Today started off positively. CG, who at one-year-old still doesn't sleep through the night, slept from 9 PM until 5 AM. A major success. I could almost hear Dolly Parton singing. But not for long.
Ethan has still been having bad mornings. Like, "unconsolable crying - nothing seems to calm him down" mornings. Because he has about 73 different issues going on (neurological, muscular, surgical, GI, blah blah blah) we never know what the problem is. I think we've narrowed down these bad mornings to a cross between seizures and cast discomfort. But really, we can't be sure. By mid-afternoon, he is always blissfully happy like nothing ever happened.
I've been going in to work late so that I can help our sitter out while she watches the boys. It is too much for her, physically and emotionally, to handle Ethan's fits while trying to chase CG around the house. So I have been staying home until Ethan is settled.
The first few days, I was getting to work by 10:30. Friday, I didn't get there until 11:30. This morning, it was 11:15 and he was still in the middle of the crying. I knew I wasn't going to make it to work until at least 11:45. AND I had to leave work early today because CG had a checkup in the afternoon. I was thinking about all of this as Ethan cried louder and louder. It was getting to me, and I was starting to lose it.
I remembered that Jete was supposed to take a half day for CG's appointment. He figured he'd get some needed errands done around the house while the sitter was here, then go to the doctor's with me. As Ethan cried louder, I looked at the clock and thought maybe Jete had changed his mind about taking a half day. I called him on his cell phone:
Me: (frantic) Are you coming home now or not?
Jete: (calmly) Well, not now. I just got in an accident.
(Just so you know, I didn't cause the accident by calling him. He had just gotten out of the truck when my call came through.)
Most importantly of course, he is fine. He walked away without so much as a scratch on him. The "kid" who hit him walked away without any noticable injuries, too. Our SUV, unfortunately, did not. Long story short (or my definition of short):
Jete was going through an intersection when a "kid" ran a red light. (He couldn't have been more than 20; therefore, defined as a "kid" to someone who is practically-thirty.) He realized at the last second the light was red, slammed on his brakes and broadsided the passenger side of our car. That pushed Jete up onto the curb and straight into a traffic control box. The box, and the cement footing it was mounted with, were uprooted and stuck in the undercarriage of the car.
Because there was so much front-end damage and passenger-side damage, most people are guessing it will be totalled. At this point, we're almost hoping it does. I don't care how good the body shop is, I would never feel it was 100% again. And I think we'd have a hard time selling it after it was in a major accident like this.
But on the bright side, we were thinking of getting a new truck someday.
So that consumed the afternoon. I left the boys with the sitter to go to the accident site, only 5 minutes from home. We headed down to the body shop and the insurance company. Then we came home to finish off all the phone calls. Hopefully, the insurance stuff will go quickly. The police came and took a report, and Jete had a witness who saw his light was green, so I'm hoping it is an open and shut case.
Because of all that and CG's appointment, I never made it in to work. Of course, I've got deadlines up to my ears, and the stress of being at home is driving me crazy too. I really just want a few "normal" days. Go to work at a regular work hour, come home at a regular hour. Go to bed at a normal bedtime and sleep until a normal time. I miss days like that.
To finish off the day, I rounded things out with a nice panic attack earlier this evening. I was controlling my anxiety better for a while, but lately these are creeping up on me again. I have to keep reminding myself that I am under a tremendous amount of stress and that is the reason for them, and not my insane belief that I am dying of a heart attack any second now. I have every reason in the world to be anxious, and it is a normal, natural response to feel that way.
(Yeah, of course I believe it now. Try me again in the middle of the panic attack.)
So that's the latest from my crazy world. Not to imitate Pollyanna again, but there are always good sides. I really try to focus on them, because they put everything else into perspective. So please, meditate with me:
- No one was hurt in the accident.
- Ethan was happy this evening.
- CG did perfectly at his physical.
- Jete and I got to have lunch together in between accident reports.
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