I explain to the staffing coordinator that he must fix the situation. He says he will try and he will call me back. At around 10PM I get a call from, child protective services (CPS), telling me we needed to get back home. I calmly explained to her that we were several hours drive from home and that the first I heard of any of this was just an hour earlier. I assured her that I left Richmond with the understanding that all the shifts were covered and with the assurance that the agency would take care of things. I also explained that at that late hour we would have to drive all night on no sleep and arrive in no condition to care for Nickie. The CPS worker said she was going to call the agency coordinator and would get back to me, she also said she thought this was all wrong. I hung up the phone jumped out of bed, got dressed and packed and headed to the truck. My cell phone rang just as we loaded up the truck. It was the woman from CPS and she said if I called the local hospital and made arrangements for Nickie to be picked up by them that would suffice. I said thanks but we were on our way home as we spoke and I asked her to wish us luck getting there in one piece. She said she was sorry this had happened but to call her when we got home.
We arrived at home at 3 am, we greeted the nurse and gave Nickie kisses and dropped to the bed like a ton of bricks for a 3 hour nap. 6 am came much too quickly and as I suspected I was in no condition to be responsible for a child that requires so much care. I did the best I could and we got through the day from the sheer anger that I was using for energy. I plotted how I was going to use this injustice to enlighten the world to file formal complaints against the agency and against the nurse that left my daughter in such a bad way.
Monday morning I made all the appropriate phone calls to find out with which agencies I could file complaints. I contacted my attorney to see what suggestion he had. I contemplated contacting the local NBC affiliate to see if they might be interested in the story but in the end I know just how stuck between a rock and a hard place I already am. There are too few agencies even fewer nurses and as you can see the caliber of nurses that are out there are very low. Its hit or miss and I'm sorry to say its miss more often than not. Ultimately I felt it was best not to make it impossible to work with this agency by filing complaints. Its difficult enough to find nursing care at all much less limit myself to one less agency. While I was dealing with all the phone calls and Bob and Shaun went to work the work van broke down. When Bob called to tell me about that I was stupid enough to ask what else can go wrong? Stupid, stupid, stupid Lill.
We dropped the van off at the shop and had to explain to our customer that we would return to his job when the van was repaired. By Monday night Bob began to feel the effects of a respiratory infection... Great what is this bad luck number 3? I think. I go home to find that the kitchen sink won't work and I can't believe the shit keeps coming at us. I contact a few plumbers to find the soonest I can get anyone out is Thursday. The shop calls on Tues to say the van is working fine for them they can't find anything wrong with it. They suggest we pick it up. We do just that and guess what? The van breaks down again on the way home. We finally make it home feeling whipped.
Wed morning Bob decides to try to make it in to work sick and with the hope the van makes it there. What the heck was he thinking? The van broke down again. We take it again to the shop and we head back home. Bob decides that he doesn't want to be put into a situation that he can't work waiting on his work van to be repaired so he takes his pick up truck to Truckin Thunder to have a sprayed in bed liner and ladder racks installed. This will make it so he can still work out of that truck if he needs. The cost of this work is a whopping $1,093.00 Bob and I decide to take my van, the wheelchair accessible van, to run a few errands and pay some bills.....
We make it back home in our driveway, when we notice the van is over heating. WTF? How can this be? I said to hell with this and just moved on to the car that we just got back from Shaun since he just bought a "new" car and returned mine to me. I drove it and noticed it was shimmying and decided it must need an alignment but with all the other crap going on I say it will have to wait.
Thursday the plumber comes and replaces my faucet and snakes a pipe all in 40 minutes and $293.00 later leaves. While doing dishes that afternoon I find that there is a leak under the sink that wasn't there before. I call the plumber to tell him about the leak and of course he can't come back till the next day. Friday morning on the way to take Brandon to schoolI was approached by a nice man to tell me that I needed to pull over I have a flat tire. Sure enough I look and the tire is practically sitting on the rim. One ray of sunshine was Pete a teacher at my son's school who ran up to me and offered to change the tire for me. I ran into the office to call Bob, I left my cell phone at home, and let him know I was ok and what had happened. I make it back home in one piece and pick Bob up so we can drop off the car for new tires, alignment etc. It's explained to me that 4 new tires and the alignment and oil change will come to $375.00 This is racking up to be an expensive week.
We get a call from the shop they found the problem and after we pay $200.16 they release the van. The plumber meets us at home in the afternoon and another $93.00 later I have a drip free pipes. So I'm asking myself what have I done so wrong in my life that I deserve all this shit to hit at once? I've tried to live the last several years being optimistic. Treating others the way I want to be treated and in general being a good person. Why does it seem no matter how hard I try to live that good life that I manage to attract crazy nurses, shit nurses, incompetent nurses, and why does everything break down at once. We are hard working struggling people that want nothing more than to live in peace and to provide a good, clean life for our kids. What are we doing wrong? I ask you if you know the answer please enlighten me.
