Yeah, we just had my husband take a shower while I sat with the access panel open to watch the plumbing armed with flashlights and a web camera. We found what we think are two leaks coming from somewhere along the walls of the shower/tub and two or three likely coming from the plumbing. We’ll check the other shower the same way later and if it’s not leaking for now, the plan will be to use that one as long as we can while we start saving for renovations that we really can’t afford. Yay!
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Bathroom renovations are expensive, but there’s a lot that’s diy friendly. Demo and debris removal is basically unskilled, and a big chunk of the labor cost. Remedial framing, fixing the subfloor as required, and that sort of thing require work, but are not that difficult. Plumbing and electrical may not be needed beyond fixture replacement. Finish is more skilled, but people manage to do a good job having not done it before.
Having a second bathroom lets you do the work at a pace that takes some pressure off you.
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My wife has an appointment in Montreal on Friday for some more radiation therapy on her spine. And it’s with the ablative dose specialist, so they’re going for the big guns here. They’re obviously not interested in just stalling the cancer, they want to cure it.
Friday’s the initial consult, maybe with a couple of extra tests (her PET scan is well past its usefulness threshold at this point, dating back to 22 July, for example), the markings and the mould fittings, so the treatments could start as early as next week I guess!
Tremendously exciting. Also, we took Baloney to the groomer’s today, look:
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Does anyone know why the Japanese approach of unit bathrooms has never taken off elsewhere?
The whole room is basically one big waterproof shell. Shower next to the bath, both drain into the same place in the middle of the floor. No tiles, and a very limited number of very easy to plug possibilities for leaks. Toilets and sinks elsewhere (though there is plenty of room to sit in the shower with a tap, basin, and mirror if you want to shave there or do various sink-adjacent things).
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I’ve seen this in Scandinavia too.
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After a long tough summer and start to autumn, I am finally starting to get back into enjoying life.
Summer is always busy for me as I work mostly in tourism in one of the busiest parts of eastern coastal Spain, but this year we had our most number of bookings and tourists to deal with. The heat of this summer made the days tougher but not impossible, but what really affected my workload was when my life/business partner took ill.
In early July and after a very stressful June for other local reasons, she gave up on most work things and took to resting. That was fine as I know she was stressed but I could run the day-to-day things to keep everything going, and just bother her with occasional questions, problems or longer term planning. All seemed to be going okay while she was still resting throughout August although becoming more physically frail, until we noticed she was becoming more unsteady on her feet and more than a little confused. She could still get showered and dressed, feed herself and the cats, but could not remember complicated work matters and was starting to drift off during sentences when we spoke. It then turned out that she was not dealing with work communication at all, forgetting or ignoring problems reported to her and sending increasingly gibberish messages to staff and clients.
Finally in mid September, and after weeks of trying, a colleague and I managed to get her to go to a doctor, with everyone fearing she had had a stroke or a variety of other conditions. After a couple more weeks of various tests, she finally got a CT scan of her brain - and we were then told that she had to rush into hospital. She was diagnosed with a meningioma in the layer between her skull and her brain, around three inches long and two inches in diameter. This was compressing her brain, apparently at the part of her brain affecting her personality but also causing her confusion alongside some balance and vision issues. The medical professionals did not see it as a time-critical matter though, so after a short stay in hospital and further scans she was discharged for a week of home rest before returning to the hospital for an operation to remove the tumor.
The operation was a complete success, at least until now, but what surprised everyone is how quickly she made a full mental recovery. Within 24 hours of the surgery, her mind had returned to normal, as had the sparkle in her eye, sense of humour, interest in work and social matters, balance, vision and everything. She was discharged from hospital three days after the operation and been at home and back to work for the last two weeks, and everything is virtually back to normal. The physical scars of the surgical entry are healing very well and quickly too, so everyone is stunned and relieved to see her back to her usual self again.
She is still easing back into work and social events and determined not to get back to the levels of stress that she had before, but it is so great to have her back in all regards.
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It makes me happy to hear that you were able to get help for your partner. I hope you both find your way back to a full recovery both physically and mentally.
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That sounds terrifying. So glad they were able to remove the tumor and that her recovery is going so well!
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This was an emotional rollercoaster of a read; I can’t even imagine what it was like to live it! I’m so happy to hear that things are heading back towards normal.
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Her recovery is going great so far with only the one physical scar across her head to heal, which is doing nicely. Hardly any of her hair was shaved off fortunately, and at this time of year she starts wearing woolen berets anyway so that has time to grow back before spring.
She was mostly oblivious to her condition, having no pain and being confused she was unaware of a lot of what was happening around her, so not believing or accepting she needed medical help. For myself and a couple of our colleagues, it was a chore trying to cope and work around her condition, which became frantic in September at times, but once the diagnosis came the volume of tourists arriving had dropped greatly so things were far more managable, even with regular trips to the hospital and back. The first hospital for the early scans was only 15 minutes away, but the hospital for the operation was about an hour’s drive each way, which was required to be under the care of the specialist neurology unit there. We can’t fault the treatment and care she received at both hospitals though, and have a trip back in early January for a check up scan and review appointment with the surgeon.
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So glad things are going well now! It’s always humbling to be reminded how much of “us” is determined by a bunch of meat we can’t really control.
My sister’s husband’s brother had possibly the same thing. It was definitely a non-malignant tumor of some kind growing in his head that had caused his brain to be displaced by as much as a third of its intended size before it was diagnosed and removed. He had a rough initial recovery with an infection developing, but once that was resolved, everything was fine. It’s been around a decade since his surgery and he’s doing great.
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Going through that right now. The best part for me is that the skylights have just been installed in the upstairs bathroom. The second best part, and I realise this is not a very helpful home renovation tip, is the lead contractor looks like Brian Blessed. He doesn’t have the voice to match.
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So, update: No radiation for now, but that’s a good thing: Things are going too well, there’s no justification for it. They want to wait and let the meds do their thing for another 3 months at least, then revisit. So follow-up appointment set for February, with a new CT scan and PET scan.
Radio-oncologist took the opportunity to give her a range of motion/strength exam and was kinda flabbergasted at just how WELL things are going considering it’s only been 3 months.
Weird and funny note: My wife has some gray hair, particularly a streak on her right side in front. It’s GONE. Not “lost hair” gone, just… It’s brown again.
No idea what that means, but we take it as a sign that things are going well (the results of the blood tests and the doctor consults as well,of course, this is just a delightful cherry on top).
Yay!
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COVID finally got me.
Was a bit tired yesterday morning which progressed to a slight headache and sore throat by the evening. Woke up today with a splitting headache and my RSI giving me more grief than usual. Thought I better take a test before going anywhere tomorrow. Super-thick red line 
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Asking random AIs to create dalek pictures.
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Just back from seeing Bellowhead at St David’s Hall, our boys’ first ever gig. Amazing seats
It looks tiny from these, but it’s a 2000 seat venue and we were in the second row. Trad and modern folk probably isn’t for everyone but they put on a hell of a show.
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Day 4(?) of COVID. Not feeling too bad other than oscillating between being too hot and too cold. Oh and the boredom.
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I also got bored by all the doing nothing… so I started playing a lot of boardgames on my tablet during covid and Fallout Shelter which is still taking a way a portion of my time right now–maybe don’t do that. I can recommend some good boardgame apps for iOS if you are so inclined. Other than that maybe time to catch up on podcasts?
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When I had COVID, I setup a semi-automated scanning server and document management system, and then custom-built a web-front end to control the scanner (because the scanners I had available don’t work with scanbd). I had a lot of mental energy despite my lack of physical energy.
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I was pretty lethargic. Watched all of Book of Boba Fett between naps. I liked the first half more than the second half - hard to like both as it was essentially two different shows. Four episodes of Boba Fett, which I would have liked to see continued. Two episodes of Mandalorian, which is fine, too, except I was trying to watch Boba Fett. And then one champloo episode of ridiculous chaos that, at the same time, I enjoyed but it never should have gotten through creative.
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