As Hurricane Sandy was barreling it’s way to our neck of the continent it was foreshadowed with pains in the hubby’s stomach the day before it was to hit.  Ugh…this is not good.  He didn’t do dialysis the night before as it was his scheduled day off.  His stomach has had twinges so he’s slept all day.  This has  been a pattern based on previous episodes.  Now it’s time to do dialysis and he’s not going to.  I can’t sleep all night.  Fearing that cry out in the middle of the night like the other times.

New York is getting hit hard, but up here we are getting 100 km/hr winds with the rains.  This doesn’t bode well for our dependency on electricity to run the dialysis machine.  And in true Chaos Theory, we had electrical problems, my youngest has a fever and is waking up several times in the night.  But, it the dialysis treatment that has me up.  With each trip of the electricity, the machine sounds off alarms.  It has to recalibrate the bi-carb to the right acid levels.  So it alarms over and over.  You try and sleep through it, but when I opened my eye at one point to check the bright screen it has a different kind of error.  Then it worked it self out.  Now I can’t just ignore the alarms in case it’s a different problem.  I am a worry wart I guess.

As soon as the alarms stop, I still don’t get to go back to sleep.  My pre-schooler wakes up because he’s coughed himself awake.  His fever is back on.  Guess the Tylonel has worn off.  BAM, another trip in the power.  More alarms.  Of course this happens as I almost have baby back to sleep.  Now more crying.  From him and a little from me.

I put baby back to sleep.  I watch some t.v. as the alarms go off.  Franklin’s sleeping and telling me not to worry about it.  Ha!  Repeat everything again.  Alarms stop.  Baby wakes up.  Alarms again.  Everyone back to sleep.  Ugh.

Third times a charm.  The power is out!  Thank goodness there’s a backup battery in the dialysis machine.  It won’t last long enough for Franklin to do the rest of his therapy, but it does work that we can do a rinse back (have the dialysis machine return his blood to his body).  I am so tired at this point I’m just thankful to have some quiet.

Everything is quiet.  Everyone is sleeping.  I can’t.  FML

Even with all the craziness we are still lucky.  I can’t imagine if Franklin was having an EPS attack and we had to drive down to the hospital and drop off the kids in the middle of the night.  We are all alive and all we lost was a little sleep.  My heart and prayers go out to the people devastated by the effects of Hurricane Sandy, particularly those who have lost their lives.  When I read about others who have to go in-centre to do their dialysis treatment I’m sure there are more hurdles they will have to face.  I am thankful we can do it at home.  It’s not an option for all, but for us, it’s the lessor evil.

Update:  We don’t have any damage to the house.  The electricity came back on that morning.  Franklin was able to do a full treatment session the next night.  Baby 2 still has fever but at least he seems to be on the mend.