Tag health

Return to work

Mary Leave a comment

This project has been taking much longer than we originally envisioned. Its not that anything was in that bad of shape. There are certain things we want changed or updated. We have cats, and over the years we have learned that when working on a home improvement project we need to be able to seal it off from the cats, or completely pick-up and close-up the project when we walk away or who knows what they will find, do, or get into. So, we made the decision that we would not move-in until complete so we were not contending with cats and home improvement at the same time. In addition Brad and I are both working, volunteering, and living our lives.

Usually when I’ve taken a long hiatus from posting we’ve been doing some work and I just haven’t sat down to put a post together, or I am waiting for Brad to preview a post before publishing.

I was actually working on 2 posts at the same time, just not haven taken the time to complete them.

I was catching up on posts, and in reality we were moving along fairly well, and Brad had high hopes that we would be moved in before 2024 came to an end. We had some good news and some not so good news.

Good news – Alex paid an unexpected visit! He was in state and proposed to his girl-friend!!! He wanted to pop the question in Madison, where they met, and then wanted to tell the parents in person. Lauren is a wonderful young lady, and we are super happy that she will be part of the family.

Not so good news – I had been having some issues that come with being a woman in her early 50’s – lets just say not fun. Anyhow, I was going through the process of getting things checked out and figuring out what my options were for some relief. Running to appointments chewed up time, and Brad wanted to accompany me to support me. Mid-July I got THE call. Endometrial Cancer. The whirlwind of appointments started. I was referred to a gynecological oncologist, and she wanted a blood test and CT scan before she even saw me.

CT scan resulted in more appointments. First was a trip to the ER for contrast allergy. Then an nodule was seen on one of my adrenal glands, so a referral to endocrinology to rule out any issues before hysterectomy. A lab visit with a dozen blood tests, and a value below normal postponed surgery. A prescription supplement raised the value to where it belonged and surgery was back on. My time was devoted to getting as much done at work as possible before going on medical leave. I am the only one in the office at our church, so while the staff at our sister parish could help people, the work load had to be prepped or wait for my return.

I had to have a regular physical and fit a routine mammogram in before surgery. Surgery went well, but healing was slow going. Cancer was contained to the lining of my uterus and had not spread, my oncologist said I am considered cured. I do have to have routine checks every 3 months. I also had to have 3 follow-ups after surgery to be sure everything was healing correctly.

Shortly after surgery the endocrinologist office called to schedule a follow-up. The nodule is stable and just needs monitoring. The issue is my parathyroid is secreting too much hormone. He ordered bone density scan to check that it wasn’t giving me osteoporosis yet. So far so good.

I also had a breast MRI to be sure everything is ok there – it is thankfully.

So after 6 months I finally got back to something, anything at the house. I finished taking up the old floor in the upstairs bathroom. Yes, I had proper PPE on not knowing what the floor was made of. It felt good, no longer dealing with anemia I had more energy that I have had for a long time.

We attended Lauren’s graduation with her Masters degree in spring. Shortly after our return we had a serious conversation about how long this had been taking. The focus had to be shifted from everything else to finishing so we could move in. We picked up the pace on work, but made time for the church picnic and a camping trip with Brad’s family.

In an effort to help us, our friend Frank had arranged for help hanging drywall, and set a date with Brad. We had a deadline that was not self-imposed, and the clock was ticking to finish everything that would be contained in those walls. More about this in the next post.

Our new goal is this year. We’ll see how things go. Hopefully life has settled down for a while.

Heat 3: Joining the 21st century

Mary Leave a comment

Oh my! I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I posted an update. Life has been busy, the projects have not progressed the way we had hoped, and life has just gotten in the way.

The last post I had was bringing the new furnace down stairs and removing the beast and the propane furnace that had fed into it. If you haven’t read the other posts, you read that right. The modern heating system that we bought the house with was a downflow furnace up on a stand being fed into an old coal burning furnace that was acting as a huge, super inefficient plenum.

The Beast

Brad had his work cut out for him! The beast being a gravity furnace a.k.a. octopus furnace had ALL the ducts running back to the furnace and coming out the top like the legs of a octopus. Modern heating systems use trunk lines (think trunk like a tree) with branches (think trees again) coming off to supply to the rooms/areas. This meant that he had to take almost all the ducting down. He left up anything running up the walls, and the cold air returns that are just sheet metal covering joist bays.

Originally we thought (I thought) we could re-use the duct work. After taking it down and seeing inside we opted to put in new, and I wholeheartedly agreed. The ducts are 85+ years old, and for the first few decades were connected to a coal burning furnace. To say they were gross was an understatement. It was not worth our time or energy to clean the inside of all the ducting we would need – plus we had gotten some at a price we couldn’t argue with.

Brad’s brother and sister-in-law have a cabin that they had some major renovations to, and in the process the HVAC contractor took out all their existing duct work (which was less than 20 years old, and only used part time) and replaced it with new-new. We could understand the contractor’s logic. Being paid by the hour it was more cost effective to replace the duct-work than to take the time to piecemeal the good used stuff into the new system. Jeff and Meghan put it with a bunch of other materials that they have acquired in an old barn, and asked if we were interested. We took what we could, figuring, what the heck, we might be able to use it, and we wouldn’t be out anything if we couldn’t. We were able to use quite a bit! We did have to buy some new, but it helped cut down of the cost of the project.

Brad was hoping to have our friend & HVAC guy, Greg, assist him initial start-up procedure and adjustment, but Greg had a family emergency that left him stretched thin to the point of snapping. Thankfully he didn’t snap, and he and his family had a tremendous amount of support from friends, family, and faith family through their emergency and by the Grace of God life is mostly back to normal. The last thing we were going to do in the midst of the emergency was stretch Greg any thinner, so Brad checked and double checked his work. When ready, it would have to go on without a formal inspection.

It was a bit later than desired (and colder than desired) but the furnace went on-line December 18, 2022. Yes, technically it was still Fall on the calendar, but the temperatures outside said it was winter. It was pretty exciting to have heat again!

System ran all Winter and early Spring with no issues. Just to play it safe, (and for Brad’s peace of mind) we did have Greg come and inspect the system when life settled down for him and he had a bit of time. He said Brad did a great job, SURPRISE (not really – I knew that already). He did recommend that we change the registers on the cold air returns in the kitchen and living room, to ones with a larger spacing between the fins, add a cold air return to the West bedroom, if possible add one to the North bedroom upstairs – and have them cleaned.

Changing the registers will be an easy fix. We’ll see what we can do for cleaning the cold air return ducts, and if necessary call in a service. Adding a vent to the West bedroom will be a bit of work, but do-able. Then there is the North bedroom, that one is a different story. We did a lot of looking and thinking about the relationship of walls. Our only 2 real options are bad and worse. That bedroom is going to be ours, and typically we keep the door open. With that room we are going to have to rely on natural air flow going down the steps, putting a cold air return in that room is just not feasible. For anyone concerned about the door being closed on the stairwell & blocking the flow (spoiler alert) we plan to remove the stairwell door completely.

We have nearly reached the end of the heating story. There is one more chapter to tell – with rerouting several heat ducts, adding one to our future walk-in closet, and the cold air return to the West bedroom. As of now, the biggest part is over, and what’s left is minor details in comparison.