Well, I haven't heard from you - and the window to get stuff from Amazon to you by Monday is closing.

If we are handling the problems you have, here, online . . . odds are not great that you pool will look good next Friday. It all depends on how bad the water is now, and how big your filter is.

Don't worry about the alkalinity; do keep chlorine in there. Try to get up the the very dark yellow or orange-ish yellow level.

You'd probably better off using bleach right now, than any other form of chlorine, and you probably should pick up a couple of gallons of muriatic acid, since your high alkalinity will tend to cause your pH to rise.

Otherwise:

1. Backwash as needed (6 -8 psi increase over 'clean' pressure)
2. Maintain chlorine levels 'dark yellow' or above with bleach.
3. Use muriatic acid to hold pH levels below 7.8 -- see acid page in my signature
4. Do NOT mess around with other chemical levels
5. Run pump 24/7
6. You can start the heater whenever you like.
7. Vacuum manually -- an autosweep can stir things up, instead of putting the gook directly on the filter.

Good luck!