Chemo #6 just couldn't be easy could it?

I thought that I was supposed to get a free pass from this kind of stuff. I was hoping to enjoy a relatively mild and uneventful final chemo week but Noooooo....*OH* No....mother nature had a WHOLE 'nother idea for me! http://tinyurl.com/27uxc92

Chemo itself was rather uneventful and quiet, although Tim was wound tighter than a rubber band in anticipation of leaving for Montana. :) We had a lovely nurse by the name of Laura, no worries...we, did get to see Sue, and Mom came with a beautiful gift of a pressed 4 leaf clover pendant necklace. I added it to my stash I wear around my neck. :) After Chemo, Tim and I went to GC (Hi Dana!) to have a lunch date before taking him to the airport. He was so funny, like a kid in a candy store. I really hope he's having a good time.

We dropped him off and I went home into a wonderful nap. I just hung around the house Friday night, watched a movie, nothing fancy. Saturday was Raytown Marching Festival. The kids did a fabulous job http://preview.tinyurl.com/22ngrde and even though we don't know our score(s) yet, I'm proud of them regardless. The Festival was called on account of rain/lightning and I started to fade, so Dana took me home. I opted out of the birthday party for the Twins and Addie (I'll get you your presents later!) and snuggled in for a nice relaxing evening. The dogs and I got in bed around 8pm to find "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" on...sweet. I hunkered down, they nudged in and our evening began. Next thing I knew I was waking up to the sounds of thunder and lightning around 11pm. I sat up and thought "That sounds like a pretty wicked storm coming in. Better check the basement." Got up and went downstairs, flipped on the light, opened the door to the laundry room and yup...there it was...water. Damnit. Where's the shop-vac? Oh, that's right, it's still outside in the garage. Do I want to go get it? What's it look like out there...so I walk to the sliding glass door, pull back the drape and switch on the light. "Oh Hell No!" I am *NOT* going out in that! It was crazy looking. Hailing, wind whipping around, rain coming down so fast I couldn't see. I turned around, pondering what to do when *Click!* the lights go out. Oh crap. That's not good. Well...can't do anything else right now, might as well go back to bed. So we went back upstairs and crawled back into bed. All the while the hail was whipping at the windows, the rain beating down on the house, and the wind howling like a train in the distance.

We stayed in bed for about 10minutes before realizing we really needed to be back downstairs. "UP and down Buck and Lilly! Let's go! Let's go!" "Oh this is not good...this is not good...I'm home by myself...I'm home by myself...Oh geez" I step off the last stair into a puddle of water. What the...? "CRACK BOOM!" a huge flash of light followed by a crack of thunder so close I *swear* it was right in front of my face made us all jump back to the furtherst corner of the basement. Wowza...this was intense. We huddled there, my wonderful doggies and I, for about 30minutes or so before it started to settle down a little bit. Once my heart rate came down a few hundred notches I felt we could go upstairs and go back to bed...if that was even possible in my adrenaline infused state. Walking through puddles of water in the pitch dark with thunder and lightning outside is not my idea of fun, but we made it. As we climbed the stairs the aroma of freshly mown grass was *so* strong as we came up the stairs that I was absolutely convinced the silver maple in the front had crashed through the front window and the outside was coming in in an even more violent way.

Thank you baby Jesus it wasn't broken. None of the windows were. They were just plastered in pulverized leaves.

Settling my racing heart, I walked back to the bedroom and collapsed into bed. What was I going to find in the morning?

I woke up Sunday morning about 530 and set about laying every available towel I could find down on the floor to soak up the water. I was still without power. I crawled back into bed with the dogs and pulled my phone out. Can't call anybody yet, nothing can be done, but it's Thomas's birthday and I don't think I can really leave to go to that. I think I texted my friend Jennifer, but I can't be sure. So I sent an email to my folks and sister/brother in law, and went back to sleep. 8am I woke up to no power, but at least it was light out. I made some coffee (pretty proud of myself on that one), put on some shoes and headed downstairs. The towels were saturated, but they could wait. I wanted to see what had happened overnight.

I opened up the back door and stepped outside. The only thing I could say was "Wow..." I was absolutely stunned. The first thing I noticed were the trees. They were bare...all of them. The next thing I noticed was the big, *BIG* tree behind the shed that had been ripped apart and thrown to the ground. Then I saw the swath of grass where our river runs through on any heavy rain...wow...this was one huge river that most likely culminated in a very large lake banked on either side by dams of hail. Yes that's right...HAIL PEOPLE. When I figured out what those mounds of stuff were I was really shocked. Never seen anything like it. Anyways, after moseying around the back yard (the dogs were in heaven) and taking pictures I went around to the front and was quite sad to see my beautiful potted plants had been pulverized. It shall be an interesting task for me to see if I can bring them back to life. Poor things.

The front of the house looked like someone had vomited camoflague paint or something on it. The roof was covered with shredded leaves, the mulch was gone from the front flower beds, hail covered the front porch, and the side garden was decimated. The hail lovingly busted holes in the window well covers which allowed the process of water seeping into the basement to begin overnight. That's been fun. So I sat on the porch for a minute and talked to a couple of folks that came down the street (back property neighbors), and then set about calling my folks and inlaws. I needed help. I had no idea what to do, or where to begin, but I needed help. Jim and Karen were first on the scene, and Jennifer arrived shortly after with mop, bucket, and free child labor in tow ;) We did what we could, moved stuff around, mopped up water, threw things out on the driveway, sometimes made more of a mess, but did some good work. My folks showed up after Thomas's birthday (sad I couldn't make it) with fans, cleaning supplies, and a "Eh! We've done this numerous times" kind of attitude. Makes me feel better in a way, but it's still overwhelming. We cleaned around for a bit, then I was sent off to take a nap cause we'd reached point where we really couldn't do much more until we had power....of which we had none. I think this was about 15 hours w/out power at this point.

Finally everyone went home and I debated what to do. I felt very strongly that I just needed to stay at home just in case something were to happen. I don't know, it was just a very strong feeling, so I stayed. I also knew that I wasn't going to school in the morning so I had to make those phone calls/emails/texts. I read my book until the light was gone, then used my flashlight for a little while longer. I awoke to Lilly pushing me off the couch at about 10pm so I pushed her off, moved everything around and pulled out the hide-a-bed. Boy I was nauseous...off to the pitch dark upstairs I went to find my Ativan. Oh Ativan...take me away! By the time I got back downstairs, blanket in tow, Buck and Lilly and made their sweet little beds and left me *just* enough space to breathe. We slept very soundly after that. :)

I kept dreaming that KCP&L were driving up and down the street all night and I kept hoping that "Click!" the AC was going to kick back on and I'd have power again. Too bad it was just a dream.

Monday morning I got up at 430 (damn internal alarm clock!) and did a quick sweep of the area. It was muggy, that was for sure, but it was fairly cool. Realizing there wasn't a darn thing I could do, I went back to bed w/the doggies & quickly remembered why I don't like that bed...my back and it don't get along very well. Gonna have to go see Dr. Timmer tomorrow, oh yea...

I finally got up around 730, I think, to the REAL sweet sounds of KCP&L trucks rumbling down the street. Mom got there around 9am I think and we started futzing around trying to make a difference in the mess. Karen got there a little while after and started in on the front of the house. She made it look good by the end of the day and she's not done yet! Thanks Karen!

I called KCP&L in an attempt to find out when they thought the power would be back on and was told they were working as fast as they could and that there were some 50 power poles snapped in the storm. Oy. That's gonna take a while to fix. *Sigh* Okay. So, Mom and I threw out a lot of ruined stuff, then I laid down and took a nap. After lunch we made a concentrated effort to really clean at least the basement up so I could feel as though my world was somewhat back in order. I pulled out the carpet from behind the bar and under the stairs, then went the extra yard and took it off the stairs. That was one of the most disgusting yet gratifying things I've done in a long time. FINALLY at 4pm the power came back on. That made everything instantly better. You never realize how much you are dependent upon it until you don't have it for a couple of days. That sucks.

Anyways, fans have been going, the air has been blowing, and I have finally been sitting for a while. Jim and Karen hauled off the last of the trash (THANK YOU SO MUCH!), Mom checked the fridge for me and swept my whole house while giving me a shoulder to cry on when I got a little overwhelmed (THANK YOU!), and my sisters checked in to see how it was going. I've finally talked to my honey and blogged it out of my system, I think it's time for bed.