Ramping It Up

First of all, I want to say thank you to the deacons and other fellows who built a new wheelchair ramp for us a couple of weeks ago. Superb work, guys!  It’s just what we needed to help me in and out of the house on my “bad” days.

That said, I feel like we’re in the middle of a TV reality show around here. One of those old house renovation sagas where they’re doing renovation work and they keep running into problems that weren’t in the original plans. Things like, “Oops! That wall we’re knocking out is a load bearing wall!” or “The foundation is crumbling and you’ve got enormous termite damage!” In our case, when the guys sunk posts for the ramp, they accidentally cut the gas line coming into the house. We sort of expected that, so it was no big deal. We had the gas company come out to fix the line for a reasonable price, but in the process two more problems came up.  First they discovered there was a leak somewhere.  After checking their work and all the connections in the house, they finally found it in our dark, dank, seldom used cellar. Wow…we could have blown ourselves up!  Second, while they were digging a new trench for the gas line, they hit an old 220 V. live electrical line that my late brother-in-law had buried years ago. The scary part is that the circuit breaker didn’t kick out when they hit it. Still working on getting an electrician out to work on that problem. To compound problems, the day after the gas company fixed the line, we had an all-day rainstorm that washed all the dirt out of the trench. We’re going to need to haul some dirt in to fill the trench back up. The heavy rain also revealed that we have a leak in our porch roof. I’m wondering what the next problem is going to be.

On the health front, the immunotherapy has been discontinued and my oncologist has pretty much cut me loose. I have a follow-up appointment with him in a couple of weeks, but I think that’s just curiosity on his part to see if I’m still alive by then. The cancer has pretty much consumed about 80-90% of my right lung and is moving into my central airway, apparently heading for my left lung. I have good days and bad days. On a good day, my atrial fibrillation calms down and I can get up and move around the house without a lot of problems. On a bad day my heart flip-flops like a fish on dry land. I just sit in my recliner and try to relax. I’m also coughing a lot more lately. I think it’s the cancer making me feel like there’s something down there that needs to be coughed up. I wish I could.

I guess I can announce to the world that I’m going to be a “grampy” again. My second son and his wife are expecting twin boys in October.

Well, I’ve got a fly pestering me that has been trying to land on my nose for the last 15 or 20 minutes. I’m going to close this post and go find a fly swatter.