Another Day!

Another week has passed and we have returned to our home on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. We celebrated the arrival of the New Year in Dryden and completed the drive back on January 1st.  The weather here has been comfortable with daytime highs reaching near zero. Our friends have kept the driveway mostly clear of snow, but the recent storm had left behind several inches  to greet our arrival, so I got to bring out the snowblower and clear it away. Since then, the sun has been doing its job of returning our driveway to black pavement. However, we are not fooled and expect several more storms before Winter gives way to the inevitable Spring! We had George and Anne over last evening for supper and to thank them for their snow-clearing efforts. As you may be aware, I'm having back issues. This came to my attention in late September, and I've been whining about it ever since! Although I had to postpone it while we were in Regina for December, I finally had my MRI late Monday night, so late it was actually about 1:30 am when we got back from the hospital. The doctor has called and informed us of the results. They do not sound good! They accentuate the difficulty we can experience if we don't take much notice of pain—we don't realize how ill we are! It's issues with my spinal column that are causing my pain and disability. I have bulging discs in my lower back that are interfering with the nerves. She cautioned me over symptoms that could develop that would reveal that the problem has become critical. In the meantime, she is referring me to the Spinal Group, and a Spinal Surgeon to advise us further. Aside from the pain in my lower back, glutes, the back of my legs, and the neuropathy in my feet, the nerves involved also control bladder and bowel control. She doesn't want me to lose those—I don't either! In the meantime, she agrees that the stretching exercises I was doing for periformis syndrome should be helpful, but that I need to remain watchful of neuropathy in my inner thighs as that would be an acceleration of symptoms, and should prompt me to report to Emergency. I will be asking the Spinal Surgeon if, or when, I may resume golf and curling activity, and also what therapy may assist in repairing this situation. I continue to hope/expect that surgery will not be needed. Otherwise, we have been easing back into our home routines.

Another day...

Wendy is putting a jig saw puzzle together.

...and done!

I am considering some small winter projects in the shop, but ran into a significant snag—my table saw wouldn't run! The other day when I switched it on, it ran for about 10 seconds and stopped. I speculated that it may have overloaded from stiffness in the cold, but was unable to uncover any reason why it was not running. I checked and confirmed electrical flow to the motor, but it doesn't even hum; so, today, I opened up the motor! I pulled out the brushes and scraped them clean. After I replaced them—zoom! There is a lot of extra sparking between the brushes and the commutator, but it's running, and I'm expecting the brushes to reshape fairly quickly. The investment year has opened red-green-red-green—same ol', same ol'! Fortunately, the greens have been stronger, and I had a good week. The highlight of the week in sports was the World Junior Hockey Championships; Canada beat Czechia in OT to win the gold! #3-Jayhawks continue their dominant play and won again today over WVU. Rock Chalk! The bowl games have run their course with only the championship game between TCU and Georgia left to play on Monday. NHL schedule has settled back into normal after the holiday and outdoor special events. My three teams (Oilers, Pens, Leafs) are all in playoff contention, but none of them inspire great confidence! Pens lost their latest game, Oilers lost in OT tonight, just the Leafs won today. 

Erica writes, "After holiday Monday it was back to work—back to waking up early and going to bed on time—yikes! We enjoyed some ongoing celebrations with a friend’s birthday dinner on Tuesday, box seats at the PA Raider game courtesy of MNP on Wednesday, and an impromptu hockey watching party with friends on Thursday. Yay for Team Canada! With all that fun, we are now exhausted and sleeping in on Saturday. Liam is back at Caronport. We’ve also chatted with Greg and Haaken and they are both well."

Kristian is back in class after the Christmas break. He is set to get back to curling next week. Erin continues with work—her break was brief and ended long ago! Kristian finally got an email from Meta about his non-functional VR set. They admitted that it didn't work, and that they didn't have a repair ready. We are very relieved that we were able to get that returned. 

Travis and Joanna are back to work although Joanna has been suffering with respiratory distress. Negative tests for Covid—was it RSV? Gemma and Jonas headed back to Vancouver, work and school. Jonas is mostly working on research at this time while taking one class. Gemma has been accepted into one program of interest, but has decided to wait until Fall to continue classes. 

And that's about enough for this week.