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Couple frustrated over home renovations hope for Christmas miracle

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Couple frustrated over home renovations hope for Christmas miracle
A couple from Monarch, Alta., is hoping for a Christmas miracle as the holidays approach quickly. The husband has been living with cancer and the family is hoping to install a main floor shower for him, but have encountered a bit of a rough patch in the installation. Micah Quintin reports. – Dec 18, 2023

It’s a Christmas gift turned nightmare for Elaine and Jean-Guy Cayouette.

Elaine wanted to install a main floor shower for her husband so he wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs.

He is currently on oxygen and battling lung cancer, along with four brain tumours.

“It hurts me to see him go up the stairs,” Elaine said.

Southern Prairies Contracting was brought in by Veterans Affairs to install the shower and Cayouette said the company has been working on the project for over four months.

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“And now I have my vanity, but I don’t have my sink and my faucet. We have to go to the kitchen to wash our hands. We have no sink in the bathroom. They took that down way too early,” Elaine said.

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The couple said they have put in over $40,000 toward work around the house including the incomplete shower build.

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Veterans Affairs is also helping the couple pay for the repairs.

“She’s very brave to do what she’s doing and everything. She’s over her head right now. There’s nobody to help us,” said Jean-Guy, who is also a veteran.

Kevin Morrill, the owner of Southern Prairies Contracting, said the job has taken a lot longer than it should have because one of the workers was stealing hours from the company, and they’re still waiting for a new shower base to come in so they can install it.

“It wasn’t just installing a shower base. We were moving walls and we had to move plumbing, and we were getting inspections and kind of the whole process. That doesn’t happen overnight,” Morrill said. “Like I said, it did take a little longer than I would have liked, but it was not to harm her or her husband in any way possible.”

The shower base is expected to arrive in mid-January.

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