Too Much Too Soon?

These stories remind me that when Moses needed to get his people away from the Egyptian‘s and they were dropped against the Red Sea, God didn’t take the C away. He parted it so Moses could walk through with his people. While we wish things wouldn’t happen, God will give us the strength to get through the storm, the shit show in our lives.
I think back a few years to when I was working in Marshalltown Iowa on a beautiful summer day in July. We had moved our offices that day. The tornado sirens went off and we took cover. We called the houses I made sure staff had our individuals in basements. A little while later we were given the all clear and after ensuring all are in dividual‘s were OK, I sent my supervisors home to make sure all the kids were good etc., while I stayed to finish putting our office together. We work with mentally disabled adults in residential services in HCBS housing. Less than an hour after that first siren stopped, it went off again but this time it was for real as the F5 tornado ripped through Marshalltown and wreaked havoc on the entire town. The building shook and I thought it might be my time to join my mama in heaven. Well it wasn’t, I went outside when it was over and it looked like a war zone!. Bricks and parts of building reline everywhere. My car had moved and was now sitting on top of the roof that had blown off the building next to our parking lot with all the windows blown out. The work vans were destroyed. I went to call my people to make sure they were OK. Instead of walking a half mile to get home, I had to walk a mile and a half to avoid all the downed power lines. After finding out that while there was no power in my apartment building, but my little baby boo (my adorable 4 pound long-haired Chihuahua) was ok, I needed to get to my houses to check on my individuals and staff. I ended up walking to check on my people and staff that evening. It was a long and frustrating walk having to avoid powerlines, potential gas leaks, all of the downed trees and debris from buildings. But everyone was fine, just shook up. Only one of my houses had power. Then I was able to contact guardians to ensure them their individuals were OK. As nobody could really get in and out of Marshalltown that night, we all stayed put. The next day with the help of my amazing team, we had to make arrangements so our individuals could be in homes or locations with power. Most did not grasp the severity of the situation even though it looked like a war zone. By the afternoon, we had resettled four houses of individuals to different locations and made sure all of our staff and their families were OK. I then found out, that I had to move out of my apartment building as there were structural damage. Crazy times, but we all made it through the crisis. I think that God gave me the wisdom to deal with all The issues that we did because he prepared me as I had just moved back to the states from the Caribbean a year before and had dealt with hurricanes for 11 years.

You are rocken it babe. Coming from a nurse you are doung excellent all these feelings are normal. You could have ran an you didn’t. Thats a true feat there. No tooting my own horn babe. I love being a pediatric nurse. Rewarding daily. Crying daily then Rewarding again. Sister love 💘

Dear Annie, first I want to say you did an awesome job taking care of DC. No I wasn’t there, and you might think you weren’t stellar, but you and he were finding humor in the situation and half of that had to be coming from you. So now for my horn tooting…besides being a mother of twins rock star, dealing with a son addicted to heroine, him being in jail, getting out of jail, overdosing, dying, and being brought back to life, two years ago my husband fell down the steps and I found him on the landing when i got home. I thought he was dead, eyes rolled back and all, for which I now suffer from PTSD. Anyway, after calling his name several times and checking his pulse, I realized he was alive and just seriously drunk. I tell him to get up and go to bed, not knowing he’s fallen I went upstairs to make dinner. I go to check on him and tell him to go to bed and he tells me his neck and back hurt, at which point I ask if he’s fallen, but he doesn’t know? UGH. I go back down the steps and upon further inspection, I see his head is bleeding a little and call 911. I know this seems odd but he was drinking A LOT so finding him on the steps or somewhere passed out was becoming “normal.” They took him to the hospital, intubate him because his alcohol level is so high they’re afraid he’ll stop breathing, and give him a CT scan. Everything’s fine, besides he’s in a lot of pain from falling and they send him home two days later, you guessed it, for me to take care of and dole out the pain meds because he’s a child and can’t do that on his own. You need to realize, I am pissed off at him because the morning before he fell we had a fight while he was filling out a medical form and he couldn’t remember my birthdate or wedding date and I said really? And he said why would I want to remember that, I don’t want to be married to you! This was 8 am. So for the next week, I am emptying pee bottles, sponge bathing, cooking, cleaning, and whatever else the man needs all while he’s complaining about pretty much everything I’m doing and whining about the pain which I have little or no sympathy for because he did it to himself. So girl, you’re a rock star, me not so much then. A week later, my nephew fell 50 feet from a tree and passes away. We traveled on the autotrain, up to PA to the funeral and then came home a week later. He went to the Dr. for a follow up and got an MRI. When he got home the Dr. called for him to come back for a neck brace, he has a broken neck! He has to have surgery tomorrow, which is New Year’s Eve. After surgery, he thought he coming home, but the Dr. said he had to go to a rehab for a week because he had to wear a brace and can’t look down to do steps. He’s there one night and is calling for me to pick him up because I take so much better care of him. The nurse and I tell him he has to be able to do certain things before they will discharge and make a deal with him when he does all those things, he can go home. Really, at this point, I just want a few days and nights to get some sleep and not be worrying if he’s going to drink again. After five days, he’s back home again and I’m getting him to be more self sufficient but I’m still doling out the pills because I don’t want him trading one vice for another. The best thing was he was unable to drive, so he couldn’t go out and buy alcohol. Did I mention though all of this, I had just finished almost five years of college, taking summer classes, done my student teaching for middle school science, was supposed to have my commencement on Dec. 12th, (my nephew’s funeral date) and was already so drained and ready for some time off because I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Guess what, that light was another fucking train! So, after going through all of that and getting him better and functioning again, I couldn’t take it anymore in that house because every time I looked at the landing, I went through all that trauma again, that’s why I moved out. So Annie, you did a great job, maybe you weren’t Florence nightingale but you were there, and you did it, and that means a lot! Even if this relationship doesn’t last, which I think it will, if you want it to, you still know that you had his back. That’s amazing.