Jo: Another Bronchoscopy

Jo's breathing improved a few days after the last bronchoscopy during which they tried to expand the airway with an inflatable device.

Yesterday Jo met with 6 doctors at the Ottawa General hospital.  She was very impressed by how professional they were and confident in their treatment of her.  They still don't know what is wrong but they did confirm the biopsy they performed during the last bronchoscopy was benign.

The next one will be under full anesthesia and they will examine the airways to her lungs.  During the last one they saw something unusual in the right airway.  They want to give the airway size time to stabilize so the next one should be late November early December.  This eliminates any possibility of our return to Vero this year unless I have to return to empty a sold boat!

Jo - Update

Today Jo went for yet another Bronchoscopy.  This time the "final" consultant said that she would have to have surgery. Her Trachea has contracted to an extent that they cannot re mediate without surgery.  The next step is to meet with 3 different surgeons/experts at the Airways Clinic on October 5th.  Then they will schedule surgery.

This leaves us in a bit of a limbo.  So we have decided to put the boat on the market with Tom Boylan.  Any surgery between now and the expected return to Florida date of December 5th would negate the legitimacy of our medical insurance.

I will re-post when we know more.

Update: Jo's wheezing - the diagnosis.

Jo finally has a diagnosis for her wheezing and shortness of breath. 

After having X-rays, echo and electro cardiograms, CT scan, pulmonary functions and blood work over the last two months she has Stridor emanating from her trachea in the neck, likely caused when she was intubated during her jaw surgery a few years ago.  The treatment will not be known until she has a neck X-ray to get a better picture of where the narrowing is. 

Until treated she has to take it easy and she can dump the inhalers.

Good news!

The St Lawrence Seaway

Since we are living here for a few months I thought a few words and pictures about the Seaway would be appropriate.  The St Lawrence river runs from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean.  In its natural state it ran via numerous rapids and was therefore not navigable to anything but kayaks.  Through two engineering efforts the Seaway provided deep water and locks around the rapids areas thus allowing large Ocean going ships to transit from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Ontario.  Such ships still found Niagara Falls an impediment so The Welland Canal was built thus allowing transit around the falls to Lake Huron. The addition of locks in St Mary's River allowed transit to the last of the Great Lakes opening  up the entire region to ocean navigation and navigation to 100 million people. 

A typical lock is quite interesting from a safety and maintenance point of view.  Each end has dual gates, arrester wires and, on the upstream end, a sill barrier to protect the upstream end gates.  This particular lock is at Iroquois.  The upstream gate is the only thing holding back Lake Ontario when the downstream gate is open.  The rise or fall at Iroquois varies from 6 inches to 5 feet depending on water levels.

Although the lock has two gates at each end only one is used.  Each is independent and either can be used if the other fails or is under maintenance.  In the above photo, the box in the foreground houses the back up generator used if local power fails.  Keeping the Seaway open is a high priority due to the costs incurred by the users in the event of delay. No amount of back-up prevents the frequent delays due to groundings, ship equipment failure and navigation error.  The following sequence shows the Algoma Equinox 
transiting up-bound at Iroquois.

It's a very slow business.  Ships have hit the arrester wires on a number of occasions and take things very slowly.  Jo likened this transit as less interesting than watching grass grow.

The ship lines up for entrance using its bow thruster for assistance and enters at less than a knot of speed.

The stack of iron work just to the left of the bow in the above picture can be lifted into slots in the lock by the crane, one atop the other on the outside of the two movable gates thus providing a fixed wall to allow major maintenance of the lock.  The same setup is in place at the upstream end.  In this way all the gates could be removed at once.

This ship is popularly known as a Laker and is characterised by it's inelegant bow shape designed in the cause of economy.  In the following panorama, Equinox is behaving like the plunger of a syringe.  Both up-stream and down-stream gates are open as there is less than six inches difference; there is a slight current downstream and the ship fits the lock within six inches either side.  Also, this ship was loaded so there was not much space underneath.  All this means that the ship required considerable power to be applied to squeeze the water passed it just to make it through.

After a gruelling, very warm afternoon watching paint dry at Iroquois Lock we retired for a brew at Bud's on the Bay in Brockville and, wouldn't you know it, the Algoma Equinox passed by us.  This is Daniella, one of the many fine servers at Bud's.

In the next post we will update with some news.

We'll Die Waiting if I don't jump in...

Spooky speaking here 'cos if we wait for the Captain we will wait for ever.  I put together a few pictures of the agony the cap and admiral put me through getting from sunny Florida to frigid Canada.  After they tied up the boat to their dock multiple times...

...and said goodbyes to their friends...

...I got dumped into a carrying crate and they headed off.  Now I don't like going in cars.  I don't like the motion.  I don't like the confined quarters and most of all it nearly always results in a visit to the vet which never goes well.

All I could say was that this vet must be one hell of a long way away because we just kept on driving and driving and driving!  They had let me out of the case so I had the chance to check the GPS to see where we were.  We were going north all right.  And that could only mean cold.  What would possess them to do that?

After what seemed an age we stopped at this less than ideal hotel.  Not my standard I can tell you!  I didn't even want to walk on that carpet.

But at least we had stopped and there was something of a view.  I didn't know what we were doing here but after a night's sleep the worst became obvious.

We hit the road again!  I must say that I don't duck any more when we go under bridges since we have been under hundreds and nothing has happened to me yet.

This was getting a bit tiresome.  Hour after hour of being cooped up in this vehicle with nothing to do.  Anyway I found this new place to snooze which was pretty comfy.

Well, we stopped again.  Same drill - I had to check every last corner to make sure it was safe for us all.  This place was a bit more to my liking.

But dammit if they didn't get up in the morning and start driving again.  When was this going to end?  No vet yet but, to be honest, I think I would prefer a trip to the vet after this lark.  Captain had to take yet another visit to his litter box and I saw that the army was heading north as well.  We must be going to Toronto and it's snowing.  Turn this damned thing around!

Third stop, check out the room and try to figure out what in God's name is happening  Some place called Watertown it said on the GPS.

Well, the next day didn't go the way I expected.  Some folks I remembered from the hell I endured coming through New York on the boat turned up and we went with them even further North if you can believe that!  They called themselves Joe and Brandy and they have some 'splainin to do!  Then I got dumped in this empty apartment while the bipeds went off somewhere.  I called after them that there were no curtains but they ignored me.

Apparently they went to Elizabeth's place to pick up some parcels which included a blow up bed  for them to sleep on.  Weren't they lucky?

 The next day they were off to pick up a new car.  I still don't know why they left the other one in Watertown.  This one looks just the same to me.

Any way, the Cap went and got a TV for me to watch and Catherine bought a carpet for me to lie on so I guess we are here for a bit!

Oh, and I now have a half decent leather love seat to sleep on as well so things could be worse.  Anyway, looks like the Cap's coming so maybe he will get his arse in gear and take over.

Thanks for that Spook!

We had to make an early trip to Ottawa to start getting Jo's breathing checked out and ran into an old friend from home.  Nice to see you Steph!

Spook didn't mention visits from Catherine and to Bill and Beth in that first week.  But she was right about the weather.  Chilly!

 We have been lucky to have visited and eaten at Bill and Beth's a few times over the last weeks.  Thanks guys!

Thank you Spooky for restarting this tome and I will update again shortly with our other news.

Soon!

Change is in the Air

It's getting on for a month since we last posted.  Sorry!  A few things have happened since then.

Most importantly for us we decided that it would be close to impossible to get five months in Ontario (to keep our OHIP alive) if we went by boat.  The winter was pretty brutal and it is unlikely the canals will open on time.  If they are as late as they were in 2012 then we wouldn't land in Ontario until the first week of June.  That would mean we couldn't leave until the first week of November.  Not the best time to be hanging around the St Lawrence river.  We have decided to leave the boat here for the summer, drive back and rent an apartment for the period.  With help from Joe Madigan this has been arranged and we plan to start back on April 28th or 29th.

So, what have we been up to since the last posting aside from our regular docktails, rips to regular haunts and pool time?  We visited the Palm Beach boat show to see our friend Julie.  She was doing a stint as chef on board Miss Lisa.  Miss Lisa is a 92 foot expedition yacht.  we got a guided tour of this beautifully appointed boat.  $7 million would see it at your dock.

It was a large show, mostly of motor yachts for sale.

Easter saw us at Jenny's for supper

The Sens made it to the play-offs so, until they are knocked out, the flag will fly!

Vero Beach has a new wine/coffee bar called Grind and Grape.  We tried them out and liked it.  Barbara decided this fellow's date couldn't dance so she she cut in and showed how it was done.

Somehow we always seem to get good looking and excellent wait staff.  Jess was no exception.

It was a great evening spent with 3 other couples from our marina.

We were planning to cruise back with Dan and Jacque.  They are doing the great loop.  We will catch up with them in the Thousand Islands in June.

Bon Voyage!

I had an invitation to go flying from Vero Beach.  I never pass up those!

We did a couple of circuits over the marina.  Dream Weaver is just behind the white circle: 

Shirley and Doug have just moved into a condo here at Grand Harbor.  We had them aboard for supper. 

My bucket list included a trip to the Kennedy DSpace Center.  Richard and I went last week.  This is the real Atlantis hanging from the ceiling

A launch was scheduled for 4:33pm that day so we all dutifully waited.  It was scrubbed 3 minutes before lift off due to weather but it did launch the next day at 4:10pm and we saw it from the marina.

Landing the shuttle simulator was child's play!

A taster of Vero is an event put on the the restaurateurs on Ocean Boulevard.  Tickets were sold out weeks ago but Richard "came by" four and we joined him and Carol.  Great food and good times.

No, I don't remember who this guy represents.

I will do an update before we leave at the end of the month.

Spring has sprung...

 Just like in Canada someone flicked the switch and cool winter days have given way to spring 80 degree weather.  So it's back to Tiki bar lunches and pool afternoons.  We only have a few weeks left before we head North so it's time to make the most of it.

Sebastian's Tiki Bar has good beer, a river front location and live music on a Sunday afternoon.  Jenny and Russell joined us.

In the afternoon Jo caught up on some reading at the marina pool.

Later the same week we had lunch at the same location but with our dock neighbour Frank from "When Pigs Fly".

The evening dock cocktail hour seems to be a robust collection of friends.  Dennis (standing) bought Zoe (standing) with him...

...allowing them to meet Daisy (foreground) owned by Mark (sitting).  All the pets on our dock have great personalities.  Even Spooky has become friendly to most for a few moments.

Randy and Nancy finally left for the Bahamas.  Regulars of the cocktail party we will miss them but hope to see them again in the Thousand Islands.

I have succumbed to the practice of selfies so I practiced one with Jenny at Kelly's. 

This toad looked like a lump of dog doo-doo when I first saw it in the entrance passageway to the marina office.  It didn't move as I approached so I took a picture of it.  Turns out its skin has a poisonous coating which can kill cats and dogs.  Read all about it here. 

The one thing a boat owner can guarantee it's that something will go wrong with some system all the time.  The worst system for wrong doing is the head (sanitation/toilet) system for obvious reasons.  I have become quite adept at fixing ours as it received almost no attention by the previous owner.  The system works by using a pump (I carry a complete spare) to generate a vacuum between the toilet and a small tank.  When one has done our business one uses a foot lever on the toilet which releases the vacuum which sucks the business to the small tank where the pump generates a new vacuum and pumps the business into a large holding tank which is pumped out later.

The forward head system developed a vacuum leak that manifested itself as the vacuum pump cycling every so often.  It started as a cycle every 2 hours but progressed to every 10 minutes which meant it was time to act.  I bought a vacuum gauge and isolated the problem, to my worst fears, to the hose between the head and vacuum tank.  "Why my worst fears?" I hear you say.  That hose is 14 feet long and runs everywhere that is difficult if not impossible for me to get to.  I decided to get someone in to fix it.

Then along came Debbie.  Debbie is a little blonde dynamo who is a neighbor on our dock. She guilt-ed me by volunteering to help me do it myself and save a small fortune in bills.  Debbie had already changed a discharge pump for me in a spot where I could simply not get to.  Not only is she able to get into spots only Spooky could reach but when she is there she is as capable as anyone of fixing things.  This is Debbie going down into the galley bilge:

Dan also volunteered to assist and Jo was our gopher.  I know I could not have done this job alone and Dan and I agreed that it would have been very difficult for the two us.  But the three of us made it easy and we had a blast doing it!

For those that might be wondering, K-Y lubricant is recommended for its benign chemical properties when pushing hose onto hose barbs.  The new white hose is part of the 14 feet that runs through the boat.

As I said, it was a fun project.

While Dan and Debbie (out of sight somewhere in the bilge) secured the hose in the galley bilge I took the forward head apart so we could remove the old hose and attach the new.

As an illustration of one of our team's capabilities we see here the insertion of Debbie into utility room bilge:

Going...

...going...

...going...

...gone!

The Sea Ray manual was inaccurate about the length of hose.  Even though I ordered three feet extra it was still too short so we had to send out for some more.  As it happened it made the installation of the last piece to the toilet easier to have a join.The toilet was done.  I checked the vacuum and all was perfect.  Job well done.

We all headed off to shower and we hosted our team for lunch at The Riverside Cafe.  The lady on the left is Dan's wife Jacque, then Bilge Buddies: Dan, Debbie and the management.  Gopher Jo took the picture. Great job and thanks to all!