stress, oh the things that it will do

ok, so we have started week four post Wilma. The water is finally in the house and running, the power is up (sort of.. more on that later), and the phone line is off the ground, but not working. So you think everything's back to normal right? Wrong.

Monday on the way to work, stress finally caused an overload. 2 words. Kidney Stone. ouch. yup. Ouch. My mom has had a couple, and she said that she's rather give birth again without anesthetic than pass another kidney stone.

So I go and do the right thing, I head to the emergency room in blinding pain. And guess what? They lost me. Oh sure I was sitting in the ER waiting room, but apparently major, MAJOR pain does not qualify as an emergency. 9 hours. I spent 9 hours waiting. I passed the stone IN the waiting room . After that, I started to feel better, and announced that I was leaving, as I had passed the stone and they couldn't do anything for me now. They said I couldn't leave. They said that they called my name twice. Funny. I was sitting right next to where they call people, and I didn't hear MY name. Amazing CYA techniques. So at 8pm, they finally called my name (I entered the ER at 10:30am). They move me to a room, and I wait again. Then the doctor comes in, says, Yep, probably was a kidney stone, but JUST to make sure, hang around and we will give you a CT scan.

So to make a long day longer, I got home at 2:30 in the morning. I feel proud. I managed to help them find an Alzheimer's patient that they lost AND went through 3 shifts of nurses.

Remember that power thing at the beginning of this post? Well, when I got home at 2:30 in the blessed AM, I found that all my appliances were powerless. No 220 was coming into the house. So, no fridge, hot water heater, washer/dryer, a/c or stove. I had light, but that was it.

Ok, so the people from up north are going.. no a/c? It's November! Well, that night it was 79 with 60% humidity. I could have used a little coolness.

I stayed home the next day, and spent it struggling with a weak cellphone signal to contact FPL about the power issue.

It turns out that my house wiring is a little funky. My bathroom lights and bedroom ceiling fan are on the same circuit as my hot water heater. So, being the good scientist, I used the fan as power indicator.

When the power was on full, the fan ran normally. In brown out conditions, it ran in chariots of fire mode. All day as I lay in bed waiting for the stone twinges to end, I watched the fan do its own strange dance. A slow waltz comes to mind.

At midnight I gave up of FPL ever coming to my rescue. But wonder or wonders! at 1am an FPL truck, and a lovely FPL worker found out that my post hurricane connection wasn't quite connected, and he Fixed it for me!

So the water's on, the power's back up. Just a need for a phone. eh. at least I have a house.
So for stress, I recommend lots and lots of water. Don't get yourselves trapped in an ER with a kidney stone.