Down For the Count

I don't quite know what happened to me yesterday but I suspect that stress took me down for a day. As much as I would like to quit thinking about the suicide of my 87 year old dad, it surfaces now and again, to drag me down the rabbit hole. The day that I received the call from the attorney, it became so very evident that I could not conduct business of any kind with the terrible hum and crackle on our phone line. (Yes, I do own a cellphone but cannot use it, here at the house, for actual phone calls.) So began the campaign to get help from AT&T.

Rod is one of those people who seems to relish the verbal combat necessary to mount phone call assaults, to get results, but this line of warfare has lately proven to be useless. After promises and promises and promises to get someone out here to check the line, to no avail, I mounted my own assault, using Social Media. I felt that my only recourse was to slam the lack of caring on the part of AT&T via Twitter. It took only two tweets to catch the attention of someone from the company and before I knew it, I was in contact with someone who seemed to be able to do something about my feeling abandoned by this communication necessity. I received a call from the social media director from The Office Of The President but of course ROD took the phone and I did not make that communication connection. Fail. We did not see the promised lineman that day and so Rod called and left a message, that evening. He called the next morning but nothing again. Then, after a day of waiting, *I* called and amazingly, not long after the call, I received one from a nice man from that office. I had left the message that this was taking its toll on me and that I needed a callback. He was on it. He promised me that a lineman would be here within a 90 minute window and when I told him that I just did not believe it, he PROMISED me that it would happen because he, personally, had been in contact with the local bosses. So, we waited.

Remarkably, before the 90 minute window was up, I got a call from the lineman, who was heading our way, to take care of our problem. Really??? I had to take the puppy to the vet for another shot and so, when I saw an AT&T truck passing me on the road, I waved, "hopeful as all getout". Of course, when I came back up the driveway, Rod told me that he had seen or talked to no one. REALLY???

We waited and waited and finally got another phone call from the lineman, saying, at almost 6 PM, that he had been working on the problem but would come back the next day. Oh...ok.

Yesterday morning, I was startled by the sound of the doorbell (we rarely have anyone ring it, living up here) and there were TWO trucks in the driveway, ready to attack the problem. (!) Rod said that they left him and drove up our dirt access road. By this time, I just could not shake this nausea. Had to lie down. Rod had his usual Wednesday morning company but I told Lorrie that I just could not work, feeling like I would be sick at any moment.

That was it. I went back to bed and pulled the blanket up over my head and stayed there for the rest of the day. I no longer needed to be in battle mode and the pent up worries and sorrow took me down. Do you know what happens, when you stay in bed for 20 hours? Something about being in a car wreck comes to mind.

I am back with the living and the only noise on the telephone line comes from the ringing in my own ears. We have a PS on that whole thing, by the way. We came away with the phone number of the lineman AND the fellow from the President's Office called back and gave us his direct line, promising that the cable/line would be replaced WITHIN two weeks (it has the potential to go south on us, once again) and if it did not happen, in a timely manner, we were to call HIM. Ok, it's a deal.

Comments

[Renee]

With all the grief, your reserves are low. As in, almost any stress will tip you. It's ok, it's grief, it won't last forever, but it will be paid attention to.

Holding you in my thoughts.

[Lisa]

Thanks, Renee. This grief stuff slaps me upside the head at the weirdest times. I cried a lot after mom died, when I was going through her things. I suspect that there is plenty of pain ahead but this time, I have a half-sister with whom to share the burden. It is all pretty screwed up. He took such good care of the rest of his body and it backfired on him, I guess...too healthy to just pass away.