Rory Update #2

Norm and I just got back from a visit with Rory, which included taking him on a four block round trip walk in the fresh evening air. He's put a bit of weight back on, fluids most likely, but looks that much better than yesterday. On a dog without fat any difference shows readily. My 102 pounds of wiggly-sniffing-poking-bouncing-smiling dog was only 86 pounds on Sunday. He is also blowing coat - likely from being in a strange environment, so what once was a gleaming coat of red is now looking thin and patchy. Nothing we can't deal with eventually. Right now the goal is to keep making improvements in blood chemistry and keeping food down. His "bun" and creatine won't be measured again till tomorrow so nothing new to report there. He has had three tiny meals today, all eaten enthusiastically and all kept down. He was alert, curious and full of nose pokes when we visited, though he tired easily from the walk. He's on two types of antibiotics, something for his stomach - the name escapes me but the human version is Pepcid AC, another thing to coat his esophagus, stomach and GI tract, and an anti-nausea medication. Pardon in advance to the squeamish among you but he is also passing stool, which is a good sign too - it's black which means it has blood in it (processed) but at least it's coming through. Ugh though, talk about the worst smell EVER.

He is of course charming the socks off of the vets and staff. Very tolerant of being prodded and poked, he's patient and just a generally good-natured, easy-going soul. But we knew that already :)

I whispered in his ear all the encouragement you are sending his way. I know he hears you.

Rory Update

First the good news: Rory's new x-rays from today compared to yesterday show a shift in gas patterns which means things are moving along in his intestines - this is good. He so far today has kept down two small meals (both of which he ate with gusto) - this is also good. The not-so-good news: his 'bun" and creatine (these are indicators in his blood that his kidneys are not filtering toxins) haven't lowered, so the vets will continue with fluids in order to support kidney healing and hope for eventual lowering of these indicators. Antibiotics continue. His hydration levels are back to normal with the help of IV fluids. Nothing back yet on tests submitted to lab for leptospirosis, giardia, e.coli, salmonella, beaver fever and a whole raft of others. The internal medicine specialist who took care of Rory today is suggesting that the kidney problem is secondary or the result of some other problem: toxin, poison, bacteria: something Rory might have eaten. As terrible as that sounds, it is better than yesterday's suggestion that the kidneys were the primary problem - in cases like that there isn't much they can do, the prognosis for those dogs is not good. In cases of poison or infection, they can at least help fight infection and provide hydration and nutrition while the body and organs try to heal. Thanks so much for all the positive energy - it means a lot to us!

Emergency

Thanks for all the well-wishes for Rory - I just finished visiting him at the animal hospital and you can bet I passed them on. Here's where some people excel at blogging and I fail: I didn't want to write about this at all. But as Norm pointed out, it IS Rory's blog. For those of you who don't know, Rory was sick for a couple of days, and after a trip to our regular vet on Saturday morning, things got worse and it got to the point where he needed to be hospitalized in the early hours of Sunday morning. The emergency vets are suggesting kidney failure but aren't certain of the cause. What they have told me though is that what seems so sudden to me may have actually been there all along but his body was able to manage things. Sometimes symptoms for kidney problems don't show up until they are down to only 25% function. So they are checking for infection and tomorrow morning they will do an ultrasound to "see" what his kidneys look like. In the meantime, they are getting him rehydrated, which is taking quite a while. Starting on Thursday night he wouldn't even look at food (and for Rory here's where the alarm bells start). He was able though to keep small amounts of water down but by Saturday night things weren't at all better so off to the hospital we went. I just came back from a visit and he is definitely perkier and the levels of toxins in his blood (this is what should be cleaned out by his kidneys) have dropped a little bit. He even ate some food while we were there, here's to hoping he keeps it down. We took him for a walk in the sunshine and then brought him back so they could keep plugging fluids into him.

Anyway, we don't actually know much for certain right now but I thought I'd post while I was still relatively cheered from visiting with Rory who on the outside does seem better than he did early this morning. The atmosphere in the house without Rory is solemn to say the least. Two people sitting around waiting. And waiting. And worrying. How can you do anything else?

The Foyer: Before and During

The front entrance is still awaiting a set of French doors to the hub room. In the meantime, why not tackle the entrance itself?

Here's a view of the front entrance from the hub room - this is before the hub room was finished - see the interior window, complete with blinds? Weird.

This is the direct opposite view of the previous shot...now with the hub room finished...the window has been removed, stud added and drywalled from the other side. Warm and welcoming entry, no?

It is definitely warm (and I like to think I'm a pretty welcoming hostess if you're prepared to ignore the construction). The radiator gives off heat during the winter like IT'S the boiler. As grateful as I am for that, I'm not keen on the many layers of paint covering the radiator. In order not to add to the problem, the cover must come off. I was originally going to have it sandblasted and then sprayed, but now I'm thinking about getting Hammersmith to make a custom cover. They did a bit of work for Norm in our last house. A small bit in comparison to this house where I also want them to build our hoodfan for the kitchen.

There are places that make all types of radiator covers - and we'll be back when we get to the living room's baseboard heaters. This is nice, but probably too deep and would interfere with the glass when we get the hub room doors in. I'm thinking something copper or brushed steel. Hammersmith will work from a sketch too: here's one idea.

Here's Rory giving the pre-work tool inspection. I really have to find a place where he can put that nose to work. He MUST sniff absolutely everything.

Sniffing takes a lot of out of dog. So does supervising. Note the yawn.

Cover off.

These shelves, and the lovely yellow acrylic insert are on the left side when you walk in, opposite wall from the radiator. Obviously dated, but they would have to go in any event since my experience is that any surface area becomes the default repository for whatever you walk in the door with. (Another good reason not to use the deeper style of radiator above - a key shelf is one thing, but if you can put your groceries on it it's too big.)

Even getting rid of the acrylic helps! These shelves, like all the casing and baseboard in the house, are solid mahogany. We'll repurpose the wood. Somewhere.

All gone. It opens right up into the living room. We'll not be wanting it quite that open, so we're looking at a glass waterwall. Think something like this only smaller scale.

The base the shelves sat on is hollow (making for relatively easy installation of the central vacuum inlet last fall) and it currently holds a planter box. A south facing yard with low maintenance perennials is one thing, I don't think anybody wants to see me torture plants inside a north-facing entrance. The light fixture is new, purchased in Edmonton for a pretty deep discount. The old one went to my cousin's cabin - rustic to rustic I say.

The other source of light is the skylight. Or whatever it is. Again with the acrylic covering inside, then a square tunnel of mirrors out to the roof. One of the mirrors has to be replaced and the cover has got to go.

Now THAT'S more like it!

Here's the Calgary weather I know. Callous disregard for the brave bits of greenery that dare show themselves before May (and sometimes even after).

Springing Forth

Back in mid-March I spent a weekend out in the back yard putting together my lasagne garden. If you were here helping me lug compost from the bins at the far end of the yard to dump them in the new garden (then to discover that ants had taken up residence in the compost bin) you are a true friend. You know who you are. You get the first jar of salsa. And there, tucked safely in the corner where the sun room meets the back of the house we discovered shoots of green with tiny buds that by today had blossomed into the sunshiney brightness that only daffodils possess. And I don't even really LIKE daffodils. But hey, it's a flower and it's growing in my yard! Without any assistance from me. Which is probably all the better given my track record with plants and such. What's a lasagne garden? Since my thumb isn't naturally green, and since the thought of turning sod wasn't getting me so excited I bounced out of bed on Saturday mornings, I thought that if there was going to be a vegetable garden out back, there had to be a better way. Lasagne gardening is also known as sheet composting and there are books and websites - all of which I hope aren't leading me astray. We have layers of wet cardboard (a good use for some of those packing boxes), leaves, compost, topsoil, leaves, compost, etc... all sitting moistly under a heavy tarp, cooking away until the end of May. It's where I hope to plant some heirloom tomato seedlings and a few other things that are currently germinating on top of the boiler or already sprouted and sitting in the kitchen window. I've put the garden where we are planning to eventually put a patio. My plan is simply to move the accumulated garden soil to another suitable location in the yard. Like maybe where the sunroom is now. In the meantime, I've done us a favour because the grass where the patio is supposed to go will be gone. Voila! Now we can install patio stones. I'm thinking slate.

THE GUTS OF IT

I gave a presentation at work recently where I drew an analogy between the type of work my group does and the background work that goes into getting a fire truck where it has to be. Same thing can be said for house renovations: the background work is sorely under appreciated. Lots of times I hear from people (the ones that are too scared to actually come over and visit...) asking if we're done yet. Excuse me? Budgetary considerations aside, let's not forget to factor in that Norm and I are doing this work ourselves, after putting in a full day of the kind of work that helps actually pay the bills. What else? Well, it's a fairly big house. Things take time to decide. Then there's the inevitable mind changing (mine) and eureka discoveries of even better ways to do things (Norm's). But the main thing is that quite a bit of what we're doing isn't visible even if people did come to visit. Unless of course they're interested in the inner workings of home theatre wiring, satellite and network cable pulling. Or our boiler room...

A real-honest-to-goodness boiler. If you ignore the dust, it is a marvelous place to let bread dough rise. Perfect temperature. The boiler itself is original to the house which puts it at about 50 years old and still chugging away. Surely there are newer, more energy efficient models I could replace it with but the quote I was given has scared the thought right out of me. It would take another 50 years to pay itself off in potential energy savings. And it won’t proof the bread dough. I’m also helping keep up the demand for natural gas. Some companies are banking on this.

So we’ll keep it. The house was toasty warm all winter long despite some real cold snaps. And the monthly gas bill wasn’t any more than at the last house where we had a 30 year old gas fired forced air furnace. We have made some concessions to modernity though. A new hot water tank to replace the circa 1980s one. Besides, insurance won’t cover any damage if the old tank leaks. You can see the new one – not installed yet – standing next to the boiler in this photo.


Here’s the old one:

I think copper is pretty. New copper doesn’t match old copper though so I’ll have to learn to live with the variance. The red thing? Yet another invisible improvement - central vacuum. Not just a new canister, but an entire install including running the hose/pipe through the walls and creating outlets. Or would those be inlets?






The new copper pipes are for the new water conditioner. The one the house came with wasn't hooked up and looked like it could have doubled for a cruise missile. One complaint I have about this part of the city is the hardness of the water. You can actually see the buildup in Rory’s water bowl, and it’s not like I don’t wash it frequently. Also, the window on the front load washer is getting hazy. And I’m going through buckets of skin lotion. Here’s the new gizmo, plumbed in courtesy of Norm, but not turned on just yet:

 








I understand that there are servers humming away in the dwarf-space under the stairs – Norm showed them to me, but as long as they work, I don’t visit them. Heck, even if they didn’t work I wouldn’t go see them. And what old house reno would be complete without routers and the other bits of wizardry that enable me to spew forth blog postings to the masses?

Sure, we’re almost done. Not. But I have a lot to be grateful for. I see it even if you don’t. On that note, I’m going to go take my plumber, cable puller, network installer, researcher, electrician, and general handyman out for supper. Just the two of us. It's the least I can do for the man who has yet to send me an invoice for any of this work. Maybe I chose the wrong title for this post. It should be more along the lines of "The Heart of it". Right, Norm?