Monday Meeting ~~~ Dec. 19, 2016

Hello, People! Hope your weekend went well and you are all ready for the holidays.

It’s been a long time since I did a Monday Meeting. I also needed a venue to whine a bit today. Ha!

 

I think this is the first time I was glad to see a weekend pass. Whew.

Saturday I wasn’t feeling well. Nothing serious, just blah and humbug. Early evening I felt a bit off after dinner. Then it dawned on me, I could feel my blood sugars plummeting. Which was weird as I just ate!

Yet, when my blood sugars get low there is a feeling I get, part nausea and part something else which is hard to describe. I kept feeling worse. I walked from one end of the house to the other to my bedroom to do a blood glucose reading. By the time I got the glucose strip into the reader with my drop of blood I was shaking like a snowflake being blown with that wind outside.

The reader only takes seconds to read and crap……I was dangerously low and still dropping. By the time I got back to the main part of the house I could barely walk. I tried to tell the husband to get me some juice….fast! But he didn’t understand me as I guess my speech was slurred.

He finally figured out what I needed and rushed to get me my juice. I was able to sit in the kitchen chair but he had to feed me my juice as I couldn’t hold it, I was shaking too much. Scared the crap out of both of us, I can tell you. I have never had my blood sugar drop so low so fast in the eight or nine years I’ve been a diabetic.

My body ached for hours afterward. It takes much more out of a person than you would think.

Then, by bedtime the house was getting cool so before I went to bed, I decided to turn up the thermostat. The furnace wouldn’t come on! I knew the house had been getting cool. So I fiddle with the thermostat and the furnace and can’t get the thing to come on. Well dammit.

It’s below zero outside with the wind blowing like a banshee……and the furnace decides to stop working. Great…….

It’s too late to phone anyone and the husband is fast asleep and he knows nothing about furnaces even if he was physically able to do anything. So I decide to just go to bed and try to phone someone first thing in the morning. Sunday morning. Oh hell, it’s going to cost a bloody fortune to get someone on a Sunday to come over even if I can find someone.

So I go to bed worried about how I’m going to find someone in the morning and how I’m going to pay for it. Thank goodness for heating blankets is all I can say. Sam and I managed to snuggle close and stay warm through the night.

I get up Sunday morning to a cold house and a husband I could barely see under all his blankets. He asked me if I knew how to fix the furnace. Nope…..I tried everything I could think of the night before.

It’s 12c (53F) in the house and dropping. The wind outside is vicious. Snow blowing around. And Sunday morning. What do I do?

First I get dressed because it’s too cold to stay in a nightgown. Then I think…….and think…..and worry. Then I have an idea. Our previous Angel from last year who fixed our furnace. Loche (pronounced Lock)………

I hate to call him early Sunday morning but I had run out of ideas. So I find his number and give his cell a ring. He picks up and I tell him who I am and he of course, remembers me right off. I tell him the problem with the furnace after apologizing to him for calling. He says ‘no problem’ and walks me through a couple of things to check. Nothing…..the furnace just won’t come on.

In the meantime, he is also telling me he didn’t get home until 3 am as he was on call with his work on Saturday. Well, hell. I apologize again. I feel terrible that I’m troubling this kind man but I also tell him I didn’t know what else to do.

He decides he needs to come over and look at the furnace to find out why it quit working. He tells me he will be over soon. I thank him and hang up and tell the husband the good news.

Loche shows up less than an hour later after getting out of his warm, barely slept in bed. He takes a look at the furnace and after trying a few things he concludes the problem is the thermocouple. Without that piece, it won’t keep the pilot light lit. He looks in his bags of parts and says he didn’t bring one. No problem, he will go to Home Hardware and pick one up.

So off he goes into the cold, blowing wind to find the part.

About twenty minutes later he comes back with the part and in less than five minutes he has the part installed and the furnace running! I could have hugged him! Except well, I don’t really do hugs and he’s a very shy man and would probably die of bashfulness if I did. But I was tempted!

This is about the third Christmas in a row that we have had a Christmas angel help us with vital home repairs close to the holidays.

He only charged me 30 dollars for fixing the furnace! Can you believe it?? Now if that’s not a Christmas miracle I don’t know what is. I gave him 40 dollars that I had saved and stashed in my room. I told him to go have a hot cup of coffee on us! He wanted to give me my 10 dollar change back but I wouldn’t take it.

We shook hands and he left to go help someone else because he was still on call for work. He took precious sleeping hours to come help us out…..again.

I felt humbled as I had been in a foul mood and not really into Christmas. Loche helped with lifting that mood. I am so very fortunate in my friends. They are so good to me.

Thank you. And damn it…..

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!