Well, that was a week.
Hi All.
I will avoid commentary on the biggest event of the last week. You all know what happened and my perspective isn’t useful or relevant.
There is more news on the dog, though.
Tinkerbelle’s bloodwork — specifically her hematocrit — was back into the normal range at last week’s vet appointment. That meant that it was time to look into an immune suppressor (cyclosporine) as a supplement (and possible alternative, I think) to prednisone. It was ordered, but we still don’t have it. Turns out that getting it is both expensive and complicated. It is available through the vet’s office (where it is more expensive), or we can get it from a regular pharmacy, but in that case the readily available dose options were more limited and not exactly what the vet wants to start with.
For the first month or three we’re trying to go with the vet’s office while we dial in the right dose and see what we can do about reducing her prednisone consumption. However, it’s been a full week and we still don’t have it in hand. Apparently it has to be made at a compounding pharmacy, and we have yet to get the phone call saying it’s ready for pick up.
Still, it should arrive soon and we’ll see how she does on it. Assuming no side effects, we’ll keep her on it for two full weeks and retest her blood. At that point we see what happens, make adjustments to something, and try again for another two weeks. Rinse and repeat until things are as stable as possible with as low a set of drug doses as are needed to keep her healthy.
Given Tink’s experience with cryptococcus some years back and now this, she has officially taken on the mantle of most expensive dog in our household. That had previously been held by Danno’s cancer diagnosis, though Leah’s up there too. Her repeated escapes that required reworking the deck railings, removing the built-in benches, and the purchase of new deck furniture so we’d have someplace to sit down were also very expensive.
Remember the canine motto: There is nothing more expensive than a free dog.
On the house, there is limited news. We had a visit from the abatement contractor. He looked the job over and answered questions, but we don’t have a quote yet. He said we’d see it this weekend or on Monday. It turns out that removing the ceramic tile is simple, and thus relatively low cost. The challenge is the vinyl tile and associated mastic. To get that up they use some sort of chemical and it takes a lot of time. It seems this job will be more expensive than we wanted.
We could simply cover the vinyl tile, as was done by the current wood floor (and the carpet in the bedrooms) but that causes other issues. No one wants to put an engineered hardwood floor down without gluing it, and you need a firm surface to glue to. We could simply put down plywood and screw it into the concrete, but that job is large enough that it it might equal the cost of removing the mastic. Plus, we fully expect to find a few cracks in the slab the house is built on, and we’d like to get those sealed up. In addition, it would be good to get a vapour barrier of some kind down which isn’t possible with the vinyl tiles in the way.
My expectation is that we will just have to pay the bill and have it all removed, but we have no clue about the cost or time yet.
The abatement contractor is readily available, though. He says he’s generally got openings just one to two weeks out, so we won’t have to wait all that long to get the job done. And our general contractor is more than happy to send a couple of his guys over to prepare things before the abatement work gets started. Removing baseboards and other items can potentially speed the work.
Oh, and the other thing on this topic is that we cut into the drywall around the fireplace to see what was behind it. We found the painted bricks shown in the photo up top. Yes, they really are two slightly different colours, and yes they really are that ugly. That’s 1960 construction for you. We have to get the mortar between those bricks tested for asbestos, and the paint tested for lead as well. Hopefully those come up negative, but who knows.
We’ve spent the rest of the last week continuing to move things out of the house and into the shipping container. It’s been a lot of work, but the end is in sight. We’re nearing the last of what we can put out there before we move upstairs for the duration. It’s been quite a job.
That’s the sum of my life for the last week: moving heavy objects, trying and failing to figure out how much the hazmat abatement will cost, and news induced depression. Fun.
Take care.