The title pretty much sums up how I'd describe the first 15 days of December. Only 9 more days till Christmas and really I'm not feeling the usual pre-holiday stresses. Too busy with the normal everyday ones that I haven't even hit Christmas-is-coming-and-I'm-so-not-ready on the stress-o-meter....yet. But it's coming. I can feel it.
Still light on the 'good' these days but still managing to keep sane with only the occasional melt down. The 'bad' snuck in and bit me on the backside. My mom's scope tests scheduled for 7am almost two weeks ago but were cancelled at the last minute due to medication conflicts with the procedure. After much eye-rolling it's been rescheduled for the first week of January. They tried to reschedule it for last week but again a medication conflict which is a good thing because we wouldn't have shown up. She got way sick last week. We thought at first she had a stomach bug (which has definately made the rounds through town...and my house) and I thought we'd dealt with that reasonably well but then discovered, after a routine blood test, that her potassium had dropped too low - dangerously low. The symptoms were so similar to the flu though that we totally missed it. When she wasn't feeling better...actually getting worse by this weekend I hauled her into the ER where we were pleased to hear her potassium levels had returned to normal BUT (and it's a really big BUT) at some point while her potassium was too low, she may have had some sort of heart trouble. Blood tests done in the ER showed markers that indicate she many have recently experienced a heart attack. Can't say for sure when but the marker levels have since decreased so I don't think there's any lasting issue. In the mean time she still wasn't feeling well......but why was a mystery. A mystery until the doctor pressed on her face and she went through the roof in pain. We had a huge d'uh moment when we realized the worsening of her symptoms on Saturday had nothing to do with potassium or the flu. She has a sinus infection. 24hours of advil cold and sinus and some anti-biotics and she says she feels like she might live (always a good thing) and is getting stronger by the day. Will the fun ever stop???
But wait. We haven't got to the FUGLY part yet. And this is definately F-n Ugly! We waited 25 days and now it's official. We've definately lost our contract. We will wait till the holidays are over before we seriously start crunching numbers and see just how deep in the shit we are and see if there is any way we can sustain the business on just the one contract. Shutting down completely leaves the business (which is it's own entity thankfully!) with a huge debt and our safety net of hauling scrap metal in to help pay that down dropped out from under us when our buyer informed us the price had bottomed out. Could anything else go wrong? Doubt it. We've pretty much covered all the bases here.
So we face 2009 with the prospect of unemployment and are trying very hard to be optimistic and think of this as a new beginning. It's terrifying though. After almost 14 years of being self-employed we are forced now to find work with someone else. Al has already picked up the books and has been studying to get his class 1 license and he should be able to find a job relatively easily. I'm not feeling as optimistic about my options. No matter what happens though, 2009 is definately going to be quite different than what we are used to around here.
I'm keeping busy this week, trying not to think too much about the future and focus on the here and now. And the here and now involves a little home reno and furniture moving.....9 days before Christmas....cuz I'm crazy that way. It might not be the greatest timing but if it solves some of the family dynamic issues we've got going on around here and improves the amount of living space we have - then it will all be worth it. It's kind of my Christmas present to myself and my sanity. I just hope the project moves along quickly because I really need to get that Christmas tree put up...and finish shopping.
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