Electricity

Electricity.  We all take it for granted. But what happens when it's not there?  For most, it's a mere inconvenience.  But for a myasthenic, it can be life threatening.

We had a nasty storm last Thursday night.  Right before midnight Friday, there was a rattling of windows and rain was pouring down.  The house was literally shaking.  I thought the air conditioner  was going to fly right into the dining room through the window. It was insane.

And then it was dark.

Doug came down from upstairs; he had been asleep already.  Jacob, bless his little heart, slept through the whole thing.  Doug was looking around outside, and told me part of the walnut tree had fallen down.

In the morning, this is what we saw:

 You can see how big the part that fell was by how small Doug looks!

The branches ripped the conduit and meter right off the house, not to mention the power line, which landed on Doug's truck.  Thank God the power was out before the line fell.  It would have been arcing and sparking all over the place.

 This is where the massive branches were ripped off.

This is what is left standing of a 50-foot, probably 100 year old walnut tree.  MORE than half of it fell.  If it had fallen in another direction, it would have hit the house, smashed windows, destroyed the roof.... needless to say, the rest will be coming down as well.

Speaking of wells, there is ANOTHER miracle from God:

That silver thing sticking up is the cover to our well.  There are branches all around it.  If that tree had fallen 6 inches one way or the other, it would have smashed the well, and we would have had to repair THAT.

We did have to have an electrician come out and put the line back up, because Consumer's won't do that.  For those of you reading this that aren't local, we have ONE electric company.  And they are huge.  And they don't care who you are.

For example:  On my account, it shows that I have life support equipment in my home that requires electricity.  I have several things that I NEED for survival that require electricity.  My ventilator (which DOES have a six hour battery back-up, but when you're without power for 36 hours, that doesn't help much), my suction machine, my nebulizer, my cough assist, my VEST (aka shak-a-lator), my oxygen compressor and my oxygen concentrator.

At night, I have to have the vent or I quit breathing in my sleep.  I have to have the oxygen, because even with the vent my oxygen desats to a dangerous level.  Without the nebulizer and suction machine I would be unable to clear my airway.  The cough assist and VEST prevent me from getting pneumonia (most of the time).  Not to mention air conditioning, but they don't consider that life support.

So I called Consumer's to get a restoration update.  I asked to speak with someone to make sure they saw my account was flagged as having life support equipment.  The woman I spoke with said, "Yes, I see that on here.  But that's really only for billing purposes."  You see, we get a WHOPPING $5.00 discount a MONTH for all the machines that I run for my health; $5.00 total, not for each machine. That's why they need to know I'm on life support.  Not to get the power on more quickly, but to give me $5.00 off my bill every month.

{crickets}.

REALLY??? Now, this was according to a customer service person answering a huge volume of calls during a widespread storm that caused a lot of damage.  I'm assuming she was knocked on the head by something heavy, because if that indeed is true, heads. will. roll.

I have a call in to a guy at Consumer's who I spoke with about my previous debacle with Consumer's a few years ago.  You can refresh your memory here and here.  He did not return my call Friday, so I will give him one more day, call him at end of business tomorrow, and if I haven't heard from him by then, I shall have to go to the TV News and let them find the answers.

So while having no power was a pain in the butt, and I had two fitful nights of sleeplessness, God protected us in SO many ways by not allowing that tree to fall on our house, Doug's truck, or the well.  Thank you Lord!