Making plans is useless. I had started building my calendar over the next few months around my rescheduled chemo infusions: I can do stuff two days after, then need to plan to be out of commission for two or three days, then will likely be increasingly fine until the next infusion.
That’s all out the window. We saw my infectious disease doctor Tuesday, which I assumed would be the last day of my IV antibiotics. She wasn’t happy with how quickly my body recovered after the infected port was removed, indicating to her that a more pernicious infection had taken hold in my vein. I still have some inflammatory blood markers higher than she’d like, and given that I’m about to immediately take another hit to my immune system with the next dose of chemo, she’s being conservative and keeping me on the IV antibiotics for two more weeks. Bob points out that there's no immediate threat of cancer killing me, but a bad infection easily could, so why not make sure it's gone.
Argh. So my next chemo (the second of four) will be March 27. Nothing to do but make the best of this extended chemo holiday, I guess. We decided I was healthy enough to go back to the cabin. After we arrived Tuesday night, Bob used the bathroom and the toilet didn’t seem to be working properly. After some degree of plunging and flushing, plunging and flushing, he fixed it – except for the part where the shit water came burbling up into the shower, tub, and through the floor drain.
The rising tide of shit water resulted in a frenzied spurt of activity – moving things out of the path, frantically making calls to anyone who might be able to fix whatever the problem might be, encouraging pets not to walk through the shit puddles and then jump on the kitchen counter. Trying to keep shit water paws out of the bed. Mostly futile efforts.
I called my dad first, to see if he knew who I should call: my septic pumping guy? The plumber? My builder? (I eventually worked through this whole list.) Dad said, “What do you mean, the toilets aren’t flushing?” and I descriptively spelled out that the shit that started in the toilet was now running across the floor. This might have been the best news my father has ever received. He’s been disgusted at the extravagance of our TWO bathrooms in this small cabin. No one needs two bathrooms, for Christ’s sake. Especially when there’s an outhouse right out back.
This was the moment. He could hardly contain his glee, “You’ll have to use the outhouse!” My dad has a perverse obsession with us using the outhouse. He’s offered to fix it up for me, maybe sweep out the piles of dead flies. It’s already wired with a light. He reminded me that there’s a sheet of Styrofoam in the shed that can be cut to fit over the toilet seat so it won’t be so cold. Maybe we could replace the toilet paper rodents shredded.
I would sooner pee in the snowbank directly outside our door. Luckily, we didn’t need to make long-term plans, as the problem was identified: we have a liquid propane-fueled boiler, from which a small amount of condensation drips down the drain. The problem is that when the cabin isn’t being used, and large amounts of water aren’t going through the line, the drips get to the cold part of the septic pipe and freeze, drip by drip, until an ice dam is formed in our septic line and nothing can get through to the tank. The problem can be solved by diverting those drips to a bucket. The ice dam is removed by contacting a septic company that does "steaming and jetting," and they come out the next morning, poke a hose up through the septic line and run steam through it until the ice dam is melted. This cost $318, which seemed like a bargain, as we were prepared to pay one million dollars.