Thursday Weekly Tidbits

Here are some Tidbits from the week. 

The Plumber and the Potty
So last week we had a plumber come out and replace our leaking garbage disposal.  All seemed good until this week I reached under to get some dishwasher tabs and realized that a pipe was completely disconnected and my cleaning supply bucket was full of water.  I don't know how the pipe disconnected.  I don't know if it happened when the plumber replaced the disposal and I didn't realize it or if it came loose later but all I know is I had a leak.  I tried to push it up and tighten it people but I just wasn't strong enough.  I would have asked J but he has been so busy, I mean just so busy and won't be off until Friday so I called our management company again.  They sent the plumber back.  He had called me the night before to make sure our morning meet up time would work again, and I confirmed although I told him I had to take the girls to school during that time so if I had to run out I'd be back quick and my son would home.  I knew he was coming but then Thursday was so busy and Dr. J ended up sleeping at the hospital because he was exhausted and I just forgot.  So I get up Wednesday morning but I get up late.  The girls have late start on Wednesday and I was so sore from working out the two days before that I decided to take a rest day and sleep in.  When I woke up I had to go to the bathroom.  It was then that my embarrassment began.  I'm a number two in the morning kind of person and I prefer it that way because it is one of the few times in the morning that I can be alone.  It was while I was taking care of this that my daughter came running upstairs and tried to open the door on the bathroom.  "Peach," I yelled, "I'm trying to poop, please leave me alone."  She retreated back downstairs.  I finished my business and then I hoped in the shower.  It was when I came down that I realized my error.  My bucket was pulled out from under the sink, the towels were moved and the pipe was fixed.  That is when I realized that plumber had come.  Apparently Cheetah had let him in, the girls had a chat with him, he fixed the sink, and left.  People the girls told him I was pooping!  Please bless us not to have anymore plumbing problems while we live here...I just don't know I can live that plumbing problem down ;)

Hard Week
On a sad note this has been an exceptional difficult week for Dr. J.  The hospital is at full capacity, the work is almost to the point of overwhelming and Dr. J is exhausted.  He has been working super late and even ended up sleeping at the hospital one night when he was too tired to drive home.  Emotionally it has also been tough.  A very sick patient tried to escape the hospital.  A patient died.  A few other patients are dying and J was the one who had to break the news to them and their families.  This stuff happens all the time but when you are exhausted and stressed and feeling overwhelmed it is hard not to just get caught up in the misery of it all.  Yesterday after the night when J slept at the hospital he asked me if it was possible for me to just come by at lunch time because he needed a mental health break.  The kids and I drove over.  I had to force J to take a piece of German Chocolate cake because the stress had completely robbed him of his appetite.  He sat with us for a few minutes and I held his hand and then he had to go and we all gave him a few hugs.  It was extremely difficult to see him like that, so close to tears so overwhelmed.  It reminded me that what is asked of those in the medical profession is often past what most of us want to do or honestly are even capable of doing.  Health care professionals are not without feeling, they do not work in a vacuum, our pain and suffering radiates off us and our loves ones and they can't help but absorb some of it.  Last week J got a card from a family whose loved one had died.  Basically it said thank you for helping us come to terms with the fact that our mother was dying and supporting us while she passed on.  It reminded me of the notebooks of thank you cards and letters that my father, a mortician, keeps.  I never quite got it but I think now I do a little.  It must be exhausting to be constantly surrounded by people in pain, people at their worst moments.  I don't think he keeps those cards out of vanity or out of some here is a collection of how great I am, I think he keeps them because sometimes when he is overwhelmed with the magnitude of the human suffering that he has watched that he needs to look back and see tangible evidence that his perseverance is actually a blessing to those he helps, that he is doing something good and noble, that even though he can't release those people from their pain that he can make their lives just a little better during it.  Thankfully J was able to make it home last night and get a good nights sleep.  He felt so much better in the morning ready to enter the trenches again.  We are both grateful though that starting Friday he is off for a week so that he can recharge his batteries.