maybe a reaction to all the antibiotics she's been taking for her foot wounds over the past few months. Regardless of the reason, she's been really miserable. The good news is that her foot wounds, which are still quite serious, are continuing to heal.

Nice day

It's BEAUTIFUL here today! Went for a nice walk down to Blueberry's with Ken and Mandy this morning. Mandy had a tooth exam yesterday, and they pulled one, and she's still recovering from the anesthesia and trauma. We hurried home so I could take K to Dialysis - she was too nauseous all day yesterday, to go last night. On the way home from dropping her off, I stopped to check out the big empty building our local police dept is considering moving to. It's the Southbridge building, the same place the ground software folks were located back in the 1997 time frame. I remember going to a few meetings there. Judging from the looks of their telcom closet on the 1st floor, their existing Internet connection is awful, but hopefully they'll get something better, if they do move in there.

Clean Garage!

OMG... I can't believe the garage is cleared out and rearranged enough to accommodate K's car!

Thanks to Ken and Freddie -- it couldn't have been done without their help! Here are the before and after pictures. Actually, the before pile was even higher than the picture shows, since that one was taken many months ago.

TGIF

We got another half inch of snow last night, and it's been coming down very lightly all day. K seems quite a bit better today. She says several people at dialysis have been complaining about feeling particularly poorly the past few weeks. Maybe she picked up something and has been fighting it off over the past week. Mandy seems to have tuned into it, since she's perked up a bit in the past day or so.

Not the greatest day

K had a bad day today. She's severely nauseous for days on end. She didn't have the energy, or a stable enough stomach, to go to dialysis Monday night, so she called and found a slot available this morning. I dropped her off at just before 7, and picked up a latte and coffee cake on the way to work. It was weird not having Mandy in the car when leaving the dialysis center. Everything felt off kilter. When I got home after work, K was having a monster low blood sugar, down to 44 and feeling like she was dying. I got her some OJ, which she doesn't particularly like, but was the only juice available. We started watching that John Cusak movie, "1408" but the visiting nurse arrived to change her bandage, so I put the movie on hold for awhile, and finally just flipped to a regular channel when I started fixing dinner, chicken tiki masala and naan. Then here we are, hours later, just waking up on the couch, and realizing we're way late for bed. I was going to take Mandy out and head for bed, but realized we have an inch of snow, so first I went out to shovel the driveway, and uncover her special area on the neighbor's lawn. After I took her out, we had a cute moment, when I was trying to get all the blankets on the couch folded and put away, and she settled down on each one after I'd folded it, thinking I was setting up a soft spot just for her. I'd shoo her off, and pick up the next one, fold it and put it down, and then plop, there she was on top of the pile again.

Snow Coming

We had a really nice weekend, relatively warm and sunny. The last piece of ice at the bottom of the driveway disappeared today. Mandy and I got out for "destination" walks (to lunch) every day. The latest forecast calls for the possibility of snow today and the next few days. It was cooler and overcast today, but we didn't see any precipitation.

K's new scooter appears to be helping a lot with the wounds on the bottom of her feet. Unfortunately, there's a wound on the top of her right foot that's almost quadrupled in size over the past few weeks, so they're watching that one carefully. It seems like the new custom boot caused it, and probably exacerbates the problem every time she wears it, but it really helps with the bottom of her foot, so she's still trying to figure out how to make it work.

Successful launch!

We just finished launching MV338, a Delta II rocket carrying an NOAA weather satellite. See the writeup on spaceflightnow.com for details. We struggled to get this one launched, and finally got it off the ground on the third attempt. Since it was a 3:30am Mountain Time launch, the multiple retries made for an interesting week. I'm looking forward to sleeping in this morning! After I take out the trash, that is...

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.