At least we didn’t die

You know life has been a rollercoaster for a while when the best thing you can find to say about one, just-resolved situation is, Well, hey, at least we didn’t die.

For context, what I’ll describe here is just one such situation we’ve been facing this year alone. Most of them I’m not willing to talk about because either I just don’t want to or they’re not yet resolved. This one is just the most recent, and feels emblematic.

Many years ago when we moved to this house we installed a top of the line natural gas-powered central heating furnace (with all the air filtration bells and whistles) and a high-powered air-conditioning system (which, with MS, I need).1 Over the years we had the installation company, and then, when that company changed hands, another company to come twice a year to check and maintain the system. Apart from changing the filters (which we use as well as an electrostatic system) and cleaning a few things, the whole HVAC set up performed flawlessly.

During the first two years of the pandemic, we let the maintenance slide. Then, when we got back to it, again, nothing wrong. It was old, and some of the outdoor bits rattled a bit when they first kicked on, but it was still operating within acceptable efficiency limits.

Then began our series of horrible years, when things were so overwhelming and insane we were constantly having to cancel and reschedule everything (this is still true—it happened just last week when we were supposed to be having some friends over for dinner but ended up in the Emergency Department and then the hospital instead—but to a lesser degree). It was a time of huge terrible things going wrong but also every small thing that could go wrong. For example, the smoke detector went wonky and shrieked at all hours; the carbon monoxide monitor died; when we had our new walk-in tub installed, the folks who put in the new electrical stuff broke the custom pull-down steps up into the loft space (where we have most of our large systems).2 Because the steps were custom and we didn’t have time to find a contractor who could handle it, we couldn’t get any upstairs systems—like the HVAC—serviced. But we didn’t worry because, y’know, the gas heater was brand new, and the HVAC was a proven workhorse, and still working: still warm in winter and cool in summer. We added everything to our massive list of things to tackle when we weren’t struggling to just keep our heads above water.

As we got more and more of the crazy bits of life onto a more predictable schedule, we started gradually picking up the reins of our adult life. Including maintenance and repair. We spent money adjusting my wheelchair ramp. We insulated the house. We found a handyman service who could handle the loft steps issue. We got back to all the regular and necessary cyclical health and house service things—eyes, teeth, blood work, yard work, vehicle maintenance—we’d let slide. Including getting the HVAC serviced.

On Friday the tech came, trundled upstairs…and came down immediately, white-faced, and turned everything off at the thermostat. When he’d turned the heat on he’d measured carbon monoxide (CO) at 600 parts per million and rapidly climbing.

According to OSHA, here is what CO levels indicate:

Normal (0-9 ppm): Found in clean outdoor air and well-ventilated indoor spaces.Moderate (10-50 ppm): Can cause mild symptoms like headaches and dizziness over prolonged exposure.High (70-200 ppm): Leads to severe health effects, requiring immediate action.Severe (400+ ppm): Life-threatening concentrations that can cause unconsciousness or death within minutes.

He was pale and slightly sweaty, and went to sit down outside for a while. Meanwhile, Kelley and I opened every window and skylight and door in the house. The cats were already safe outside.

The tech, when he’d recovered, inspected all the outdoor parts of the system, then, on finding the CO levels upstairs okay enough to get closer, inspected all that. It turns out, in just two years the entire system had gone from old-but-fine to Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! levels of imminent death, destruction, and horror: everything was cracked and broken and damaged; the insulation on the heavy wiring was eaten through; the connectors were rusted; the flue was split; the blades on the fan were bent. I can’t complain—we got over 20 years of excellent service from that old system—but, yeah, we should have moved that nonworking CO monitor up the list…3

Aaaaaanyway, long story short: we froze all weekend (well, okay, here in Seattle the temperatures were pretty mild so we just wore many clothes and grumbled a lot), we now have a brand spanking new high-efficiency furnace, and by the end of today should be the proud owners of a dual-fuel furnace and heat pump capable of cooling and heating our house to the desired temperature in minutes and able to clean the air of anything remotely resembling viruses, smoke particulates, and/or allergens.

It cost so very much money I don’t even want to talk about it—which we had to pay on the same day as our tax bill, woo hoo! and of course not long after some fool’s tariff pronouncements had shaved 15% off our retirement savings—but, hey, at least we didn’t die.

Before the tax code changed, when individual healthcare costs were still deductible, AC was deemed so important for people with MS (when we overheat we get something called Uhthoff’s Phenonenon) that it was, in fact, tax deductible. ︎And, oh, that electrical subcontractor is a whole other story, more Byzantine and winding than Dickens’ Chancery case in Bleak House… I’ll tell that story sometime, just not today. ︎And of course in a classic case of horse meet barn door we now have several, all in tip-top working order ︎