So last week's cold turned hellacious and on Tuesday morning I finally went to the doctor and was given medicine for a sinus infection. I also got a nice shot in the ass. Hurt like hell, but really felt the affects around 7:00 that evening of some good steroids. I can totally understand why people do that stuff. I got so much more done in those few hours than I did the whole past week. But let's back this up to square one on Friday.
The Weekend (the longest in my life)
Friday I was sick and tired and thought, maybe I can just sleep through this and be done with it. It was also supposed to snow that day (several local schools were already closed for the day) and I didn't want to deal with the traffic and mess since I was planning on going to Alabaster, AL for the weekend. So I called in to work, drove to Alabaster, got there by 7:30 in the morning (local time) and went straight to bed. Slept until lunch time. Ate a little. Went back to sleep and slept until around 5:00. Then we went to bible study and had dinner and played games. I was really honestly starting to feel better, just kind of drained still.
Saturday is kind of a blur. Not sure what time I got up, but I remember feeling tons better. Nose was still running and would get stopped up from time to time, but the sore throat was gone. I was getting annoyed because I kept taking mucinex and drinking tons of water, but wasn't really hacking anything up and my lungs still felt funny. So we followed through with our plans to go out to dinner with some friends from college (including my purple baby!) and then to Montevallo's Homecoming in which the Purple Side WON! PV!! It was beautiful. I had also made plans to meet up with my friend Katie and her husband, Brad, in Birmingham that night. Normally we party fairly hard when we go out with them, but I was thinking on Friday that I wouldn't do anything big and just go home early because I've been dealing with this cold for several days. Well, by the time the group of us got there, I was having a great time with everything going on and since I was feeling better. Ended up making a HUGE mistake and staying out until 5:00am drinking and for a certain amount of time in a smokey bar playing pool with friends. Didn't think much of it at the time, but woke up Sunday in time for 2 nosebleeds and some severe regret. This set me back in my disease and I was back to a sore throat and hacking some stuff up. I figured I had Monday to recover before going to work on Tuesday.
Monday I had off from work for President's Day. However, Montevallo was holding classes and so I rode with Scott on his way to his classes and stopped by the history department to catch up with one of my professors. Dr. Ruth Truss is officially the shit. LOVE her. Bought a couple of things at the bookstore and then Scott and I went back to Alabaster and I went back to sleep. Woke up in time to see it snow at around the time I was planning on driving home. Decided to make it an early morning and drive out when the crazy Alabama snow drivers (like me) were in bed (I wished).
Tuesday I woke up to some serious aching in my chest and a fantastic
headache. Thinking it was the NON-DROWSY Walgreens medicine, I thought I could sleep it off and be fine. Woke up later and just wanted to croak. I decided to hit up the doc-in-the box first thing. He was an interesting Asian doctor who told jokes like, "Want to hear a joke? Back when I was growing up we had walkmans we listened to, and those were just the thing. And now we have ipods, which is so funny." Couldn't help but chuckle and quote in my head, "FUNNY! Very amusing!" (Thank you Mel Brooks.)He said it was a sinus infection, gave me the steroid shot, antibiotics, allegra D (which I substituted for Clariton D at the pharmacy - half the price and the publix pharmacy gave me a $4.00 coupon!), and some fantastic cough syrup.
Quick Summary:
Exercise - digesting mexican food, walking on bricks at montevallo, cheering the purple side, playing pool, 1 early morning adrenaline rush, some hard-ass sleeping.
How could my life get any better? I'll tell you...
Quick Summary:
Diet - Mexican food
Exercise - digesting mexican food, walking on bricks at montevallo, cheering the purple side, playing pool, 1 early morning adrenaline rush, some hard-ass sleeping.
How could my life get any better? I'll tell you...
THE FIRE
I woke up Wednesday morning to drive back to Douglasville, drop off some stuff and head to work. The steroids were still working so the drive wasn't too bad. I get to my apartment to find that the front door has been kicked in and left open. I was pissed and like an idiot I walk straight in and turn on a light and start looking around at what might be missing. Future hint for those of you that might be in this position: DON'T DO THAT. Just turn around, walk away, and call the police. Someone might still be in there! I got lucky. I called 911 and they sent the police to the apartment to check it out and for a report and all that good stuff. The guys were really nice and noticed right off the bat that something smelled like smoke. A factor I missed because I haven't had a sense of smell since last Wednesday. As I was filling out a report one of the officers walked around outside and found that the apartments on the other side of me were completely demolished by a fire. Well, one of them was. The other one, adjacent to me, was partially demolished. After noting this, the police concluded (and I agreed) that the fire department kicked down my door to check for damage or any other fire. Would have been nice, had someone left a note. Would have been BETTER if the apartment complex called me to tell me about ANY of this happening.
I called the emergency maintenance pager for someone to fix my door so it would actually shut and lock before I left work. Love how the EMERGENCY maintenance guy took an hour and half to get to my apartment. Called him at 7:30am and he got there after 9:00am (which is the latest I can get to work). On my way to work I made a couple of phone calls. I'm kicking myself now for not calling my sister first since her husband is a fire marshall. But she still came in and helped me out a ton with figuring out what to look for damage-wise in the apartment. Dad also suggested to check for water damage.
Talked to the apartment complex manager who did not know how I got skipped on the phone call list for contacting everyone in the building about the fire. Interesting considering that MY APARTMENT WAS NEXT DOOR. Something else interesting, she had no idea the fire department kicked in my door. The fire took place Monday night around 7:30. She came out and watched. Obviously, she didn't come back for a follow up to the damage because my door was left open for a day and half!!! Unacceptable!!! Luckily nothing was taken. So now she's sending an inspector to the apartment on Thursday to look over the place for further damage. She's also "negotiating" with her district manager/supervisor about possibly relocating me. We'll see how much she can actually do for me. For some reason, she seems a little iffy on that, but I don't plan to be around for the noise and sweaty questionable men outside my apartment and all those people looking to loot the burnt apartments.
These are the two apartments that burned. The fired started in the one on the farthest left (if you couldn't tell) and spread through the front door to the bedroom of the neighboring apartment.
This picture shows the partially burned apartment on the lower left and the side of my apartment in the upper right. See the smokey stuff on the side?
And this is the view from my patio.
So yeah, I get it. I'm lucky nothing caught on fire in my apartment and I'm very thankful that the fire department probably did break into my apartment to check and make sure everything was ok. But I feel severly wronged and neglected by my apartment complex and will be making sure wrongs are righted and that this doesn't happen to anyone else. I mean seriously, AT LEAST A PHONE CALL!
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