Rita's Wrath.

Wow, it's been nearly a week since I've even been in my office let alone had any resemblance of a normal life. Wednesday began a journey of self worth and a discovery of who Monica truly is. I now know why I give as much as I do. I care about people and right now I'm in the best possible profession I could have ever chosen.

When news of Rita reaching a cat. 5 storm before she was even predicted to reach a cat. 4 was realized by me, I made arrangements to get my daughter to Ft. Worth to stay with my SIL. It was touch and go for a day or two but on Monday, I contact her and asked her if she would take my baby and keep her safe. I couldn't promise her when I was going to come home. All I knew was this was something I had to do. Getting her with family meant I could concentrate on my job responsibilities and be what I was trained to be.

Wednesday we got news that Houston was evacuating and that 1.8 million people were fleeing the area. When my husband was briefed that University of Houston was sending us 700 students, he called me on Wednesday from my post to ask me to drive Abby to Ft. Worth. We began manning our "special needs" post Wednesday afternoon accepting our first patients Wednesday evening. I left Wednesday afternoon to take my daughter to safety. I drove 3 hours to Ft. Worth to drop her off and turn around and come home. I nearly got run off the road three times on the way back home. The last guy was so close to hitting me head on, I could read his license plate before he dodged back into traffic. I made it back safely. I returned to post on Thursday morning to find that the patient receiving cards and information we were collecting had been scratched. Great, they had been replaced with just patient name and time we received the patient. um..no, that wasn't going to work. So fits were thrown and we finally got our way. I mean we were collecting information for our COUNTY...the other knuckleheads were collected information for themselves. With that decided we finally got a better system that allowed us to get family members and residence information from patients when we were to receive them. It was caotic, it was disturbing, it was an adreneline rush, it was all those and more.
Our special needs patients were rest home individuals, burn victims, and those that had some mental health issues. Me and another coworker spent a majority of our hours manning that station to make sure it was as smooth as possible. I saw many sun-ups and many sun-downs, but I donated my time because I wanted to be utilized to my maximum capacity. It never ceases to amaze me the community I live in. We had doctors, nurses, medical students, respiratory therapist, vet students, and community volunteers nearly 24 hours a day. The people that we sheltered were so grateful. For the most part we had praises of how nice the facility was, how wonderful it was to have a hot meal. The compassion that all the staffing and volunteers had for everyone. I had my moments when I had problems with one particular couple but word has it after I left my final shifts, they were escorted out of the building by the police and taken to another shelter. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it in a heart beat.
To see the smiles on the children's faces when the football team came in to visit them. They gave them all jerseys and talked to a lot of the children. It is amazing their spirit and vallence that they had. The nursing home residences really enjoyed the visitors and so many of them would just say thank you to the point they were in tears.
We never asked for that. We just had a job to do and knew that it needed to be done to the best of our ability.
All in all we had to find a wondering patient that enjoyed cleaning when he could get into buildings, we lost three patients and sheltered more than 800 people from Rita. It could have been much worse in our area but we were spared. We all know that and are grateful.
So I have many more details but Rita has wipped me out. The stories, the tears, the jears...there was some of it all. I am so glad I decided to donate my time. I learned a lot from this experience. I know what my tolerance it. I know what Monica can handle, and I know when Monica needs to step back and take a break.
Many things did not go as planned but in all honesty, I am proud of my employer, my coworkers, my community and most of all myself.

what a boring life.

wow,
when was the last time I blogged. Really. I lead a borring life. Still the same old same ole as far as the house is going. We haven't had much change in the week or two that has passed.

I've been spending my days getting aquanted with the new job. I've been in it since February but I am learning mounds of stuff nearly daily. We are at a stand still on many things. It was rush, rush, rush through August and now not much.

I'm still having problems with contractors. For some reason I'm not getting them to come back and give me estimates on jobs. I guess it is a measly piss-ant job and no one wants to do it.

Blogging can be very theraputic when you need it but right now, I guess we are just boring.