Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. Mattie had returned to the hospital that day, and was admitted. We went straight to the child life playroom to participate in the Halloween activities. As you can see one of the volunteers was dressed up as Ariel, the Disney mermaid! I can't tell you how much I appreciated college students who came to the floor and tried to engage and brighten up the children's days! Together they had fun painting pumpkins and even eating cupcakes!
Quote of the day: The tension that results from conflicting emotions, especially when family members unresolved grief is not acknowledged, becomes so overwhelming that they are frozen in their tracks. They cannot make decisions, cannot act, and cannot let go. ~ Pauline Boss
It was not a good night. I have been faced with a migraine for three days so far. I think I finally fell asleep at 1am. At 4:30am, I was jolted awake by a very loud beeping sound. Given the hour, I was startled and scared. I did jump out of bed and I started to listen for the sound. At first, I thought something was wrong with the upstairs furnace (which sits in the attic space above my bedroom). I was concerned that something was wrong with the equipment and an alarm was going off. NOPE! So then I moved out into the hallway. As soon as I was in the hallway, I saw flashes of red. There were two detectors on the ceiling of the hallway beeping. I am not talking about a muted beep, I am talking LOUD. I looked into my parent's room and they were both sleeping! Oblivious to the chaos.
Given that my detectors are connected to my alarm, I had the wherewithal at that awful hour to know..... do not take the detectors off the ceiling. So I debated what do I do? At first, I thought maybe I should go back to bed and try to sleep. THAT WAS A BAD DECISION. My heart was racing with anxiety and fear, as my constant fear since my separation is..... will I be able to figure this out?
Okay, so sleeping wasn't happening, so I decided to go to my alarm's app on my phone. I was able to somehow acknowledge the detectors beeping and that stopped the sound. The first miracle! Of course by the time I got back into bed, Indie activated! So there was NO SLEEPING. Therefore today I am working on 3.5 hours of sleep. As I was getting myself ready today, I felt ill. Not physically ill, but emotionally spent because I knew I had a full day ahead!
Once I dropped my dad off at his memory care center, I came home to address the beeping as there is no way I am having another night like this again. Instead of trying to solve the problem myself, I contacted the alarm company and worked with a lovely woman. She chatted on-line with me and walked me through the process of changing out batteries in both detectors. One detector is for smoke and the other for heat! Frankly I couldn't tell the difference, as they both looked exactly the same, and both of them had low batteries. The only thing the agent did not prepare me for was the deafening sound that was going to ensue when I took the old batteries out of the detectors. Literally my ears were ringing for thirty minutes after that nightmare. But the bottom line is I did it! The only thing is that I have three more detectors in the house, so I am assuming they will all need battery replacements soon (this is the first time in five years I have had to do this!). Given that the detectors take a unique lithium battery, I ordered more today, to be prepared for the next saga.
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