I am so glad this day is almost over...

...last night in order to be ready for work I started my car at 10:30pm. My car wouldn't start so I plugged it in, luckily it started in the morning. When I got out to my car I realized the reason it wouldn't start was because S didn't completely turn it off when he moved it to shovel the driveway.

So, I drove to work in the horrible wind and new dumpage of snow (it was -40 C with the wind chill) very carefully. I turned into the road I usually take around the corner from work and promptly got stuck. It took a half an hour of holding on my cell to get a representative from AMA to tell me it would be two or three hours to get a winch truck. I asked if I can leave my car and return to it when the AMA truck appears, they said yes and they'd call me on my cell when the truck is there. So I called S and asked him to pick me up, drive me to work, wait for me, drive me to my car and make sure I parked it ok at work. Amazingly, he said no problem. I hung up and burst into tears. Cried big heaving sobs for a while and calmed down by the time S arrived. I went to work and did as much as possible while waiting for the phone to ring. As soon as it did I told the driver I would be there in five minutes as I'm at work just around the corner. He said he may not be able to wait. I told him just five minutes - literally - and was there is four minutes. By then the driver had left. I knew there was an AMA outlet near work and asked S to drive me there to see about getting a truck from there, after turning three corners I saw the flashing orange lights of an AMA truck and we went towards them. I hopped out of the car to find out they were servicing another car, not mine. I asked the driver when my truck would be there, it turns out he had the order wrong and as soon as he finished with that car he went to my car. He pulled me out successfully.....as S stayed in his car to make sure everything went ok. Then S got stuck. The driver refused to help S as he was at least four hours backed up in calls. So I got back to work all right and found out later that a passing truck helped S out of the snowmound using a tow rope. S also made it to work ok.

That was about the absolute limit of my capabilities in dealing with stress. I had been holding it together for the last few days and that was it. I don't cry. I'm not a crier. And there I was sitting in my car bawling first thing in the morning.

Now, what precipitated this was last Wednesday my younger son had stomachache and stayed home from school. When I got off work I asked him how he felt and he said ok, but the pain moved to the lower right part of the abdomen. Well now I suspected that was appendicitis. Off to the emergency room we went and sat for hours to find out that I was right, it was appendicitis. And just to complicate things, the emergency room we went to no longer handles pediatric surgery so we had to drive to a different hospital and go through the whole thing again. By 1:30 am we were shown to a room where we spent the night awaiting surgery first thing in the morning.

We were told about three times between 6:30 am and 10:45 am that he would be going to surgery "within the hour". He finally went at 11 am. He was back to his room by 1 pm and looking good. He was eating solid food, peeing, drinking and passing gas all by 7 pm. The next morning the surgeon came by and said he could leave Saturday. My son was going bonkers from no rest in the hospital and boredom (although the tv was free, normally you pay but not in pediatrics) so when the surgeon came back in mid afternoon I asked if he could go home early. The surgeon was reluctant, but let him go. My son had his clothes on and was leaving the ward before I had the papers signed. Since then he's done very well and is healing quickly.

So the Saturday I left my younger son with S while I took my older son to his Robotics competition. They made robots out of Lego and had to perform tasks with it, the finalist was to go to Atlanta, Georgia for the World's. His team didn't win the big prize but they were pleased with their results. That took all stinking day. No rest for me.

On top of all of this is my dad. He is having surgery on 08Feb to replace his femoral arteries as they are blocked (his carotids are blocked as well - completely - and his body built 'collaterals' to keep the blood flowing). He has a 50% chance of dying on the table during the surgery, but if he doesn't have it he will lose his feet.

My older sister is stressing that he could die and that I need to tell him I love him and all that. I see her reasoning, but I'm not going to think that way. If he dies I will deal with it, but I would rather focus on him living. So, lots of stress there.

After work my car decided not to start again. I started it three hours earlier and it was ok, but now it wouldn't start. A boost didn't help at all so I got an extention cord and plugged it in for almost an hour. I managed to get the car started (barely) and I think I may have almost flooded the engine, but I got home.

Now I've had a hot shower and changed into clean, warm clothes. I feel better, and I hope tomorrow is a lot better.