Lots of Driving Lately

For the last week and a half I have been putting on more than normal amount of kilometers on the truck. This all started when Sam's warfarin levels decided to go wacky so we have had to make a trip into the city every couple days to get her levels checked.

Finally today we got word that the levels seem to be settled back down and we can go back to our previous routine of getting her checked once a month. I do believe the problem was some older meds (ie warfarin). When the doc was on holiday her replacement decided to drop the daily rate from 3 mg to 2.5 mg. Now it is darn difficult to cut up a 3 mg tab so I used a 1 mg tab and cut in half a 4 mg tab. After looking at the bottle closer, it could be that the 4 mg tabs were a bit old so they may not have had their full potency.

Then on the long weekend we decided to travel to Christopher and close up shop for another year. We have had a few nights where the temperatures have dropped fairly close to zero, so we decided it would be best if we drained the water lines etc at the cabin. It is a lot easier to drain the lines than trying to fix burst ones. As it had been a bit cool of late, we didn't know what we would face when we got up north so we weren't sure if we were going for the weekend or just a day or what.

Last Sunday we headed out in early in the morning and followed Craig back into the city. Sandra and I then continued on north. As we got closer to Christopher you could see where there had been a fair amount of rain of late. On arrival at the cabin the ground was still moist but of course this is forest country so it wasn't muddy or anything like that. When I opened up the door to the cabin I sure could feel the cool air rushing out. I then opened up the windows and within an hour or so it was fairly nice inside for Sam. I commenced to take down the lights, and started stowing away everything for the winter hibernation.

At noon I took a break and cooked us up some dinner. As we were sitting down eating, we were looking out the window and it sure was nice and peaceful. No wind at all and of course the leaves starting to change colour and fall to the ground. We were tempted to stay the night, but after a bit we decided that we should probably just close up shop and head south again.

After we washed up the dishes and got the fridge cleaned out, I headed outside and started on the water lines. Of course I had to empty the storage tank of water which I did with the pump. While the water was pouring out I was shaking my head on the wasted effort I had done to get the tank filled earlier in the summer. A lot of useless extra effort, but if I hadn't filled the tank we would have run short. So better to be prepared than having to play catch up.

Once the tank was empty I got the pump disconnected and serviced and commenced to blow out the lines. After that it was just a matter of cleaning up and loading the truck and we were heading southwards once again. We did have one stop in the city on our way through as I had to pick up a hard drive for a computer I was working on. I made it to Office Depot with about 5 minutes to spare before their closing, picked up the drive and we headed for the home stretch. We pulled into the garage just prior to 6 pm. Both of us had sore butts from so much sitting, but at least we had the comfort to know the cabin was ready to face another Saskatchewan winter.

Next came more driving to the city as I had to go visit a physiotherapist for my shoulder that has been bothering me of late. I had the shoulder xrayed during my annual medical and there was no sign of arthritis, so the doc wanted to see what a therapist could do for it. So into the city again we went and the therapist pulled and pushed the shoulder until it really hurt. He gave me some exercises to do for the next while and told me to come back next Tuesday and Thursday for followups. So that means two more trips to the city next week.

On our initial trip to the therapist I also took in the computer I was working on. Once I was done with my pain class I headed over and setup the computer for the customer. I had to do an install on the printer, and a final virus scan, and then I was done. This trip only took about 45 minutes or so and then we headed for home once again.

I think all told in the last week and half I put on about 2,000 kms or so. Hopefully that is not going to be my future mileage counts. Let alone getting 'TB' out of the sitting, the cost of gas is certainly not going down any.