The Big Dig

Thursday was the big dig. We hired Bob’s Your Plumber from Guelph Ontario. The excavator came right at 7:45, as we were boosting the car in the driveway to move out of the way.

We had two vehicles, but near the end of last summer the vehicle we actually own, my beastie car, broke down. It was overheating when we would drive it across town, and wouldn’t make it back unless it had time to cool off. The head gasket was blown and it would have cost us about $2,000.00 to fix it, at the time we didn’t have it and we still don’t, so because we have another vehicle we just basically use the beast for short runs close to home. Which come April it will not past inspection, and we’ll have to sell it for parts. Well, the battery was dead come Thursday morning and of course we needed to move it for the big dig, so here we are -15, trying to boost my beastie, I’m late for a cardiologist appointment and the excavator needs to start digging.  We get the cars hooked up, and I turn the car, nothing. Excavator who is now helping us “did you push in the clutch?”
“oh right…” Pushed in the clutch turn it over and voila we have success.
Backed the vehicles out of the driveway and I am there long enough to capture a few shots of them starting the dig before leaving to my cardiologists.

About the end of August, just after our summer vacation,  I went to the hospital with acute chest pain, arm tingling, headache, dizziness/vertigo, light-headed. When I got to the hospital my BP was 140/89 and my resting pulse was 129. Normally my BP is 120/70 and my resting pulse is around 80. I waiting for 6 hours before being seen, apparently they called my name earlier but I didn’t hear them. I find that odd as I was sitting right next to the door for the emerge triage room. So, I think they mixed up the papers. The Guelph General Emerge room, is always packed and there is always HUGE wait times. The nurses there are amazing, with the odd grouch here and there. They got me back into a room and my pulse and BP was still up, same with the pain. I got very dizzy and was thankful for the bed. They did every test they could, and everything looked okay, they gave me a bunch of fluids and my pulse came down. I still had the pain in my chest and vertigo but all the tests told the doctors I wasn’t anything major, it wasn’t a heart attack or a stroke, but he was referring me to a cardiologist. So, sitting in the hospital for over 11 hours didn’t result in any answers; except I wasn’t having a heart attack or a stroke.

The cardiologist appointment on the day of the dig, was the final of two others; one for a stress test and one for a echo-cardiogram. This was the consult where he would tell me what was going on. Which I found out, I have no plague in my arteries, and my heart is great and healthy. Its 100% not heart related. I asked him about the pain and sometimes when it skips a beat, if that could be related to my ‘monthly visitor’ and he couldn’t comment on that as he knows there is some research but not enough to be conclusive. I also asked him if the nausea, headaches, dizziness etc could be the results of carbon monoxide poisoning. He said yes it definitely could, and went on to explain how. So, that was good, nothing major going on with my heart. He explained that it is most likely muscular and follow up with my dr.

After my appointment I swung around and checked out how the dig was going, and to pickup a charging cord for my phone (I had forgotten to charge it over night). There was already a deep hole, a trench about 6 feet deep being dug and I realized then, this was going to be way messier than I had imagined.
I left for work feeling a little exhausted and tired, fighting a cold all week and I wasn’t going to let it get the best of me.

My husband sent me a few photos as the day progressed and as they hit the mid point of the project we found the source of the leak. I huge hole right at the connection to the city water. I immediately got on the phone and called Guelph’s water works department and was connected with Bryce. I wanted to know if there was any way the city would cover some or all of the costs as it was right at the connection, and he assured me that it was still on my property. I cried. I didn’t understand how the hole being at the city connection was our’s to fix. He also assured me that fighting the issue wasn’t going to result in anything positive. I just sat in my office chair and cried while I edited web pages.

The job went pretty quickly after that, they managed to break the bell line so they had to wait for the bell and city inspector before filling in the hole. Everything was approved, bell has to wait for spring to fix the line so we’re patched into our neighbors for now. The plumbing was fixed, the hole filled in and we had water.

When I got home, I had the longest hottest shower I ever had. My yard was torn up, my basement resembled an episode on the horders tv show, my daughter was at my parents home and I felt guilty as she was sick with a cold and we were completely over broke with debt. I sobbed in the shower, just sobbed. In order to have a positive attitude through this all, I needed to feel my feelings and just let them all out, deal with them and move on. Put a smile on my face and just be thankful for everything we have, which I am truly grateful for.

That night I went to sleep via Neo-Citron and it was clear I had the same cold Sophia had. I got a call at 2am from my mother. “You’re daughter has a fever of 104 and I’ve just given her Tylonal and Advil, I’m bringing her home to you.” I was in a complete daze.
“Mom, what are you talking about I’m 3 hours away from you, you need to take her to a hospital, take her temperature again”
“Its 104.3 now (40.17)”
“Mom, that is the highest its ever been, shes not responding to the Advil and Tylonal, she’s lethargic you need to take her to the Owen Sound Hospital, We’ll meet you there”

My husband and I through a tired daze, quickly got dressed and headed upon the longest 2 hour drive (to date) we’d ever had as parents. We held hands the whole way and just prayed.

All I could manage to say was “Well, at least the dig is over”