Back Up And Running...

Today is the first day I get back online in I don't know how long. I'm very sorry for the delay with responding to you all. For my family that worried about us... we are doing fine now. Thank you for thinking about us; and keeping us in your prayers. I appreciate that you sent email to us expressing your concern. Unfortunately our power was out for a few weeks and it's kind of hard to check email with a power outage. I had to work the night the hurricane hit. They gave me the option to stay and work a double shift, or try to make it home in the middle of it all to be with my family. Of course my nurse manager discouraged the fact that I wanted to leave to be with Matthew. I'm sure many of you would agree with my manager as well. You should know though that I did get home safely. It was a difficult drive home though. Living approximately 8 miles from the hospital, I decided to leave at 6 a.m. and I started out at about 10 miles per hour. The streets were dark... with the exception of the ocassional transformer that was blown out. It's rather wierd to see the sky light up in neon greens and blues when its so dark outside. All of the power was out on the way home... there weren't any street lights or signs that were lit up. And of course, I took all back streets home. I would never trust my SUV on the highway with 100+ mile an hour winds. I eventually got up to about 30 mph. It scared me to drive at that speed because I could feel my car start to lift. So I dropped it back down to 10 / 15 mph. I could see that a lot of the traffic signals had crashed to the street, some of the light posts had fallen. We were supposed to get the worst part of the storm at around 10 a.m. To think that all this was going on before the worst part was rather scary. I had pulled my car up between our house and the neighbors house (he wasn't home - he never is during a hurricane). The houses are close enough together to protect my car from any major damage, but far enough apart that debris still managed to lodge itself under and surrounding it. In any case, I was running to get inside the house - holding on to my glasses (I'm sure I would have lost them otherwise). Just as I get to the front of the house, the tree across the street comes crashing down from the south side of the street to the north side - blocking the roadway. Thank goodness I made it home when I did! After working all night, I went inside, showered, and went to bed. I was so exhausted I slept through the major part of the storm. When I woke up - it was quiet. It was a rather eerie quiet. The thought of tip-toeing though the house just to see what happened outside crossed my mind. The neighborhood was quiet. No cars, no airplanes, no rescue, no city noise... nothing. And then I noticed the damage. No damage to the house (thank goodness!). But trees, branches, cable and power lines, pieces of roof, unidentified metal pieces... everything down. Everything - everywhere. Destruction like I've never seen it before. Later in the afternoon, clean up began. Generators started running. Chain saws started up. People were moving about - primarily to survey damage. I guess they were comparing who had it worse. We ended up with a power line down in the backyard. And we heard on the radio that power was to be restored by Nov. 22 at the latest. So we began taking each day at a time. It started out as Cheetos for breakfast, and then we just munched thoughout the day on whatever snack foods were bought. Unfortuantely, I'm not all that great with picking out hurricane food. I started bringing ice home from the hospital - and when they allowed us to, I eventually was able to bring home a hot breakfast for Matthew to eat. I would charge his DVD player at work, so at least he could get one movie in per day. Boredom and depression set in for him. He missed his friends and really wanted to get back to school. Two weeks later, the school opened, four days after that, our power was restored. We still have a power line in the back yard. My first hot shower and the first time I used my hair dryer... ah - what a relief. My hair must have thought it would never see electricity again... when I dried my hair - it stood on end. I looked like the Lion King. Amusing, yes. Fun to deal with.... ah, no. Such is life.

We hope you are all doing well.

I'm off to bed now. Good night everyone, and thank you again.