The Air Is Too Heavy On Katrina's First Anniversary

Pulled Down By The Undertow

Have you heard the screaming? You have? Well, sorry, but I just couldn't contain myself anymore.

 I am feeling overwhelmed and fried beyond compare again. I take spells like this where I don't know if it will ever pass or not, if I should go and see my doctor for a physical or if I should just break down and ask for some anti-depressants. I can't seem to get ahead of it anymore. I'm still clawing for solid ground while getting pulled down by the undertow.  And the worst part is...this has been going on for so very long now, with no end in sight. I'm tired. So very tired.

 I think this time the fatigue comes from the stress of my daughter's recent illness and hospitalization. The doctors, three of them, never could get their heads together for an agreement on the diagnosis, but two out of three of them decided it was meningitis. They all three decided that she had to at least be treated as such, but because of the uncertainty of the final diagnosis, it left her with an urgent desire to get out of the hospital and ready to get on with her life and running. It also left her rather curt with physicians that were only working in her best interest and trying to save her life. She couldn't see it that way and couldn't understand why she had to remain in the hospital when she finally got her fevers down from the 103s and 104s and when she was finally able to get rid of the migraines that came as a result.

The lumbar puncture (aka spinal tap) came back with a terrible infection in it but yet was "clean" and so they had to do tests for days before they let her out. When they finally did, it was on the condition that she continue to come to the hospital everyday for IV antibiotic therapy for 11 days. She was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about this. It was mentally draining to have to work with her on this. It was also embarrassing to have to see the way she spoke to the doctors after she'd had no sleep for two nights. It wasn't that I didn't understand, and she did apologize to one of the doctors, but it will still be strange for me to see this physicians the first few times at the hospital when I return to work. It'll pass, true enough, but still...

And then, the hospital has screwed up her schedule, the payment system, and everything else, which just amplifies everything worse...so that adds to the stress of everything, making me worry that she won't continue with the treatment that will keep her alive.

 Add to this the test that I've got on Monday that could make or break this new job. It could also make or break providing safe care for a patient.

 Then there is the fact that I just don't feel good. I mean I just don't feel right. I am feeling lethargic almost all the time, even when I get enough sleep, which seldom happens, true enough, but still...I feel exhausted all the time. I can't get a good night's sleep in the bed, and our new bed is now not going to be delivered for another 5 weeks or so.

 I worry about money, Pat's health, my mother's health, getting the rest of this house finished...which I might as well give up on...heck...I will NEVER get even the door knobs on the closet or the doors put up that I've had for YEARS! Much less, the rest of the interior painted, so therefore, I can kiss off ever being able to clean out the craft room and being able to do my oil painting again. I might as well just get rid of the supplies for it and the easel.

 Okay, I've vented now. Well, I have to go and study. Not that I am retaining anything, but I have to go and give it the good old college try.

The Witching Hour

Okay, I am trying to get better at keeping up with my blogging since I noticed how terrible I've been the last couple of months, but I still make no promises on this, as I still have a very full plate, and it is likely going to be a few weeks before I get to do this again. The only reason I find myself having the time to do it right now is because I am sitting here sipping on my wine and having to unwind and waiting on yet another load of clothes to finish in the dryer so I can put the last load from the washer in the dryer. Does it ever end?

I convinced myself earlier today that I was going to finish all my Susie-Homemaker chores today and tomorrow so that I would have enough uninterrupted time to study properly on "day 3" because last week got so screwed up and I can't afford that to happen anymore.

Oh yeah, I really DO need to catch everyone up to date. I think I mentioned that I changed jobs. I did go ahead and end up taking the ICU job at my old hospital, well, this required my old and antiquated brain to go back to school, in effect, and I have classes every Monday and then work with my preceptor two other days a week. I am finding that my brain is not nearly oxygenated enough for me to be taking any sort of classes again, and the old text anxiety that I used to suffer from???? Well, I still have that! If anything, it is worse.

 It's been almost 4 weeks now, and I think I am going to enjoy it, or at least I was feeling pretty sure about it, until yesterday, and then there was a sudden shift in the management that could create an upheaval and present problems in the unit now, but I hope it doesn't. I'm hoping that I am enough of a little Indian this time and not so high on the totem pole anymore that I have to worry about all the politics, but I know that it always has a trickle effect.

One of the V.P. of the hospital made the decision to terminate the Dept. Manager that had been there for 22 years and the Patient Care Supervisor (who was up for the position of Nurse Manager and a winner of the Rosen Award), who had been there for 14 years. The V.P. said she felt that "new management was required at this time" and so she let both of them go. There were a lot of upset staff members and many of them were not happy about the PCS's loss, especially when they knew that she was willing to go back into staffing if it was felt that they wanted someone else in Management, but....a lot of times, it happens "out of sight, out of mind", so it may be the case this time as well, and I suspect that is what the Administration is banking on, but I foresee a great deal of changes coming down the river on this one.

 It leaves me feeling a tad uneasy in a way, as I knew the PCS fairly well, and was hired by the Dept. Manager, but then, I guess we all were, so maybe I won't be standing out in the crowd. I hope not, anyway. I want to blend in like beige, for a change. It would be nice just to show up, do my job and be able to go home at the end of the day, knowing I've done all I could do, and everyone was pleased with my work and that's a wrap.

 As for the house...most of the work on the exterior if finished and it looks pretty good. Especially if you like Mediterranean colors. I'm not sure that was the look I was going for on a Victorian house of 170+ years old, but that is the look I am going to live with for the next several years after what has been spent on it, that's for darn sure.

 Truth is, I really wanted a house painted a pale shade of pinks, like a house that is in the Garden District of New Orleans, on the corner of 7th and Prytania, but my husband was not having any part of a pink house. He felt that pinks was for old ladies. Heck, that's what I feel like!

So then I'd found a teal that was pretty close to what we had on the house to start with, and I've always liked teals and lavenders together, so thought that the lavender trim would be a nice touch, but we ran into two complications on that one. The first one was when Pat came in and said "There sure is going to be a lot of purple on the house, isn't there?" Well, that was all I needed to hear....if it looked purple to him, he would never like it and it didn't matter how light a shade of lavender it was or that it was just on the trim....it would be too much and look like something that should belong on a house belonging to Jack's character on "Will and Grace", so I had them change the trim color to go with the teal....a lighter shade. That probably turned out to be a blessing anyway, because the teal for the house color turned out to be a turquoise. W-A-Y off.... I felt like I was back in Santa Fe, New Mexico. What a nightmare! The paint had already been purchased, so I couldn't go back and just start all over and go with a green or something else, so what I did do was have him add a tint and darken it up. Thank goodness it helped. However, it came out with a very tropical oceanfront property looking Mediterranean look. One of our neighbors told me he loved it and how it looked like a house that should be sitting out over the ocean. I told him "one more hurricane, and it just might be!"

Actually, I've had every neighbor come over to me and tell me how great the house looks and how much they love the color. So I guess, that is a good deal, because if they were like me, they would just smile, wave and zip off without saying anything about it at all if they thought it was a travesty or mistake.

I laughed when Pat told me he thought we should change the color of the doors, though, from the butter yellow I'd picked out to go with the teal and I told him that those were the only original colors left and they still worked and I was keeping them...LOL. He just laughed and told me he didn't care, whatever I wanted was fine with him.

So, I guess when they finish replacing a couple of window sills, and touching up a couple of places, the exterior will be done. I noticed a patch job they did on one window sill that wasn't so hot, but other than that, the job has been outstanding.

And slowly but surely, the house is getting clean. Who knows, I might someday even be able to do my oil paintings again?! What a delight that would be!!!! I long to do that, but have vowed not to do it until the craft room is cleaned up enough to set my paints and easels up where I can leave my things set and walk away if I need to take a break. To do that, the rest of the house must be done.

 I'd thought the library would be finished by now, but just as I feared on it...it will probably NEVER get completed. I will probably never get my box locks and door knobs put on, or my shelves put up on the end of the closet, or my toilet put in as I'd planned, or my library ladder put up. I think I'd settle for the box locks, knobs and ladder at this point, but doubt if I'll have them done even in 2 years from now. I've been trying to get a door put up in my kitchen for almost 5 years....AND I HAVE THE DOOR!!! LOL. But I am learning. And I saw how to do a lot of things, so you just never know....I just might have that bad boy put up.

I've got the paint for the dining room and for the craft room and will get them painted, and have a chandelier for the dining room to be put up, but I don't know how to mount it, but I'll figure it out.

Yeah, it's coming along.

Well, it's that time now...the witching hour...

WOW! talk about a l-o-n-g time since updating!  Well, it's gonna be even longer....I have studying to do, cleaning to do, and tons of other things going on, but just wanted to let everyone know that I'm not dead.

 Seems like I have some relatives that are, however, that I just found out about. Would've sent flowers, card, memorials, etc, but didn't know about it in time, so......well....guess they find me out of the loop. Guess I AM out of the loop. Maybe that isn't so bad in a way.

 Any hoooo.....gotta run guys. Take care and I will try to update later.

 For those interested, yes, I do seem to like the new job, so far at least.

Vignoles Wine
Wow, it has really been a while since I put an entry into my blog. I bet some of you people thought I had fallen off the earth. I bet still others wished that I had. Sorry. I'm still here.

I had to take some time to myself and get a few things together.

Let's see, since my last entry, I've had a birthday, managed to survive it. We've had another election, and it seems that we have C. Ray Nagin for Mayor for another 4 years, in spite of my puny little vote otherwise. Well, New Orleans and the rest of the nation...I tried.

To tell you the truth, I was originally hurt by a few rash statements that were said by the Mayor back around...oh, I believe it was a certain February holiday that has three initials in it...but I was able to let it go...I really was. I came to the conclusion that it was either a man that needed to rally support from a direction that he felt he was lacking it for the past few years...or that he was, what was it that I heard so many times????"swept up in the moment?" Yeah, that was it. Whatever. The point was, I got past it. I moved on. I let it go. I even got past a few other comments that were made. The problem that I had was that I feared the nation and all the other voters in the USA would NOT be able to get past it, or their opinions of our beautiful city, and how narrow minded and backwards they might find we might be if we continued to keep the same leadership that we had.

I also had concerns that they might not feel too warm and fuzzy about giving over their hard earned dollars to a state other than their own, or to a city run by a man seen too many times as a "maverick" (his word, not mine) when they might be able to convince their Senators and Congressmen to keep their funds reserved for their own states instead, or to send it to other states' needs instead of ours. We look too much like a hot roman candle to be worth it.

But May 20th came and went, and apparently not enough of my fellow New Orleanians felt the same, as the elections came and went and the decision was made. Good, bad or indifferent, the ballot has been cast and now we must live with it...or at least until the final demise of our city.

Since my last entry, I also took a much needed break and went on a mini vacation with my husband and met with my oldest and dearest friend. We met in Branson, Missouri, a place none of us had ever been to before. It was a rather strange location for us to decide upon when you consider that none of us really like country western music, or those types of shows. We never even went to a show the entire 8 nights that we stayed there.

What we did do was ride our Harley Davidsons all over the Ozark mountains and look at some beautiful scenery. We took a tour through a cave, and found that the Ozarks are actually filled with caves, some that even served as speakeasy's during prohibition. I can only imagine getting really loaded and getting lost or falling in one of those caves back then!

We also rode down to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which is known for it's bath houses and massages and spas, where we took them up on that.

Then there was the tour of the built to size Titanic, complete with artifacts from the beautiful White Star ship itself, and even an underwater model that was used for part of the filming of the movie.

We drove up to Springhill, Missouri in the truck one day to check out the Bass Pro Shop and I thought Pat and John Clod had gone to heaven. That store was several blocks in size. It was as big as a mall.

But my overall favorite, and I think if they admitted it, everyone's favorite, was the Stone Hill Winery, that we went to, and took the wine tasting tour. Okay...we went to it several times while we were there, and we are now VIP members, but hey, when you find something that good...you just gotta go with it! (And they ship to our state and to John Clod's state!!!)

While having a moment of clarity, I made some decisions job wise and I go on an interview this Friday. I will see what they say. It will mean a 14K/yr cut in pay, but I think it will be a better move for my mental health. I just need to see what they offer benefit wise.

And this house....oh yes, this house. I will be hiring someone to finish the outside of this house before it kills me. I will finish the inside of it, and then eventually be able to clean it, but it has become too hot to do the outside, and I have gotten estimates to do the outside. They will hopefully be able to get started on it in a couple of weeks.

I had hoped to be able to spend some time with my grandsons this summer, now that school is about to be out, and was sooooo happy to hear that their sperm donor wasn't going to be able to get them this summer, but was informed upon my return from being out of town, that he has now changed his mind and will be taking them after all. It seems that his parents were very upset with him for not wanting to get the boys this summer and read him the riot act, so now he has to get them after all. The oldest one, aged 7, doesn't want to go and it breaks my heart to tell him that he has to go. I hate our court system. Any court system that makes a child go with an abusive parent is just wrong. Still, I just try to tell myself...we will get through this, and I will go to visit them while they are there.

Sanity, what is thy name? Ah yes...Vignoles Wine...

I Need A Cookie
There comes a time when you know, like Hansel and Gretel, you should've left a trail of shiney white pebbles to find your way back. Or maybe have a magical cookie like Alice in Wonderland did, so I could get myself out of the hole later, but I fear I didn't.

Instead, I find myself in an abysmal digression that is taking me in a direction that it seems no matter how valiant a struggle I put up, I seem to be sliding into. Even though compared to so many others around us, we are still some of the luckiest ducks in the pond, but even with that knowledge, or even perhaps because of it, I find myself filled with an emotional contemplation that has me knotted with all the complexities and self pity.

I am tired, and I don't mean the "I just need to go lay down and take a little nap" tired, I mean, I am tired to the bone kind of tire. The kind of tired where you no longer derive any joy from anything, the kind of tired where you don't see where things are getting any better-but you know you just have to hang in there because you have too many people depending on you, the kind of tired where you are tired of people depending on you and you not being able to fix it all for them, the kind of tired where you would like to do something just for the sake of it's mindless entertainment but you know that even if you do it you will likely be too tired to be able to derive any pleasure from it.

I read about the husband that came home from work, to find his wife had shot and killed her two teen aged children in their beds, before turning the gun on herself, one of her children had been developmentally delayed. People wondered what had made her crack after the Hurricane, because they had moved into another perfectly normal house into a different town, and seemed to be doing so well. I felt so sorry for her husband. He has lost so much. How will he cope with all of this. How will so many cope with all their loses.

I know of so many that have had such a hard time managing and coping with the aftermath of this storm and the changes it has brought about. It becomes so overwhelming that I have to make my mind change the subject and focus my thoughts on something else.

I grasp for something, anything positive. I have to, but that is where I find myself running into complications of late. And I find an anger and a disappointment formulating not just from the situation but also from withing myself.

I tell myself that given the challenges of the storm, the life changing events that have taken place, that I am entitled to my feelings, and that I am within my rights to have feelings of melancholy about a life that, although it has never been perfect, (I doubt I would even recognize what that would be like short of reading about one in a book), I miss the concept that it was at one time within my grasp that the ideal of a perfect or at least a "normal" life was within a fingertip's distance to me. Now, I don't see that as happening anywhere for years and years in the future, if ever, and that is scaring me.

My days, no...my weeks are filled with the routine of getting up on Mondays through Fridays and working on a house that a contractor, Raul Valle (just so no one else will be ripped off by this same person) has taken too much of my insurance money to do the work on the exterior of my home repairs. He vanished, taking with him the money, and never bringing the supplies that he said he needed the money to order, or delivering the crews that he said he needed it for to secure them with. Although I am much wiser now, I am also much poorer, too poor to hire another contractor, and with a husband too ill from cancer, I find myself now taking the remainder of the insurance money and purchasing the equipment and supplies myself and doing the work myself on the exterior of the house. I am learning it as I go, but I am learning it. I am also learning just how big this house really is, and just how old my body really feels.

I wait until I feel my neighbors won't want to shoot me off the ladder in the mornings before I suit up in my environmental protective suit, complete with full face respirator and protective eye wear. And for anyone that isn't familiar with Louisiana, more specifically, southern Louisiana and New Orleans' heat and humidity...try wearing a respirator for 7-8 hours a day. Maaaaaannnnnnn! But since this house is over 170+ years old, I have no idea if there was ever any lead based paint used on it, and can't afford to take the chance. I also have 14' ceilings, and this is a raised house, so that means a LOT of ladder work, which I am getting better at.

We add on the additional hazard of a recent buck moth caterpillar epidemic that took over the oak tree in the backyard. Their stings can leave sores that take weeks or months to heal up, so that had to be sprayed this past weekend. It is hard to work on the back of the house when you are dodging them, and now they have started to crawl up the sides of the house.

That's how the mornings to say 3-4 in the afternoon goes. By then, it is just too warm to wear the respirator, and so it is time to come in and work on the interior of the house. You know...the house that is filled with sawdust, sheetrock dust, basically, every kind of dust that can cause every kind of respiratory illness in the world. Not to mention, there is certainly some lead paint flakes to be found somewhere, I certain!

The room that had a plaster wall blown down and a ceiling blown down was one that we'd talked about someday building a closet into, and perhaps converting into a bathroom, or a library, or something. Well, when the hurricane took out the wall and ceiling, it seemed like a good time to go ahead and put the closet in. And when deciding on doors, we opted to put in old 4 panel doors like were already throughout the house. A decision to stain those beautiful doors was made, as it would've been sinful to put paint on them, and with all that beautiful wood showing...why not strip all the old paint off the other doors and baseboard, windows, picture moulding and trim in the room? WHAT WAS I THINKING????!!! That turned out to be a nightmare!!!! I should have just painted the damn doors! Stripping 170+ years of paint off doors and all that other trim has turned out to be a colossal job. Of course, with all that moulding having all those curves, nothing was easy, and with there being so much in that room, and then there was just the overall sanding of the room it's self. Is it any wonder we've all been sick?

This is all just my Monday through Friday gig...then there is the real nightmare...the weekend job that I hate. The position that the corporation has found for me to do until they can get my hospital back up and running. IF, they get it back up and running.

And that leads me to another decision that I find myself having to decide upon. Will I still want to be a Director of Nursing? Will I really want to have to tackle the responsibility of having to worry about evacuating another hospital if and more likely...WHEN another hurricane comes to New Orleans? Then I would be obligated to not only evacuate again, but then, even worse...to have to STAY with them where ever we evacuate to. That would be a prison sentence. Other hospitals fly them off and then they go on and be with their families. They have done their jobs. Finished. Not this corporation. They have another hospital in another city, and would likely send them there, and then expect you to go with them and follow up on them there. I think that would be unrealistic for me.
So why am I staying where I am? In a job that I am hating? The pay? Yes, that is certainly good right now. The hours? Yes, that is certainly helpful right now with this house situation. Vacation? Yes, I was eligible for it March 31, and will be taking it May 11-21, so that whatever I decide after getting this house done, I won't have lost that. I'm thinking about a couple of options at this point, actually...

There is an ICU job coming up in June, but they require a 2 year contract, and I don't expect it pays quite what I am making now. The up sides for that are that it is 0.8 miles from my house and ICU nurses usually only have 2-3 patients. Down side...2 year contract, I hate contracts, ICU nurses are usually cats (but then, so are most females), it is at a hospital that I used to work at and there are some people there that didn't like it when I advanced over them before and once I left-they advanced up into those positions and they might now be in positions to be over me.

Another option I might could do would be Agency nursing. That has pros and cons too. The good side would be that it pays really well and you get to choose which hospitals you want to go to and which days you want to work and you get paid daily. The down side is that you float all over the place and you only get called in when they are really short so you already know that it is going to be crappy when you get called in. It isn't always good to get paid daily if you are not good at managing your money.

There are also my grandsons to consider. My daughter is constantly needing some help with them, and I need to be in a position where I can help her.

So, I have some decisions to make after vacation.

I feel like I am reaching into the cooking jar. My uncle told me once that if you reach in and try to take out too many cookies, you can't get your hand out and get anything out....just get one or two...then you can do it.

Another thing that has had me in a downer mood has been our local news and politics. Everything was so depressing right after the storm. Everything was flooded, people drowned and missing, homes burning. Then hope began to spring up. Help began to start arriving. People began to start working together. Neighbors began to start working together. National Guard had people feeling so safe and things were getting done.

Then promises were made and broken. Horrific and embarrassing statements were made. Shame was brought to a city that was striving to bring itself back to life like the phoenix. We had outsiders bringing help and equipment inspite of it, and we had some religious fools bringing bus loads of "local" that only added insult and injury to an already overburdened city. Still, we had hope.

More promises were made and broken. We began to lose faith. Or at least, I did.

Now I see all these people that are making political statements for their own reasons, and while this country was founded on the very rights of political and religious freedoms (along with the 2nd amendment, I might add), I see people working for their own agenda and not for the betterment for the city, and that saddens me, because I have always been very active in my voting habits since I was legally able to vote, and I find myself unsure in which direction to go this time, at least for Mayor.

I was so proud of Nagin for how he stayed in New Orleans and how he handled himself immediately after the storm. I honestly don't think anyone else could have done a better job with what they had given to them, but with what he did to New Orleans later has only harmed our future and made it impossible for us to be taken seriously with him at the helm, and for that, it saddens me, and it embarrasses me for ever having supported him. As for the other candidates, none of them have said anything yet that have been a concrete plan for how to help this city survive with what we have left and how we will make it compared to the rest of the United States. That is, of course, IF we have a decent levee system. I pray that the nationalized debate between the candidates shows me something to hope for, because I so desperately need some hope at this point. I need that cookie in the cookie jar to reach for.

April Already
Hard to believe it is April already, but it is. In just a few weeks, Jazz Fest will be beginning. I already have my tickets to two consecutive Fridays since I can't attend the weekends like I always have in the past (because of my current work schedule). Of course...the way things are going around here, I am going to be lucky to be able to be able to break free from here and be able to go on the Fridays.

I didn't think I would EVER get over the pneumonia. Man, it was rough! I am still coughing. I have, however, been able to sneak outside the past two days and get some sanding done on the house. I say sneak, because my husband would throw a fit if he knew that I was doing it, because he still thinks that I should hire someone else to do it. I can't seem to make him understand that the insurance money only goes so far, and that thanks to the crook Raul...it is now impossible for me to be able to hire someone to do the sanding and still have enough money left over to buy the necessary supplies to finish priming the house and caulking it and painting it, not to mention replacing the bad weather boards and wood around the windows.

So...I wait till he goes to work, then till the neighbors have had time to wake up, then it's out to the grind I go. I've been working on the rear of the house to get away with it, so he doesn't notice, and I should get hazard pay for it. We have been infested with Buck Moth caterpillars!!!! They are vicious! If they get you, they leave huge sores, and it isn't funsies. The oak tree in the back yard is about 50 feet tall and is absolutely covered up with them. So in addition to having to wear a full face respirator, eye and ear protection, something over my hair, now I am having to use my peripheral vision to watch for those creatures and do the "constant buck moth dance" to keep them off me. It has to be quite a sight. The up side of it all, is that I suspect I could lose up to 12 pounds this week as a result of this.

Another thing I have found in this process is that sanding creates upper body toning. You ever hold onto a sander for 8 hours non-stop? Well, I've done it for 2 days now. It's like riding a Harley hardtail on gravel! When I tell you my hands are still vibrating and my shoulders are aching, that doesn't even begin to describe it. I guess that could have an upside too, as we are planning to go on vacation during the second week of May, and we are planning to go motorcycle riding with my friend, John Clod, in Missouri. I should be in better shape.

Tomorrow I think I am going to take the day off, however. With my weekend work schedule. I have been getting screwed in the grandmother department. My grandsons are in school, and the only time I get to really see them is on school nights and that just isn't enough time before they have to go to sleep, or on the weekends, when I have to worry about getting enough sleep before I have to wake up at 04:20. So since my daughter wants me to babysit tonight while she goes on a date...I am going to just plan on the boys playing hookie from school tomorrow, and they can have a day with Grandmama. We may just go fishing, or do something else together...just us. I need some one on one time with my guys.

Sick & Tired
It's been a while since my last entry. A lot has happened, the Sunday after I got Wesley out of the hospital, I had to leave work to rush my daughter to the hospital ER, where we were told she had torn ligaments in her foot at her second job. Surgery would not be required, but crutches would, making it almost impossible for her to do her first and second jobs...mainly, her first and more paying job. Well, that is what families are for, and we will get through it, together, and do what we need to do.

The next day, I started not feeling so hot myself, probably just catching the cold that my husband has had for the past week, either that or a severe case of allergies (small wonder with all the dust in our house from the sawdust, sheetrock dust, etc.) It wasn't too bad though...not until the next day, however, then it really got nasty. That is when I really got to feeling sick, real sick. It felt like the worst cold imaginable. I was wrong. Pneumonia, the doctor tells me. I told him just load me up on the antibiotics and whatever he wanted to give me in the hospital and send me home, because I could do it there. I press on, for what else can I do? There is still so much that must be done.

The guy that lives in Harvey, LA, that took $2400 of our money to do the work on the exterior of our house basically riped us off. He hasn't shown back up, never produced the supplies he was supposed to have brought, never got a crew over here, and the only time he ever came over was a total of 4 days, for a total of 3 1/2 to 4 hours each after I threatened to have him thrown in jail. Now, his cellphone has been disconnected and his family no longer answers the home phone.

I've lodged formal complaints with the Better Business Bureau of GNO, the Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, and sent copies of all this to the local Sherriff's office, as well as to the Jefferson Parish Sherriff's office since that is where he lives at. I sent a certified-return receipt requested letter requesting a return of my money within 14 days for a failure to honor the contract or I will take him to small claims court, but in all honesty, with the court systems backed up down here like they are...there is no telling when I could get it on the docket. In the meantime, the rainy season is approaching, and it is only 2 months before hurricane season is back. I don't have time to wait.

What is more maddening, is that the work on the inside cannot be completed until the exterior work is done because it was the lack of exterior protection that first caused the interior damage when we had Hurricane Katrina. Add to that, that by giving Raul the $2400, I now do not have the money to give to another contractor to complete the work. That means me. I will have to do it. Learn on the job, I guess. Not exactly my area, but I've been studying up on it, and watching others closely.

I bought my full face respirator, protective clothing, and as soon as I am off these breathing treatments...I'm on it. My husband is furious, and wants me to promise not to climb the ladder to do it, but I just can't do that. It has to be done, and there is only so much money, and I don't want him to try to do it, so that leaves me.

I'm convinced this house, much as I love it, is slowly but surely killing us. Between the dust that we are breathing in during this repair phase (24 hours a day!!!!) I mean...sure, you wear a respirator during the time you are sanding or cutting and all, but you can't wear one when you are sleeping, or eating or just sitting around at night and watching television. We'd made a point of making sure that all surfaces of this house had a safe latex paint on it, which was especially important since it was over 170+ years old, to insure that if over the years previous owners had ever used lead based paint, it would be covered.

Last summer before the hurricane, we had the boys' blood levels checked for lead, and they were negative. They had lived with us for 4 years. Now with the destroyed wall and ceiling in the library, and the resulting restorational work, our 1 year old granddaughter has been over to our house, and has loved up on her daddy after he worked on the room. Her blood level was just tested as part of a routine exam. Her blood levels were high. Now both the state of Mississippi and Louisiana will have to follow up on it.

I'm sure that when that wall and ceiling came down, all those layers of protection came down with it. Plus, we've been stripping off all the 170+ years of paint off the 12" baseboards, door trims, window trims and transoms. Dust, dust, dust, dust, dust....

And what about all the homes in New Orleans...heck, the entire gulf coast that were hit by the storm? How much lead poisoning is in the ground now? How much everything is in the ground now?

I'm tired. I'm tired to the bone.

The other day, I actually heard the words leave my mouth..."I'm ready to just sell this house for whatever we could get for it, and move." I could scarcely believe I'd said it, but I had. My husband told me that I didn't mean it, that I loved this house. I told him that I did. I do love this house, or rather, I did, but that I will never be able to get it fixed, we've been ripped off, I can't afford to fix it like it needs and deserves, I can't seem to get the workers to show up like they were supposed to, and the job that was supposed to take 2-3 weeks to do inside, had now gone on since the first week of January...making it so far... 2 months, and that I was convinced is what was making us all so sick. AND I could see no end in sight.

He said well, if I sold the house, what would I want to do, and I told him...... "leave New Orleans". I can't have the house of my dreams, in the neighborhood like I'd always wanted, and I hate the job I've been resigned to do, and if I am going to have to stay in nursing anyway, I could do that anywhere, and not where I'd have to either be stuck in another situation of making a decision of sticking with patients vs. family or losing my license. It's just becoming too much.

He told me that I just don't feel good. That the house will get done. The job will get better. Everything will work out. He's becoming the cheerleader.

For the first time...I just don't know. I know if we stay, I need to dig my heels in and set my jaw and stop feeling this way. I knew this was going to be hard work. Of course, at this point, we don't even know if there will be a New Orleans. This may all be a moot point. Between global warming, losing coastal wetlands, a sinking soil and city, the Corps may not be able to do anything anyway...

I'm Scheduling My Breakdown
I've decided to post-pone a long overdue mid-life crisis or mental breakdown until I can really put the energy it deserves into it. I simply don't have the time for it right now, and so I will have to pencil it in later. I also don't think I will ever be able to change careers. It doesn't seem to be in the stars for me. Even if I'm "off", I'm still "on".

Tuesday, my stepson, Wesley, came over to help work on the ever on going library repairs, after he'd been off on Monday, sick in bed with fever and chills. His wife'd told me they'd had a party over the weekend and some kids had been there. Halfway into it, they'd found out the kids were sick. She'd been upset because their 1 year old baby'd been exposed. She figured Wesley was catching whatever they had, (nausea, vomiting and diarrhea with fever).

I told him stay away! but, by Tuesday, he felt better, until that evening , when he left our house and he and his family went to Wal-Mart. While he was there, he started having severe muscle spasms in his neck and it got so bad, it was pulling his head and mouth to one side and his gaze upward. He couldn't change it. Of course it altered his gait and ability to swallow. (Some would argue just having to go to Wal-Mart would cause this.)


Still, think either of them thought to call us? A doctor? Nope. Stubborn and filled with testosterone that reeks saying "I can fix this, I just need to rest." he tried to sleep, and when the spasms were too bad, he took 2 over the counter sleeping pills, "Unisoms", which seemed to help a little.

On Wed. morning, Wesley woke up with no more spasms, but still not feeling exactly right. Still, he came back over to our house and never said a word about the night before.

Around noon, he sent me to the hardware store that is located six blocks away, to pick up some stain and brushes. I was checking out when he called me to ask what the signs of lead poisoning were. He told me how his neck was really tense and mouth was salivating and his tongue was really bothering him because of the salivating, and how it did it at Wal-Mart the night before. I told him it didn't sound like lead poisoning and I was heading home now, but to get out of the library and get in fresh air. He already had.

When I walked into the house and found him sitting in the den, his head was leaning over to his right with his ear on his shoulder and his mouth all tight like he was biting down hard on something.

I asked him about the kids that he'd been around over the weekend and their symptoms and he said he didn't really pay any attention to them.

We tried a few things to get his neck muscles to relax but they only continued to worsen. At one point I went a couple of rooms away and called Wesley's father and told him I felt that I needed to take Wesley to the hospital and knew Wesley wasn't wanting to go. His father said he wouldn't get off until 7:00 pm to be able to help the battle. I told him to talk to him, but I knew I was taking him, one way or another, if he didn't improve. I walked back to Wesley, to give him the phone, and by now, I noticed his gaze was upward at all times and both of his index fingers were flexed tightly, his lips were pursed outwards severely and to the right, along with his tongue, which was then starting to turn kind of blue. He talked to his father and his speech was more slurred than the 2 minutes before. We were losing ground rapidly. I started gathering my keys and bag back up and securing the puppy.

When he got done talking to his dad, I told Wesley that we were going to the hospital. To tell the truth, I was afraid he'd been exposed and caught meningitis and possibly exposed the baby to it.

Wesley wanted to lay on the floor to try and straighten out because by now his back was beginning to bow backwards in a severe lordosis and his gait was getting even worse. His gaze was fixed upwards and everything was becoming rigid.

I quickly changed from shorts to jeans and got him up and out to the porch. getting him down the 4 steps and into the truck was another story, however, but we made it.

Wesley held his head with his hands and seemed to briefly improve on the 0.8 miles to the emergency room at the hospital I used to work at. Because of that, I felt comfortable enough to park in the parking garage across the street on the 1st floor instead of pulling up at the doors. (Looking back on it, not one of my more brilliant moves).

The minute we got him out of the truck, he instantly whipped over almost backwards almost like a contortionist. It was so bad that his head only lacked about 12-16" from touching his butt. It looked like a demonic possession. His gaze was fixed upwards, lips and tongue pushed outwardly and to the right again, and no matter how he fought against it, jerking with all his might, he couldn't beat it. I almost couldn't get him out of the garage and across the street, into the ER. The whole time he was perfusly sweating and red as a crawfish.

Once we did get into the ER, a security guard helped us get him into a chair and Wesley had a hard time keeping his head from striking the wall behind him.

Like me, the triage nurses felt like it was meningitis and slapped a mask on him to protect others from becoming exposed to it, then whisked him to the back just as a severe spasm hit that left him with only the top of his head and the back of his thighs on t6he stretcher touching. You could have rolled a basketball under him and it wouldn't have touched. By this time, his airway was beginning to be compromised. A doctor and 3 nurses were working frantically on him, getting an IV started, drugs pushed. Thank goodness the Valium IV pushes started helping the muscles relax some.

Tests were done, labs drawn, blood cultures drawn, MRIs with and without contrast performed, EEGs, doctors that specialized in neurology and infectious medicine saw him...heck, for that matter, every doctor, literally, EVERY doctor in the hospital came by to see him because he was so rare. Finally, a diagnosis was made...tetanus, commonly known as "lockjaw". The doctors told me that if I'd waited one more hour to bring him in, we'd have lost him. They really didn't have to tell me that though. I knew we were in trouble. That boy was losing ground and fast...in minutes, before my very eyes.

The next news flash was that there was only half of the life saving antitoxin, "Tetanus IgG" in the city. They would have to locate and possibly fly in the other half.

Everyone was stunned on that one. Isn't that a kicker?! How could a city, just ravaged by a hurricane, crawling with a population of immigrant workers doing construction in a polluted area of devastation, knowing somebody is just bound to get a rusty nail or a piece of wood stuck in them, etc., and that the immigrant workers likely haven't been real keen on their immunizations or the availability where they came from...and it's been six months of all of this...How could a city NOT have at least one dose of the antitoxin?! According to documentation, there have only been 48 recorded cases of tetanus in the United States since 1987.

So it was touch and go every 2 hours with the spasms returning, requiring the treatment to be managed until the other half of the "Tetanus IgG" could be obtained ang given to pull all the poisons out of his system. Then he would need to be monitored very closely to allow the time for the antitoxin to filter his blood, which didn't come until the next night at around 10pm.

In the meantime, the doctors proceeded to try and investigate which of Wesley's many little nicks and scraps he'd encounted over the past month or so could've been the source of entry for the tetanus. His fingers are covered with tiny little cuts and he's had numerous little splinters, (most of which he's simply picked out himself with the tip of his pocket knife blade). Then there are the untold hundreds of scratches and scrapes from running through the woods in Mississippi where he and his wife have family, or when goofing off around the creek, and there is the gardening. In this family, there is always the gardening. It seems that tetanus usually affects farmers and may lay dormant in the ground for up to 40 years!

Wesley could not come up with a single injury that was festering or harboring any signs of infection. he could, however, remember one on his right elbow that had been larger than most, and that when he'd struck it against a door or wall a few weeks ago, he noticed it was scabbed over. He had a splinter in a finger at present. Neither of them were red, nor swollen, nor draining, nor scabbed now. It remains a mystery. Doctors remained puzzled but convinced they were on the right track, and pressed forward with his treatment.

For 2 days, Wesley stayed on gurney in the ER because there were no ICU or telemetry beds available. Whe he got stable enough, the doctor finally agreed to down grade him to a med-surg bed and he finally got to sleep in a hospital bed and away from the beeping of the monitors of all the other patients in the ER...and I got out of the chair next to him. Instead, he got moved into a private room, a nice quiet room.

As Wesley improved, he missed his baby and wife more and more though and became more and more stir-crazy. On day 3, he begged the neurologist to let him go home, and the doctor agreed only because I'd worked with him for so many years, and because Wesley'd stabilized enough. But it was with a solomn promise to keep him relaxed over the weekend and to watch him like a hawk...to give him the meds prescribed at the first sign of a tremor and to "haul his ass back to the hospital at the first sign of any funny business", and to follow up with the neurologist in 2 weeks. I promised.

What a ride this journey has been. What a journey my entire LIFE has been!

Think I'm going to schedule my mental breakdown or a life crisis for June 8, 2014. No particular significance for that date. That is why I have chosen it. I've worked for it. I deserve it. I've earned it.

Dana Reeves Died
Dana Reeves died late Monday night.

Now that didn't really strike some of my family or the people I know with too much significance, but for some reason, it did me. I can't explain it Maybe it was because she had died from lung cancer never having even lit or smoked a single cigarette. (I can see her face being applied to the posters for anti-smokers and those against second hand smoke even now.) Maybe it was that I felt the pain she must've known to have already lost her husband and then to have to get her own diagnosis and to have to tell her 13 year old son then, and to have to have that child be left with no parent. Maybe it was the suddeness of her death so soon after hearing her announcement of her having been diagnosed. Maybe it was because cancer scares me so much. But I think it was just that it was because it was so unfair that here she had been through so much with her husband, Christopher Reeve (better known to many from the "Superman" movie lore), and had carried herself with so much grace while stoically caring for him with so much love and devotion. It simply wasn't fair. But Dana said life wasn't fair and the sooner we learned that, the better we would all be. I never saw her when she wasn't smiling, no matter what.

When she got diagnosed, I remember people asked if she would rally for cancer research like she had for the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which was to look for ways to advance research for paralysis, some of which involves stem cell research, not always a popular vote. She said no, she could only fight for the one with the energy it took, and she was dedicated to it.

Now I know there are mixed opinions on the research involved, and I have my own opinions on it, but I still think the woman had to be admired for her love and devotion to her husband and son inspite of some pretty overwhelming obsticales, and to carry herself with the dignity that she did.

And I still hurt for the 13 year old child, Will, who has now lost both parents in such a short span of time, in such tragic ways. What a load for such narrow shoulders to carry.

I'm reminded of the ending of another movie that Christopher Reeves made, "Somewhere In Time".I can see Christopher whole again and reaching his hand out to welcome the love of his life, Dana, to eternity with him, and they are together again. I hope it is that way.