A new year, a new decade, a bit of a flood

I guess every year and even every day starts a new decade, but this is my second entry of the more conventional decade: 2020. The year didn't start off well with LL breaking her foot and it's taken about 8 weeks to get to the point where she can walk without a boot or crutches.  She then developed a blood clot in her calf and pneumonia!! Just crazy. Then my sump pump and backup pump both failed during an unusual January rain storm and the basement flooded. It's been a crazy start. Here's what I wrote just after the flood:

I’m not much for astral plane creatures or ghosts and such. Luke 16:19-31 is a fascinating embodiment of why, religiously, it’s unlikely that someone would come back even to warn you about what’s on the other side. That said, this summer and again this fall, I had the urge to replace my aging sump pump (15 years old most likely). If something were to go wrong though, I do have a battery back-up pump just in case.

A week or two ago, something told me I should spend some time to get all of our framed pictures off the ground in the basement and organized to be put up. Framed were wedding pictures, kid pictures autographed stars and athletes. All sorts of wall pics that we just haven't figured out where they should go yet (even though it's been 3 years). I just had this nagging feeling that I needed to get all of these frames up off the floor at a minimum. 

Last night, while LL and the kids were at her folks’ house, I was weathering the storm at the house alone. Earlier in the evening, I had my company party downtown and had been at the office all day, so LL, with her bad foot, didn't join me. Though I didn’t hear the sump pump running, I figured it was on and I was just not hearing it when it flipped on. Still, I had this feeling that I really should go check on it. Turns out it wasn’t running and we got a LOT of rain.

This morning when I went down to see if my intuitions were accurate, I saw and felt the water immediately. Ugh. An hour later I had a new sump pump since I had been in contact with someone already. Another hour and a restoration company first responder was at the house assessing the damage. Two hours later and there was a crew of 6 stripping out the 15 year old carpet.

All in all, the whole thing sucks and I’m sore and it’s back breaking work to clean up. We had two shopvacs and another carpet cleaner picking up water for three hours. Getting the new sump pump working was key though as the flow of NEW water was halted at least. The pump ran pretty continuously for a few hours as more water from the drain tiles found its way to the pump.

So, this is not great but here’s why I’m writing about it: something or someone wanted me to get a new sump pump. Something or someone wanted me to get those pictures off the floor in the room by the sump pump so they wouldn’t be ruined. Someone, but who or how? Well, all I know is that this is exactly the type of thing my dad would want me to have taken care of in advance, just in case. And he would be pissed that I had not.

Sorry Pops!

Connect the Dots

Today was NOT the day I thought it would be; not even close. LL and I spent 5+ hours seeing various doctors and having tests run and images taken; all of them on LL. But if I told you that the events of today were the direct result of me trading in my 2017 Honda CRV for another 2017 Honda CRV, but for one with AWD, you might think that I'd be exaggerating or flat out lying.

But it's true!

The events begin back in August when I decided that with all the driving I'm doing to clients' and the office, and with winter approaching, I really needed to have a car with AWD instead of just FWD. The 2017 Honda CRV I had was the base model and a fine car in good shape with relatively low miles, but I knew I was going to get screwed on the trade in. As I told many folks, including a dealer or two, I'm okay getting screwed a little, just don't fuck me over! And so the search began. Some of the best deals were from dealers who didn't finance or didn't take trade-ins, neither of which I even knew existed. Eventually I found one car and was following it online. The price dropped about $4k one day so I hopped on getting a test drive. Turns out, the car was advertised as having 44k miles on it (mine had 31k I believe), but it really only had 34k! Boom! Did the deal and got the AWD version which also came with the sunroof I wanted, Apple Play for the phone, lane departure warnings, blind spot detection, cruise control that adjusts to the car in front of you, auto headlights including auto bright settings and heated seats for LL.

The car has been great and I've been very happy, until sometime in November, I started getting a low tire pressure warning light. Turns out there's a slow leak in the rear passenger tire and about every three days I need to fill the tire from 24 lbs of pressure to 32 lbs. Clearly it's something I need to take care of, but November was a busy month and I first had to get new tires for the mini-van (which I did) so that it was ready for winter. Since I had to fill up the tire every few days, I left the relatively small inflator (about the size of a shoe box) plugged into an extension cord that was plugged in near the door to the garage. Made sense to me as I had to use it so frequently.

And so it existed in this state for several weeks. Unfortunately, LL decided to hurriedly clean up one day and run things back and forth from the garage. You know where this is going don't you? Yep, she tripped over the cords and fell, breaking her foot. BREAKING her foot. Yikes. The doctor said three weeks with no weight bearing, lots of ice and we'll check it after that. Three weeks later the doctor says another three weeks, only now there's an infection in the foot too. Antibiotics, no weight bearing for another 3 weeks, we'll check it then. Today was the end of 6 weeks so we were planning to go to the appointment and hopefully have her just in a walking boot at worst.  Boy were we wrong about that.

LL had mentioned that her foot seemed discolored often during the last three weeks and that seemed odd. She also complained of cramping in her calf. Both things were mentioned to the doctor's assistant on Monday, but were dismissed and non-emergency details and just come in Friday (today) as planned. When discussing these things with the doctor, there was a perceivable change in demeanor of the doctor. She immediately applied pressure to the calf area asking if it hurt when she did so. LL indicated it did indeed. Well, the discoloration is normal and not a worry, but the calf pain could be a blood clot. Yikes! We need to go get an ultrasound on the calf and see what comes up.

Go to another area of the building, wait, have procedure, await results. Go to PCP instead of foot doctor for interpretation of results.

Yep, there's a blood clot. Now we need to go another section to have a CT Scan with contrast to see if there's any clots in the lungs.

Go to another area of the building, wait, have procedure, await results. Go back to PCP for interpretation.

No blood clots in the lungs. Phew. Oh, but there IS pneumonia in one of her lungs. WHAT? Yeah, pneumonia. She'd started coughing a bit earlier in the week and with her inability to really go outside, someone must have brought it in to her (I'm looking at you Thomas!).

All of that took 5+ hours. Now, I could be all pissy and complain about the time, but you know what I said thanks for at dinner during our prayer? I was thankful that there were no other clots. I was thankful that we have insurance. I was thankful that we have access to all of these types of doctors and their medical equipment so that we can get LL on the road to recovery.

It'll be 10 days on anti-biotics and blood thinners and two weeks of restricted walking followed by a week of easy walking before PT starts for gosh knows how long. Not a fantastic way to start the year!!!

And it all started because I needed AWD on my car......in August. Isn't that the way?