Nightmare

Every once and awhile, usually when I'm under a great amount of stress, I have a horrific nightmare that shakes me to my core. They are so realistic that I wake up and wonder if it really happened or if it was just a dream. I've even gone as far as reading the local newspaper online to determine if it really happened. Last night was one of those nights. I will warn you, the following is a bit graphic so read at your own risk. Remember, this was just a nightmare--it DID NOT really happen.

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The family was home. Me, my mom, my dad, my sister, and my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law was acting strangely. I couldn't pin point it, but he was somber and sulky. If you knew my brother-in-law, you would know that he is always energetic, talkative, and has 2 speeds: full speed & off.

He and my sister were fighting, not an unusual occurrence in real life. They fight all the time. My sister was being passive aggressive, my brother-in-law was being combative. My sister walked out the front door to get away from him. My brother-in-law followed her.

At this point my brother-in-law & my sister are outside. My dad was sleeping upstairs because he worked 3rd shift the night before, my mom was resting in her recliner, and I was doing Sudoku on the couch.

*WARNING* The next part is scary *WARNING*

Next thing I know, the house is on fire. It's burning fast, because it's an old wooden house and the wood is dried out. I yell "MOM THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!!" We run upstairs because the the whole front bottom 1/2 of the house is engulfed in flames and all the exits on the 1st floor are blocked.

Upstairs we open the door to the 2nd floor deck, only the deck isn't there. It had collapsed from dry rot the week before. The fire is moving up the stairs, my mom and I are hovering in the door frame, door open, with nowhere to go. I can feel the heat behind me. We jump into the rubble of the deck.

*WARNING* Graphic content follows *WARNING*

Once the fire is put out by the fire department, the sheriff takes my mom and I inside the house. They need us to identify a body. The body is my dad's, still in bed, sleeping in his usual arm flopped over the side of the bed, 1/2 sleeping on his stomach with 3 pillows under his head and one under his chest. His body is a black charred lump, but he looks peaceful, like he never woke up as he was burned to dead. He passed away from the smoke inhalation before he was burned to death. Small piece of comfort considering the way he went. Then the sheriff tells us there another body we need to identify. I'm confused, there shouldn't be another body.

We follow the sheriff downstairs to the front hallway. There is a lump under a white sheet. They draw back the sheet, it's my sister. They theorize that she ran back into the house after her husband set the house on fire. Her body is badly charred, except for the big toe on her left foot. The big toe on her left foot isn't burned at all.

After the shock of seeing 2 dead bodies, my mom shrugs and says "That's life" then walks outside, gets in her truck and drives away to her cabin 8 hours away while I am left to pick up the pieces and process it all by myself.

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I hate nightmares like this. I've had worse nightmares for sure, but they come so infrequently that when they do happen, they really shake up me. I just don't know what to make of it all, or how to process it. I know I shouldn't think about it, but it's hard when you have a nightmare like that.

Anybody out there have freakish nightmares that scary the bejeeber's out of you?

So it's finally Saturday. I have been looking forward to this day since Monday. :) So why is it that on this particular day, 5-year old girl decides to have a Jekyl & Hyde personality? It was a very long 5 hours today, and quite honestly, I couldn't wait for it to be 1:30 so I could go home and away from all moody/sick children. Now I'm sitting here avoiding my homework.

In other news, aparently 3.5 month old boy doesn't have croup, he has bronchialitis. I would just like to point out that the ER at the local hospital diagnosed him with croup. So I'm still having to give him breathing treatments every 4 hours. He can absolutely not have tummy time and is only allowed limited back time, he hates his swing and carrying him around in the snugli all day is taking a toll on my back. He's currently 17 lbs and 29 inches long. It's not so much the length that's the problem, but the weight is just too much. In addition, he was getting SOOOOO close to rolling over before he got sick, now with no tummy time and limited back time, we're pretty much back to square one. It's frustrating really, but that's life I guess.

My step grandfather isn't doing to well. I don't really understand the whole thing but basically his pancreas is inflamed, his blood sugar is off the charts, and he is orange due to the excessive amounts of toxins in his body. His abdomen is distended and he looks like he's 6 months pregnant. My grandmother has been taken off of all chemo and radiation because she is bleeding somewhere in her GI tract but they don't know where. I think she's going in later next week to be scoped.

It's still snowing here, so I'm off to shovel, AGAIN. Have a great weekend!

Snow, Snow, Everywhere

*Note* I wrote this yesterday and just forgot to post it. Sorry!!!

And yet I still have school. The only school that is open today is the university I attend. All of the other schools in the county were closed yesterday and today. The university was closed yesterday because they couldn't get the parking lots cleared on time. Seriously, the only reason this university has EVER closed is when they can't get the parking lots cleared.

In other news, my step-grandfather is in the hospital with accute pancreatitis. The last update I got was at 8am this morning so I am vigilantly holding my cell phone at all times awaiting another update. My grandmother is having trouble with her chemo and radiation, so they've been tweeking that all week. My mom sounds extremely tired and I wish I could go down and help her out but the roads are so bad that I don't want to risk an accident by trying to drive down there. Of course, my family that lives an hour away from my grandparents is "too busy to help" and my dad insists on working even though he can take time off whenever he wants. Gotta love the priorities in my family!

Brrrrrrrrrrrr.....

We're in the midst of a blizzard here right now and it's a doozy. There's blowing snow, white out conditions, roads are closed, accidents at every major intersection, and the temperature is -16F. For those of you in the southern states the average freezer operates at -18F. Yeah, it's cold.

In other news, between yesterday and today I worked 25 hours with one 30 minute break. That's gotta be illegal! Oh well, it made for a nice paycheck at least. Tomorrow is a full day of studying, seeing as how I have had no time this weekend to do anything other than work.

I have decided that my family is the most dominant stressor in my life. Unfortunately I can't just omit them, so I've taken the easy route and now I just avoid them.
My sister and brother in law live in Florida and, if you watch the news, you know that the humid hurricane attractor had a bunch of tornadoes go through the other day. My sister and brother in law live in one of the counties where there were a significant number of tornadoes. Nobody has heard anything from them even though we've all called multiple times. I'm a little worried, but I'm trying to not get too worked up because they typically check their answering machine once a month.

My grandmother-(the one I wrote about in the previous post)-overdosed on narcotics early this morning. It wasn't an accidental overdose either. She has a history of abusing prescription medication and alcohol. So now my mother is handling the situation because she is the main caregiver for my grandmother. The upside to this is that my mother was a phenomenal nurse back in the day and is very effective with stubborn elderly people. The downside is that my mother has a history of abusing over the counter medications and has taken my prescription painkillers in the past. So my grandmother was in the hospital early this morning, I am assuming that she had her stomach pumped, though my mother wasn't able to give me a lot of information when I talked to her because my grandmother was in the room. The plan of action now is that my mother is going to keep all medications under lock and key and dispense the medication to my grandmother. Again, it's a double edged sword--my grandmother will not be able to overdose again but my mother now has complete possession and control over some very powerful prescription pain killers.

So that's the news from the blizzard stricken North. I just have one favor from all you southerners----Remind me what the sun looks like! :)