This weekend I’ve been feeling much closer to normal than I have in weeks. Enough normal that I figured I’d get off my ass and get some work done in the bathroom before the rest of the drywall goes up.
A week ago, my electrician was talking to me up in the bathroom, looked at the adjoining wall to the bedroom and casually mentioned, “You should insulate between there before the drywall goes up.” I looked in there and thought to myself, Why haven’t I done this before? When the house was built, there was no insulation in between the walls. At some point, the doctor had someone install blown insulation, which involved cutting round holes in the outside sheathing between wall studs and filling them with cellulose, then closing things up. When they did this, they did the outside walls. Crucially, this only covered the walls of the outside, unheated spaces (front porch, den, and atrium) and not the original exterior walls between those spaces and the upstairs bedrooms or living room. So back in the day the doctor would just crank the boiler up and let all of that heat in the bedrooms escape through the atrium and front porch.
My electrician’s suggestion was mainly about sound abatement between the bathroom and bedroom, but I’ve been obsessing about making the bathroom as warm as possible since we started planning it (and making the house warmer since we moved in). So I started thinking about how I was going to accomplish this. First I needed some supplies.
The Scout has been waiting patiently in the garage since I first went into chemo treatment. I got some warm clothes on, pulled off the trickle charger, squirted some starting fluid into the carb, and got her fired up after a few tries. After she’d warmed up, I drove out to the Lowes and loaded up on what I needed. It was great to be behind the wheel of a car and even better to be in the Scout; though the plastic on the soft top was cold and didn’t want to roll down all the way I enjoyed the fresh air and smell of exhaust. I ran some small errands while I was out: a fresh can of starting fluid, cold medicine for Finn, and some movies from the library.
Up in the atrium, I started by drilling small holes in the floor up under the drywall and shooting sprayfoam in between each of the mini-joists used to level the floor. (The floor was originally sloped, as it began as a roof. We will be installing radiant floor heat but I don’t want those cavities to be filling with cold air and chilling the room down). Then I began pulling sheathing off the wall where the sink will go and filled the cavities there. It took longer than I thought, but I got that wall finished before shutting down for the day. After a shower, we settled in to dinner and a showing of Shaun the Sheep: The Movie.
Sunday morning Finn was still running a fever so we kept her in and had a nice slow morning on the couch with coffee. Mario stopped over at 10 and got to work on the outside siding, which has been covered by Tyvek for a month or so. He did his magic and by 1 the Tyvek was replaced with lovely new siding, which looks unpainted but worlds better than it did. I had some minor hiccups with a vacuum cleaner that’s sick and beyond my ability to fix, and a bathroom faucet that’s refusing to give up its leaky cartridge.
Then I ran back out for some more supplies in the Scout. When I got back we ran across the street to the Boy Scouts to pick up a tree (they go fast). I continued insulating on the other side of the front bathroom door before running out of insulation. I pulled off the sheathing around the attic stairs in preparation for more insulation and then glued a sheet of 1′ foam to the attic door to keep things warm.
Finn and I got a shower after a hearty dinner of Mama’s beef stew, and then we read two chapters of Order of the Phoenix before bed.
I’m not 100% yet, and my endurance is shit from sitting on the couch for six weeks. I noticed I was a lot more tired than I’m used to after a day of work, which is depressing but something I’m confident I can rebuild after I’m cleared by the doctors next year. What felt really good was the feeling of accomplishing something. I made a plan, I got some shit done. That’s something I’ve been missing for weeks now.
File this under idiocy: A local group put up a bunch of decorated wooden snowmen out in front of the local K of C down the street from our house. Some asshat complained about one of the snowmen, which had the words “No Hate in 21228” written on it. This suddenly became a “political” message, and they decided to take all of the snowmen down. What the fuck? It’s a SNOWMAN, you idiots. I don’t know who I’m more disappointed in, the asshats that complained or the committee that bent to pressure and took them down.
Update: The church across the street asked if they could put it out on their lawn directly in front of our house. AWESOME.
Jen and I spent all day Thursday at Johns Hopkins, bouncing from one appointment to another. First up was labwork at 9AM to see where my counts are. A giant, gentle nurse named Brandon accessed my port, took blood, and left the needle in because, surprise! a CT scan with contrast showed up on the schedule that morning. Next up was a consult with my surgeon, who is a lovely, funny man with a firm handshake. We got the briefing on how surgery would go, what to expect before during and after, and had a bunch of questions answered. Next we met with an ostomy specialist, who showed me a small bag that will most likely be my companion for a couple of months while I heal up from the procedure. While we were talking with that nurse, one of the attending surgeons popped his head back in and said they’d looked again at the 2014 CT scan and estimate that Lil’ Lumpy was about 10cm large at that point.
From there we went to another building to have the new CT scan done. I’m kind of a pro at CT scans these days, and this one was by far the fastest and most efficient one I’ve ever done. They had me in and out in about 20 minutes, and I got to do it in a donut that was decorated with all kinds of coral and tropical fish. Apparently the machine is shared with the pediatric cancer wing, so it’s the most cheerful CT machine in the hospital. I support the idea of decorating giant sterile beige machines with clownfish and eels. It makes the hot peeing-your-pants sensation of IV contrast a little more palatable.
We had 45 minutes for lunch before the next appointment, so we hustled to the fancy cafe and downed some food. Then we walked back over to talk with a doctor for the pre-op meeting, where she reviewed my whole medical history, talked about the medications I’ve been on, and reviewed the functional details of the surgery.
Finally, we talked with my chemo doctor, who reviewed my progress and quizzed me on how I’ve been through the second round. I should plug the entire staff of Johns Hopkins here because to a person they’ve all been helpful, patient, understanding and very generous with their time and knowledge. I picked the right team of people.
By the time we were done it was 4:30 and my brain was mush, so we hopped in the car and headed home. Parked out in front of the house was Mario with his brother, who came in and hung three sheets of drywall, adjusted the closet opening, and generally made some progress. Friends, three sheets of drywall can make a HUGE difference in your daily outlook.