Updates:

 

 Two big updates:

We adopted a female black lab!  She's about 15 months old.  We got her off Craigslist.  I know, I know.  But it worked out.  She's a good girl, for the most part.  Biggest issue is that she's a runner. Twice within the first couple of days we had her she got loose and took off.  Poor Gene almost had a heart attack.  But he got her back.  The best thing about her is that she is not timid with Casey, his medical equipment, nor his chair!  That's always a worry.  She just took it all in stride.  She's also very, very sweet and pretty.  She's much smaller than Jaxon was.  We weighed her here and she was about 53 1/2 pounds.  

The second thing is that our renovation has begun!  The crew came on Tuesday, the 13th with the contractors and they made a plan (for what it's worth).  They started actual demo on Wednesday, the 14th.  So far they haven't touched the upstairs bathroom so we can use that, thankfully.  The kitchen is GONE!  The living room is gone!  Right this minute the entryway floor is still there and they haven't touched the laundry area.  Tonight we have to get the rest of the things out of the entryway as the floor will be worked on tomorrow.  

Oh, the the electrician is here.  I'm not sure what they are doing but I hope progress is being made.  Plumbing and electric are going to be HUGE.  Hopefully they built enough into the contract to cover what needs to be done.  We are already adding to the cost as there some sill rot and some other things that need to be fixed that I don't even understand.

What else.

Casey had a pulmonary and an ENT appointments yesterday.  Pulmonary was fine.  Pretty much a check in and a catch up.  Dr. Cowan will talk to Janet about trying the Astral vent and also maybe the Shiley trach that they just re-designed.  ENT sucked out his ears.  She thought they were a little damp.  MAY eventually try some powder to get the flora to be more normal.  We talked about the supragranuloma (not sure if this is the proper name) that Dr. Lahiri found when he did Casey's bronch a month or so ago.  She thought it would be a good idea to remove it.  It's above his trach so it's not affecting his breathing or trach right now.  But who knows if it will grow more.  And, if for some reason we couldn't get his trach in, the granuloma would block an intubation tube.  So we probably will do it but not not super soon.  It entails the whole nine yards: fasting, IV, sedation, surgery, and recovery.  Ugh. She thought his trach site looked good.  Casey was pretty cooperative overall.  

Some funnies about the trip to UVM.  We had to bring Molly with us as she's still too new and nervous to leave here alone.  So Gene dropped Nurse Staci, Casey and I off and they went on adventures.  Molly got to pee all over Burlington!  She loves riding and was mostly cooperative.  

Dr. Cowan had a resident with her.  First thing he says to the resident. "Korean".  The resident said, "You got me"  :)  He was a good sport and put up with Casey's questionings.  Of course Casey wanted to know his wife's name (not married), children (none), address (Burlington).  Etc.