Nothing Goes as Planned

Well, today was shot all to hell and by 2am.

That's when my oldest daughter rocked me awake to tell me the 17yo was in the hospital. I had just barely fallen asleep and my meds make me super drowsy (also took a sleeping pill). I texted my husband about it and waited 10 minutes for him to reply before it sunk in that it was only 2:30am and he was still at home, sleeping downstairs. I nearly fell down the stairs going to wake him up because of the med-induced drowsiness.

While I was doing all that, the 20yo called the hospital to find out what was going on. She had heard about it from some random people online. They didn't even know how the 17yo was, but some of my oldest daughter's friends saw a post or something about it and blew up her phone around 11pm except she was sleeping and didn't see it until she woke up at 2am.

So, I spent the rest of the wee hours of the morning in a state of anxiety, waiting to hear what was going on but not physically able to stay awake. My husband drove over to the ER but came home alone because they had sedated her so she was sleeping it all off. Her blood-alcohol was like .37! and they found meth in her system. Sigh.

The 20yo was freaking out all night and this morning before the 17yo got home, but the rest of us were like, "well, this isn't our first rodeo," because said-20yo has put us all through this already. Numerous times. The last was alcohol poisoning at 16 that almost killed her. I was the one that got the call from the police at 11pm and drove to the ER where I watched her get intubated after she threw up and aspirated into her lungs. Then drove home at 2am only to get my husband so we could drive to Portland to the children's hospital where she spent the night in the ICU then another day in a regular room. Now she's getting a taste of the other side and doesn't like it.

Anyway, I had a hard time falling back asleep despite not being able to keep my eyes open. Every few minutes, I'd remember what was going on or be hit by a wave of panic. My husband got back around 3am which woke me again. Then the oldest went into my bathroom around 4am, waking me again. Then my cat was sleeping on my legs and when I went to move, it caused a charlie horse that woke me from a dead sleep. Again. That was around 5am.

I ended up sleeping until 7:30am (which is now kind of late for me) then tried to work on my cross stitch to stay calm while we waited for the call to go pick her up. Except, I realized I messed up the row count on a section sometime yesterday and had to pull out two hours worth of work. Ugh. By the time my husband got back from picking the 17yo up, I was so stressed and frustrated.

I ended up doing none of the things I'd planned. He told me to just relax for the day instead of cleaning and doing yard work. So I just went with it. I did manage to box up the Goodwill clothes without any of the girls going through it. But it's all now in storage in the cabinets in the laundry room (donations are closed around here because of COVID). That kind of wore me out, though.

In the end, all I got done was the cross stitch.

My daughter is fine. She spent the day sleeping it off but came out a few times and was in good spirits. Of course, she was still technically drunk so... The hospital sent a list of resources to help manage teenage substance abuse. I guess we'll try to get her into therapy so she can learn healthier coping mechanisms instead of alcohol and drugs.

Hopefully, I'll get some actual sleep tonight and then tomorrow I can clean the kitchen and finish cleaning my bathroom. And maybe pull some more weeds. I really want to at least get the side yard done so the jerk across the street can't sneer at me because our yard is full of weeds. He hates us and makes sure we know it (he loudly grumbles about scum, lowlifes, and bottom feeders anyone any of us are outside, including the kids). I'd like to be able to sit on the porch and write again. But I'd also like to get the backyard cleaned up so I could sit at the picnic table out there. Right now the weeds are so overgrown and there are so many dead mice, I can't relax out there. It's a disaster, but I still don't have the energy to get that done in a timely manner. Ugh.

Small steps, I keep telling myself. Do just a little at a time. But it probably won't be done before the rains come this fall.