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.