Home improvement adventure, Part 2

So...after all the electrical excitement, we had to actually finish the rest of the deal. At that point, I was really quite done with it all.

We learned dry-walling through guys at the jobsite and research on the internet. I'm quite surprised how well it came out. We didn't rush the patch job. At that point, we were on the fourth week, and I just really wanted the house back to normal. You see, week one was running speaker wires. Week two was installing the light fixtures and switch. Week three was trying to fix the panel and figure out what the hell. Week four was rocking half of two walls. We did that after work over four days, and finally by that Saturday, Tannah woke up at 06h00 and started to paint. we didn't want white walls, so he painted just the wall behind the TV a light blue. Came out real nice. I'm very proud of our home, and with every little project, we're making more and more unique.

We're still trying to figure out what to do with the extra wire we ran into the kitchen. (Which again was a mistake: I was in the attic, couldn't see, and accidentally drilled a hole with a paddle-bit two inches to the wrong side of the stud. So we decided a speaker can go there, and we ran a wire for it and went ahead and connected one. Still pisses me off.) The speaker connectors were the biggest pain. Go figure. I almost cried, because we needed to buy new speakers, because the old speakers were JBL box speakers and the brackets would cost me almost $130 -$200 so instead Tannah went and bought new Klipsch satellite speakers. Let me say this,we were eating Ramen for the rest of the week because we did not budget the price of the new speakers. But it was so worth it.

All things said and done, the living room looks and sounds amazing and Tannah's finally back to playing Xbox 360 on the HDTV. Which believe me, I actually missed that. I feel like I've transcended the stone age and finally brought back into modern world. And yet, we're not 100% finished, we still need to reconnect the kitchen fan (I re-routed the wire that was for a half-hot to the fan and deleted the original switch for it, while turning the half-hot into a normal receptacle) and Tannah wants to paint the arcade wall, but we're happy and both of our confidence(s) have been greatly increased. Honestly, the feeling of fucking up your house and having no one to blame but yourself is sure a feeling I never want to feel again.

Home improvement adventure, Part 1

You'll see somewhere in the middle why I wasn't able to blog about all this as it happened:

[Paraphrased from Tannah's post]

Basically a few weeks ago, Tannah and I started on our house projects. We both learned a small but important lesson: sometimes it's better to leave well enough alone. Tannah wanted to run 14-gauge speaker wires in the living room for the surround sound system. That was totally okay, but I never realized how many huge holes would be made throughout our little project. It took most of the day to run the front speaker wires and I had to crawl in the attic to run the wires for the back speakers. Most of you know how much I hate that: I'm both claustrophobic and fear bugs. Tannah felt so bad, since he was supposed to be in the attic, but he just couldn't fit through the beams. He told me that he's done his time in attics doing alarm and camera systems at work, but he'd never seen beams so damn close together. Honestly, I could barely fit through. Sadly, I was up there for most of the afternoon, and I was so so happy to be done with it. He had to feed the speaker wires to me because the roof and ceiling were way too close together for me to reach. All in all, the wires were run and the living room was one step closer to being finished.

So in the middle of the project, we convinced each other that we can easily add some track lighting into the living room. The only problem was, there's no light switch in there, and really, I'd never done anything like this at home. On a jobsite, there was always a journeyman to go to if I got confused; at home, I'm on my own. We would have to do everything from scratch, add a switch, tap into a power source and run all new lines. I'm somewhat confident in my abilities but still...I don't feel I've got the training I need up to this point.

Track lighting soon became recessed fixtures which soon became recessed fixtures with adjustable lenses. So within two weeks of our project(s), there were a freaking huge hole behind where the TV would be and several holes by a receptacle where we stole power for our living room lights. The problem was, we ran into a "little snag". Around 22h00, 14 April, we were finishing up and Tannah turned power back on for the rest of the house. Everything looked amazing. We marvelled at the new brightness and Tannah got ballsy and flipped the switch to turn off the lights and there was an arc, and that scared the living hell out of both of us. Next thing we knew, the house was dark. I mean the whole house, and it was like, "Oh fuck, we blew out the breaker". Something was wrong, when I turned the breaker back on the entire panel shook like it was going to explode and it was seriously arcing. Arcing like I hadn't seen since my joys of working temp power. We elected to turn off that specific breaker, and the house looked fine but when we turned on a light switch from anywhere in the house, the lights flicker then turned off. I thought something was cross-phased and neither one of us knew what to do in a situation like that. The sad and pathetic truth hit me: I may be learning to be an electrician, but I wasn't one just yet. Tannah sure as hell didn't know what to do, as he only worked with low voltage. Phone calls were made: I called Snow...which I felt horrible for doing, but I was positive that he would know a good service truck driver. I also talked to Sanj, who in turn called Sinisha, who was over in less than an hour.

Long story short, we had lived in our crippled home for about a week and a half and after hearing a creepy hissing from the panel, we finally called Nevada Power and because Jack found out that I was with the IBEW, he busted his ass to fix everything. It took him four hours before he finally got it going again. And as a souvenir, Jack gave me the half-melted lug that had originally held the rogue #2 wire, and we found out then that one of the line-side leads to our house was fragged. (In Tannah's words: "Basically, the big-ass wire from the street was never bolted down in our panel.") When the surge occured, the breaker should have just tripped, but because the line-side feed was loose, it damaged the panel.

The following weekend, Snow and Sanj came over to help me investigate, and oh my God, I was so seriously embarassed: the "cross-phase" wasn't that at all, but a really idiotic mistake I won't even admit to. Snow checked all the connections for me and walked me though the process of fixing my shameful mistake with unbelievable patience. Sanj, being the good friend that she is, hung out with us during this crisis. Tannah had just bought his Wii and both Sanj and Lys had a blast playing Wii Sports. That kind of normalcy kept us from freaking out.

So for those how are pissed because I didn't return your calls and emails and didn't update the blog, this was my excuse.

Bummer.

My INR is 5.5! Yay! (That was sarcasm. It's actually a little screwed up, it's supposed to be between 2-3. Ah well. I heard that it takes time to get blood stabilised with Coumadin.)

Somewhat regarding the medical situation, I talked to Snow about it. He's so awesome. There aren't too many out there like him anymore. I mean it's always good to have an "in", but he doesn't even expect anything back for it. He's just being genuinely sweet. I'm not sure he realises how much I appreciate it.

And really, what sucks most about all of this is that with all the medical drama going on, I barely got to see my sister for spring break. Now I guess I'll have to make the move to see her now...which will be awesome of course but still. Timing was really, incredibly sucky for all this. (I remember Ecclesiastes 3:1-10, of course but somehow it doesn't seem to apply here.) Maybe I'll fly out to see Amme this summer...? If I buy tickets now, it won't be too bad.

One upshot: I got a card from my aunt and uncle overseas today. :D It totally brightened my whole afternoon.

Pissed off.

My foreman, Mike, took me aside and showed me a letter from my attending physician during my hospital stay, addressed to the office safety coordinator for my contractor. It gave information about my stay at the hospital and reiterated that there were absolutely no restrictions placed upon me in returning to work. Mike mentioned that I might want to cover myself, in case. He was given it by the field safety coordinator. So I called him, and talked with him.

I meant to lay it out how I'm willing and able to work, that it's just a process getting my blood stabilised. And he hit me with "I know all about your disorder..." and proceeded to give me the talk: "Legally no one can tell you this, but maybe you might want to consider a career change" et cetera and that really shocked me. I always took him for a company man, of course but this was a little extreme. It made me wonder if he had requested that info from the attending physician. And I don't know what pisses me off more: the fact that someone working for my contractor requested it behind my back, or the fact that this doctor actually sent it. I'm asking my foreman for a copy, this is bullshit.

:(

This is just...not fun. I should be at school right now. But Javier sent me home, I was having trouble just being there. Overly fatigued, light-headed, nauseous. He gave me a freebie so I wouldn't lose my grade point average for taking an absence. This week has been grueling.

First, I think it's less the Coumadin and more the Innohep that's making me feel this way. Thankfully I got my last injection of that today, even though my INR is only at 1.4 but they doubled my dose of Coumadin so it should equal out. Work is a blur: I told my foreman I felt unsafe on a ladder and he's letting me do ground work but my journeyman is hassling me a little about it. But I don't care, I won't work unsafely. There's plenty to do that doesn't require a ladder. The only thing is, the attending physician released me to work with no restrictions so I'm a little worried...does she know I'm a construction worker? Does she know I'm on the Innohep? I doubt it. I hate when docs make judgements on limited information.

However, I did talk to one of the assistant directors at the JATC and one of the owners for my contractor and they both said things were good so long as I'm up-front and bring in all my notes and keep them aware of when I'll be missing time. That, at least, makes me feel better. I also showed my foreman and the field safety coordinator my documentation, so I don't think there's a problem. I just want to get back to feeling functional.

So: I'm home.

Some of you already know, I'm here to give the full story so there are no worries.

I left work by ambulance Thursday morning right after break. I couldn't speak, couldn't walk, my pulse was wildly different between both arms, and I had an irregular heartbeat. They took me to Sunrise Hospital under "Code 100" which ensured I got proper care. It turns out I had a stroke. A mild one, yes, but still: it scared the crap out of me. The ambulance driver gave me the "This isn't a joke, you can die from this" talk. That, after he struggled to figure out my cell phone; I'd programmed it in French (for practice and so it would be less likely stolen) and he couldn't find my phone's internal phone book.

Very luckily, the neuroscience team worked quickily and that helped to reverse the effects. I was speaking some and had regained alot of the strength on my left side after 10 hours. After 24 hours I was mostly back to normal. Some stuttering when I'm excited and some words don't come like they should but for the most part, aside from extreme fatigue, I'm good.

Interesting thing: the medical director of the stroke unit did a "bubble" test on me, which takes a while to explain but anyway, it confirmed his suspicions of "patent foramen ovale" which basically means I have some kind of opening or hole between the atria in my heart. Mix that with a clotting problem and there you have it: instant fun.

Good news is, all that finally convinced the Hematology Board to put me on Coumadin. I know there are plenty of issues with adjusting and I'll have to get an INR log and things like that but I finally feel like I'm being taken seriously now. I'm just happy it wasn't more devastating. It could have been so much worse.

So now, I'm being weaned off the heparin as my body learns to accomodate the Coumadin; so for the next 6 days I have to get stomach injections. The nurse on my unit tried to harpoon me and the bruise is immense but at the shot clinic today it was better. I just hope I won't have problems at work. Injections and venous lab draws every day? They won't like that. A little worried there.

And on top of that, this happened on Tannah's and my 11th anniversary. Spending it on the telemetry unit just sucked. But again: it could have been worse. I have to remember the small blessings, too.

"Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose."

[Je remercie Rush, pour des paroles.]
J'ai besoin de saigner. Je ne sais pas d'autres mots..."l'haine" est quelque chose que la plupart des personnes peuvent comprendre. Je ne veux pas admettre les raisons, jamais. Il y a seulement une raison, vraiment, mais je ne peux pas accepter rien excepté mes propres mensonges. Tannah sait, je pense. Il sait la plupart mais je maintiens toujours mes secrets dans mon coeur; et ça fait mal. Je souhaite juste que j'aie su une manière de blesser différemment. Parfois, il semble comme je mourais déjà, et je ne me rappelle pas quand. Je sais que je devrais vivre, dans Dieu, mais quelque chose m'élude. Celui qu'il soit, j'en veux.

Way too many this year so far.

Another construction accident today...thankfully, no deaths this time. It was at Sky, a condominium tower just north of the Circus Circus. Sometime after 11h00, a crew was bleeding a gas line and something sparked an explosion on the 4th floor. I know two guys were taken to UMC's Burn Unit and one guy to Sunrise...I just can't help but to think what a tragedy this is, even without deaths. It just seems that in the past six months, there were more construction accidents than in the past couple years combined. I mean sure, I remember when I was at the Wynn, there were a few electrical deaths, all from arc flash, I think. And then those guys who died in the middle of July (all in the same week!) from dehydration a few years ago, and we had a safety meeting focusing on proper hydration. Nonetheless, it just seems needless, all of these accidents. I wonder if complacency played a part.

Poisson d'Avril and the best prank ever!

Tenno called up Mada earlier and said excitedly into the phone, "Hey did you hear? The Luxor's on fire!" Now honestly, Vegas has had a few really brutal brush fires in the recent past, including one that nearly destroyed Shenandoah (Wayne Newton's estate). And there were some high-profile casino fires too; one at the Stratosphere during construction, and one at the MGM Grand that killed over 80 people and injured nearly 700 in November of 1980. So it wasn't entirely unbelievable.

Anyway, Mada seemed both amazed and confused, so Tenno went on to explain that the huge million watt lamp at the top of the pyramid had burst and the fire was contained to the tip of the structure, but the entire Strip was engulfed in thick smoke. However, he went on to elaborate that the glow from the flames could be seen from space, as was reported by Russian cosmonauts, and that made Mada check the news stations. When he told Tenno nothing was being broadcast about it locally, Tenno told him it was being broadcast nationally only, as the local authorities feared tourist panic. Tannah and I could scarcely hold our hysterics as Tenno insisted that Mada watch CNN for the latest developments.

Completely aside, but somewhat along the same lines, I logged onto my laptop and my home page is Yahoo! France...partially because I have a .fr email account so that's where I log in. Anyway, the news section was full of crazy news stories, like the French presidential election being postponed indefinitely. I clicked on the link and it took me to a page full of articles about "Poisson d'Avril" and I was like, what the hell is this? What does fish have to do with it? I went back and clicked a different link for the same story and it brought me right back. Then, spontaneously I remembered eating foil-wrapped chocolate fish for April Fool's Day in high school French class and it made sense. Nothing's more enlightening than being duped in another language.

(For the record, Google has a pretty decent one, too.)

Good day at work.

The Nevada Gaming Comission didn't like that our gangbox was in the same room as their equipment that monitors the slot machines, so our crew moved up to floor 2.5 from the basement. It's okay, I guess; it's about ten feet from my contractor's field office, so the owner and superintendent, and a gaggle of general foremen and foremen are always about. Plus, the room is locked so we have to get with our foreman every time we need material. But that's fine...I don't let petty issues or drama rule my life. It wastes so much energy to get worked up over bullshit. And really, that's all it ever is: bullshit.

I learned alot. Mike's dad used to be in the Navy, so Mike knows a ton of knots and hitches. I learned a few; my faves being the zipper hitch and the half-hitch. There's a really pretty one that looks like a flower that aids in horse-riding but I can't remember what it's called. (Yeah, I know: pretty hitch. I'm a girl, deal with it.) I also learned the MC colour codes, and not just that red is for fire alarm. I learned the striped ones too. A little more about that damn elusive switch-loop but it's still confusing, which irritates me to no end. I figure a few months from now I'll look back and it'll be so simple, and I won't understand how it was difficult for me to grasp.

Guy, who taught my photovoltaic classes last summer is a general foreman for the Palazzo Tower at Venetian, and he says there's a new PV book out and I definitely want a copy. He says he'll hook me up. I can't wait. Aside from being extremely knowledgable, he's just an all-around nice guy. And speaking of Palazzo, watch for that tower (under construction, of course) in Ocean's 13, likely under a different name. I love insider goodies like that, in films. It makes it fun.