The Handyman Hubby is on the Mend!

My last post talked about breaking my toe…I thought that would be the worst thing to happen this summer, but it definitely was not.

The last three weeks have been a roller-coaster of emotions and the worst of our lives.

So much happened, that it would take me forever to document it all, but I'll try to sum it up.

On July 3rd, David had some pain in his stomach but he didn't think much of it.  On July 4^th, he woke up still in pain so we went to Urgent Care. The doctor there talked to David, poked his stomach once and then just told him it was acid reflux. David was sent home with some Protonix and pain medicine. My mom had told me not to leave without having them do blood work, but unfortunately we did.

David tried to ignore the pain all day, but he could not enjoy the 4th of July. That night it was getting worse, so we went back to Urgent Care. The doctors did blood work and saw that David's White Blood Cell count was high so they knew it was some sort of infection. They did tests through the night and finally early that morning, David was diagnosed with appendicitis. We were shocked. David's pain was not the typical lower right stomach pain that you hear about with appendicitis. Hours later David was transferred to the hospital and had surgery to remove his appendix at about 5pm that night. The surgeon came out afterwards and told me that it went well, but that his appendix was huge and stuck to the colon, and so it would probably take David a few extra days to recover.

Initially, the day after David’s surgery, he looked better and we thought he would go home in the next day or so. But then things took a turn for the worse. His stomach was swollen and bloated. 

Over the next few days, things did not improve and so David had to get an NG tube down his throat to suck out the bile and gas that was just sitting in his stomach. He had a ileus or “lazy stomach” and a potential partial bowel obstruction because his lower intestine was inflamed. He was not allowed to eat or drink anything because his stomach wasn't working properly and could not digest anything.

We later learned that the biopsy of his appendix revealed that it was perforated and so it probably leaked into his body. As a result, David developed an abscess and had to have another procedure to have a drain inserted to remove the harmful collection of fluid. He had the drain in for a few days.

After about a week of the ileus, there were talks of doing a second surgery because the doctors thought there was an obstruction in the intestine, though they could not confirm this. David and I decided it would be best to give it a day to see if his stomach would wake up on it's own. We wanted to avoid another surgery as much as possible. The next day the surgeon discovered that David had pancreatitis which could be the cause of the prolonged ileus. David had a lot of tests done to figure out the cause of the pancreatitis, but none of them were conclusive.

It was very nerve-racking just waiting each day, hoping David's condition would improve. Sometimes his bloodwork and X-Rays looked better, and sometimes they looked worse. The doctors didn't know exactly what was wrong and that was even more troubling. It was a very stressful and sleepless time.

It was difficult for David in the hospital because it is not place conducive for recovery. The nurses and techs come in every other hour and the IV machine beeps loudly every time there's an air bubble which seemed to occur several times a night, so it's difficult to get any sleep. All the nurses can really help with is administering medicine. There are no doctors on the floor, only Physician Assistants and they would just tell us to wait to talk to the surgeon every day. We had to wait until 10pm at night when David's surgeon would come by to figure out the next steps. We were confident in the surgeon, but his busy schedule meant that David would have to wait until night to figure out what his tests from that morning revealed. All he could really do was just wait. David had to be mentally strong to put up with all of the pain and uncomfortable procedures that weren't making him feel better.

Even a 2.5 week stint in the hospital is not enough time to finish a game of risk. This pic documents our places. #ConquerTheWorld

After almost two weeks in the hospital, David's stomach finally started to wake up slowly and he was able to get the NG tube out and start on a clear liquids diet. David was sent home from the hospital a couple of days later. For about 13 hours he was free from the horrible hospital, but that night, David was experiencing severe pain and we went back to Urgent Care. It was exactly two weeks later from when he was diagnosed with the appendicitis. There's something humbling about driving through the city (a second time) as people are stumbling around from the bars on a Saturday night as I'm racing to get my husband some relief. We had some of the same nurses as the first time and all of them were shocked that David had been in the hospital the whole time. When he was first diagnosed, they all assured us that laparoscopic appendectomies were not very invasive and David could be released the day after his surgery.

Post NG tube, for a few hours David was on a soft diet and he got some ice cream.

Getting out of the hospital (the first time).

Waiting for geese to cross the street as I leave Urgent Care sans Husband :(

It turned out David was having pain because his pancreatitis had flared up.  He went back to the hospital for a few more days. He finally got released again, 18 days after the ordeal began. David had to be on a liquid diet for a week after getting released, but he's been feeling well. Yesterday, he got the go ahead to transition to a soft diet, so he's very excited. He lost 20 pounds and has to take it easy because his calorie intake is down. But I'm happy to say that he is on the mend!

Diet plan.

The hospital stay definitely put things into perspective. I was staying at the hospital and neglected my garden and as a result my zucchini plants died. Our house is not in the best state at the moment. David had planned to have his brother come over on July 5th to help fix our steps and put up a new fence. Our steps are still in the same state since my broken toe and David ripped out the fence in preparation for the new one so right now we are left with ugly steps and an open yard.  All of these things are insignificant. If you do not have your health, nothing else matters.

A metaphorical balloon trapped in the rafters. David said that he was sure that the balloon would run out of helium and be "freed" from the hospital before him. But luckily David got out before the balloon!

This experience has taught me that the health care system is seriously messed up. I won't go into the details, but there were many instances where David wasn't getting the treatment he should have been. I will say this, if you are having pain, don't immediately trust a doctor to give you the right diagnosis. Do your research, ask questions and push for tests to be done. It's important to advocate for your health, otherwise, it's easy for doctors to brush you off.

Through faith, love and support we were able to get through this ordeal together. My husband is a strong person, and this struggle will only make him stronger! This challenge has allowed us to grow closer and remember what truly matters.

Handicapped Wifey

What started out as a normal Saturday afternoon of David fixing the porch steps turned into me at Urgent Care getting an X-ray.

As I previously mentioned, tiles were falling off of our front porch steps. It started out with one and then another; it was only a matter of time before all of the tiles on the bottom step would fall off.

Tiles falling off.

David had debated about what to do. He could just use mortar to re-attach the tiles to the steps. This would be the easy fix. But neither David nor I were fond of the tiles. David knew that there were old concrete steps underneath that had been covered up with cement and brick because you could see them from the side. So the other option was to tear apart the stairs down to the old concrete steps. I actually like the brick steps and wanted to keep it, but David opted to tear it out.

Similar to the porch demolition, a few tiles came off very easily, but then David had to put some muscle into it. He hammered a chisel into the mortar to try to break apart the bricks. After a lot of work breaking down the mortar and wedging a crow bar in the cracks David got a whole row of bricks out at once. He found out this would be easier than trying to pry each brick off one at a time. I tried to help a bit with the chisel and the demolition hammer, but it was very tiring and I barely got anywhere.

Cement stairs underneath.

David was able to pry all of the bricks and cement off of the second step in one big slab. We needed to move this out of the way. It was way too heavy for us to lift together (like 300lbs), so we decided to stand it up and flip it out of the way. On the first flip it hit into David’s arm a little bit. Luckily he was wearing heavy duty gloves, but it ripped them and scraped his arm up a bit. On the second flip, I was lowering it to the ground but David said he was dropping it, and before I could completely get out of the way it fell on the inside of my left foot and big toe. I was hit by the corner and so I was lucky the full weight didn't come crashing down on my foot. David had to lift the slab up for me to get my foot out. 

The fateful slab of cement and bricks.

I could not put weight on my foot and it was really painful, so after much convincing from my mom who is a nurse, I decided to get it looked at. Urgent Care was quite the experience and of course took forever. My toe began to feel much better while I was waiting and I could put weight on the outside of my foot. I was debating about just leaving, but I finally got an X-Ray taken and found out that my big toe had a small fracture. This was upsetting as summertime is the worse time to have limited mobility, but I am confident it will heal faster than the doctors told me. I was given a special shoe to wear so that I don’t put weight on my toe.

I think the fracture is in the righthand upper corner of the toe.

David mentioned that in all of the years he’s been doing construction and working on the house, he’s never had to go to Urgent Care. The most important thing I will take out of this is safety first. We are lucky that only a toe was damaged in this. The slab of concrete we were trying to move was way too heavy for us to be moving. So we need to be smarter next time. I’m currently in the market for some steel-toed shoes if anyone knows where I can get a cheap pair!

Handicapped Wifey.

Needless to say, our porch steps are not finished yet. David did finish removing the brick and cement. He has plans to add cement slabs to the top two steps, but I am sitting out for the rest of this project.

Current state of the steps.

I have Veggies Growing!

My roof-top garden is flourishing!

Garden when I started.

 
The plants are getting tall, but I have not harvested anything yet. I have had a pepper growing for a little over a week now. And then this morning I looked a saw a zucchini growing. This was very exciting, not to mention surprising as I was expecting yellow squash. My neighbor had given me some leftover seeds and told me it was squash. But I love zucchini, so I am happy. Upon further inspection after work, I found another big zucchini and about 5 little ones growing.  It looks like this plant is going to be plentiful.

Pepper growing.

Zucchini growing!

The zucchini plant is quite large and has pretty flowers. I found out that you can fry these up and eat them, but then the zucchini won't come in as they grow out of the flowers. I also saw that my snow peas are coming in, but they are in the same container as the zucchini and are being pushed over by the big leaves.

Zucchini will grow out of the flowers.

Since my last post about my vegetable garden, I bought a variety pack of seeds off of amazon and planted a bunch of more veggies such as broccoli, spinach, lettuce, red pepper, yellow tomatoes and eggplant. These seeds were only planted a few weeks ago, so they probably won't be sprouting veggies until the end of the summer. I planted them in the pots that our boxwoods came in, but they are starting to outgrow these small pots. I am planning to transfer the ones that are running out of room to bigger pots.

Lot of seeds.

Seeds planted.

Tomatoes growing tall in the bucket and seeds sprouting.

The funny thing is that I am going to have a lot zuchinni because I planted two more pots from the seeds I had gotten off amazon, not knowing that I was already growing some. I guess I'll have to make some zucchini muffins!

The tall plants are more zucchini and yellow squash. 

My herbs that I was growing in the wine crate have not been as successful. The wine crate looks like it is going to fall apart and the basil and cilantro have not grown much. So I don't think I would use a wine crate again because it doesn't drains well.

The wine crate is rotting.

I have been having fun with my garden; I'm always excited to come home from work and see what's growing. It's very rewarding, well...it will be when I can actually eat all of the yummy fresh veggies.

Sump Pump

Our house had some flooding issues in the basement when David first moved in. The basement is not finished and he mostly just used it for storage and laundry, so he would make sure items weren't on the floor. But David knew he would eventually need to do something about it because water is very destructive and the dampness was causing mildew issues.

Water soaked yard - this water can seep into our basement.

Since our house is a town home, it is protected on the sides, but the water was coming in the front. Under our front porch is a little room that is like a crawl space. Outside it had a trough that attempted to keep water out, but it did not do a good job. Our house was built before concrete, and so it has a stone foundation. Limestone and sand are used as mortar, but that falls apart with water, allowing water to seep in very easily. Sometimes it would rain so hard, water would also come through the old windows in the basement. This was a definite problem area.

Under porch area.

David knew to fix the issues he would need to install a sump pump. David had his brother, Daniel come over one day to help with the project. They tried to use a hammer drill to make the hole in the ground in the under porch area, but ended up having to rent a jackhammer. The jackhammer created the 3 foot diameter hole much quicker. The ground was surprisingly made up of a bunch of different materials. There were layers of asphalt, a little cement, shingles and dirt at the bottom.

Making a hole in the ground.

Installing the sump pump.

They placed the sump pump in the hole and then filled the area around it with gravel. There's a cloth material around the sump pump to keep soot out. David decided that he did not need to make a french drain which has pipes that bring water into the sump pump because the water already collected in this area.

Adding pipe.

At first, David just connected the sump pump up with an extension cord, but this was only temporary. He knew it would eventually need to be in a GFCI (ground-fault circuit interrupter) so that it would shut off automatically if there was ever an electrical issue. It wasn't until about two years later, once he knew a little more about electric work, that he ran electrical and fixed it.


He connected pipe to the sump pump and ran it outside. David had some experience doing some basic plumbing with his dad so he knew how to do this.

Connecting pipe.

Pipe leading outside.

This pipe ran out to our front yard and dumped the water there. David quickly learned that this would not work, because some of it was going into our neighbor's yard and some water was being sent right back in the house. Because we are on a high water table, there is just so much water that David needed to find a better solution. David decided to make a dry-well in the yard to have the water deposited farther away from the house and underground.

Time to dig up the yard.

He dug a hole to bury the pipes in the yard and then created a larger hole at the end of yard where the water could drain. The well was then filled with gravel and then dirt on top to cover it. In retrospect, David says he should have made the hole twice as big and added a tank for the water to collect.

Laying pipe far away from the house.

Dry well hole.

Making the dry well bigger.

Occasionally, you can hear the ground gurgling with water where the well is.

Pipes covered up.

The sump pump is one of those projects that is not very glamorous, but quite necessary. This project spanned several days (years if you include the electrical) and was physically demanding (for David and his brother, not me). This little contraption has saved us many times from flooding. Even on days when it isn't raining the sump pump runs several times a day, carrying water outside of our house.

We still have dirt under the porch from the hole David dug that needs to be cleared out. David eventually would like to lay cement so that we can use this area for extra storage.

Building a Shed from Scratch

In David's original plans for the front yard, he wanted to add a shed that hid the trash can and recycling bin. Our trash and recycling is collected out front and therefore we keep them in our front yard like the rest of our neighborhood, but it's a bit of eye sore. This little shed would help make the yard look a little nicer and provide a bit of storage.

Garden blueprint.

Trash and Recycling Bins.

Of course, you can always just buy a shed, but they were about $250 and not the correct size we needed, so the Handyman Hubby decided to tackle building one himself. David's philosophy is that projects are always worth a shot to try yourself. The worse case scenario is that you lose some money in materials, but you will learn something from the experience. If it doesn't work out, well, you would have had to hire someone/buy something anyway. You just need the confidence to attempt it!

This was David's first time building a structure from scratch. He used 2 x 4s to build the frame.

Frame being built.

David used fence pickets for the walls and roof because they are pretty cheap. They are not meant to touch the ground, which they do in some areas, so hopefully they will hold up okay!

Roof being put together.

Structure coming together.

To make the roof look nicer and to protect it from water, David added shingles to the roof which he got from a pile that was at his parent's house.

Adding the shingles.

The shed is designed with hinges so the roof can lift up, if you want to throw something in the trash can, but the front has two doors which open out if you want to take the bins out. Because this was built with wood, the roof is pretty heavy to lift! David is thinking of adding a stand that will support it when it is ajar.

Roof Attached.

Doors Attached.

David added a metal drip edge to make the shed look nicer. He painted the shed with the paint that we also plan to use on the window trim outside.

Painting the shed with exterior paint.

The total cost of materials was around $100, half of which was the exterior paint we bought. The shed is a little bigger than needed so we will use the extra space to store some garden tools. The nice thing about the shed is that it's about the height of the fence and so it doesn't stand out too much.

Here's the finished shed. The Amish have nothing on the Handyman Hubby!

White metal drip edge and latch added.

The custom made shed was far down on the list of projects that we need to do to our house, so this means we are making progress!

Finished shed!

From a Loose Tile to a Brand New Porch

The front porch is a very important part of the house. We like to spend cool summer nights hanging out on the porch with a beer, potentially an O's game on the iPad or occasionally chatting with neighbors #porchlife. The nice thing about our house is we have a front porch that we can go to if we want to be social or people watch and a private back deck that we can go to if we want to be loners.

David and I took a trip to Cape May a few years ago and toured some Victorian mansions. In this one particular mansion, the porch had hardwood floors that caught David’s eye.

Emlen Physick Estate. Victorian Dream Home!

David was inspired and decided he would like to have a hardwood floor porch one day because he did not like the tile that was currently on the porch.

Hardwood outside?

 A few months later a tile came loose on the porch. David needed to fix it, so he figured that was as good of a time as any to redo the whole porch. But somehow, a loose tile turned into an elaborate project of replacing joists and beams....

Old tile, also OMG look at Stevie.

The only part that I helped out with was removing the old tile. At first a few tiles came up easily, but then we got to a section where the tiles would not budge. We had to hammer and break them apart small piece by small piece with a Sawzall. 

Removing tiles was challenging!

David realized that the tiles on the edge of the porch came up easily because that section of the porch had likely been ruined by water and replaced with plywood before the tiles were installed. But the tiles were really stuck to the section where the original porch was still in tact underneath. It took a lot of work, but eventually we stripped all of the tile off. It was cool to see what the original 115+ year old porch looked like.

Replaced wood to the left, original porch on the right.

David’s brother-in-law came over one Saturday with a flooring nailer to help since David had never laid hardwood floors before. After opening the porch up and examining it, they realized a lot of the wood had rotted. In order to do this remodel right, they had to replace the beams and joists of the porch and then lay a plywood sub-floor. The reason a tile had come loose in the first place was because the beams holding the tile were falling down. This project quickly turned into a lot of work.

Replacing the porch structure.

After fixing the structure, they were able to lay the hardwood floor on top. David bought the hardwood flooring at Second Chance for about a $1 a square foot.

Materials.

We weren’t sure how hardwood would fare in the harsh outdoors. Our porch is covered, but of course that doesn’t mean it is completely protected from rain or snow. David did some research and figured he could protect the wood with a varnish used for wood boats called Spar. Since it is supposed to hold up in the water, it should hopefully be able to protect our porch. He sealed the wood with two coats.

Hardwood installed.

David also never cared for the metal railing on the porch and wanted a wood railing so that it could look more historically accurate. He had looked at houses in Charles Village and Hampden that had original porches and they all had square wood railings. While David was at Second Chance, he saw some that were $15 each so he decided to install them as well.

Second Chance railings.

The railings took some maneuvering to get them to fit and look good, but they achieve the look David wanted.

Installing Railings.

Recently, David also added an outlet to the porch.  I was excited for this, as it will allow us to plug in Christmas lights (and tools and stuff, I guess).

Before: House on Settlement Day.

Every year for the past two years, David has put a new seal on the edge of the porch to help protect it, but he hopes that after this year it will be good for a while. He tries to keep moisture off of it as much as possible. The porch has held up pretty well, although it is buckling slightly in some spots.

Finished porch.

Interestingly enough, we just had two tiles come lose on the steps, so we may have to repeat this process and fix the stairs with brick or cement or possibly marble!

David also painted the door.

This project was a great example of how during the remodeling process you have to be committed to finishing. Sometimes when you do some demolition you find more important issues that need to be taken care of. A relatively simple project can turn into a big renovation that's necessary for the safety of your house. 

Grown Stevie on the Hardwood floor porch.