It is ridiculous how much snow we have received in the last 24 hours. I have never seen so many things within the city shut down before but considering the road conditions it was expected. I had planned to go in for blood work this afternoon but with all of the cancellations I think the hospital will be running on a skeleton staff. All of the schools were closed and employees told not to work remotely. I had some things I wanted to do so it was an optimal time to do so. Xavier and a couple of boys from his hockey team shoveled last night and you could not even tell that they had shoveled each time. This morning Mel went out several times for 30 minutes at a time and you could not even tell. They tried to get to the back where the snowblower is and they could not walk there without sinking up to their waist in snow. Some people on the streets tried with their machinery and it was tough going. I had bought a heavy duty machine designed for this and it handles all of this easily. The issue is that our machine is extremely heavy and Mel struggles with the weight. It is quite maneuverable with the controls but I just used to use brute strength to move it around easier. Back in the day when I had the snowblower out I would help out with multiple driveways and would be out for 3 hours or so. I am not permitted to do that now and Mel does not use our snowblower. Our neighbor who would normally do our driveway is out of town for the weekend so we need to do it ourselves. Family members have offered to come and help out but it might be difficult with the roads not being plowed completely.
I have had people offer to help me out with driving me places today, but our road has not had much traffic and Mel said that she thinks that our truck would be difficult even with the clearance that we have. As long as my appointment tomorrow is not cancelled then things will be ok. It will mess up my schedule if I am not available to go for treatment tomorrow. It would mean that my disconnect occurs on Friday and I do not think that we have any nurses on the team familiar with the procedure with the port as the needle needs to be removed. I also do not think that they would want it removed at a hotel. We will need to wait and see what happens but it may have an impact on me going to Timmins to watch hockey as I would miss the games on the first day I believe. It is possible that I make it to the evening game, but Mel will probably not let me drive up on my own.
My weight has increased by 2 lbs since my last weigh in a couple of days ago. As long as it does not climb too quickly it will be ok. If I am gaining a pound or two every couple of days then it is ascites fluid buildup. Stable and slow weight increase may be due to eating. I have been eating better and have not vomited in a couple of days which is a good sign. I still seem to need my 4pm nap. My sleep was disrupted due to the F1 races, and with no race this weekend I will be ok. I have managed to eat more today by eating less and alternating between drinking and eating. I have tried to either be drinking or eating something all day and it seems to be working fairly well.
The plow came by and created a beautiful 4 foot snow bank on our side and a tiny 6 inches for our neighbor across the street. Mel went out to work on it with Xavier and one of our neighbors from up the street saw and offered to help. I worked with his wife at HSN a while ago. I really wish that I would have been able to help out our neighbors. With some of our old neighbors everyone would help each other out, but some of the newer people are young and keep to themselves. There is nothing wrong with that but I would have liked to help out our neighbors that are out of town. Mel was telling Xavier that this is the worst storm that she remembers. The closest one to this was the ice storm in the 90’s and there was another one in the 80’s that I remember as well.
Q