The other night our power went out, spontaneously, around 6:30pm. More accurately, it went out, came back, went out, came back, and went out again. My poor printer was having congestive heart failure. Immediately, Elijah is freaking out and trying every appliance in the house, just to see if it worked. The rest of the evening was, for me, hot and stuffy and filled with Elijah’s ranting paranoia about the dark. Kayleigh wasn’t too happy, either. (You know preemies and their schedules, don’t dare break it or thou shalt surely die.) We ended up driving north a half an hour to get something to eat in a drive-thru where we wouldn’t encounter people. The power still wasn’t back when we got home and we all bedded down in the living room (too hot upstairs but bearable down here)… and the power came back, right around 11pm. The first thing I did was turn the a/c on. :)

But my whole point is… the whole time I just kept thinking what a blessing it was that Kayleigh is off the oxygen, doesn’t need the feeding pump, the monitors, or anything that required electricity. Granted, when she was on oxygen, we did have some portable tanks, but if she had been on oxygen and the power hadn’t come back on after about a half an hour, I would have taken the concentrator and high-tailed it to my parents’ house to have some refuge and assurance that we suddenly wouldn’t run out of oxygen or use up all our reserves. We had no idea when the power would be back.

I was on the phone with my dad, I actually was really considering going up there because of the way Elijah was freaking out, it seemed to be growing hotter, and I knew I needed some good sleep before K’s renal scan the next morning. I mentioned that I was thankful Kayleigh didn’t have any of her equipment anymore and my dad said, “oh, aren’t you on a priority list? [Yes.] Did anyone even call you?”

Then I thought about it. The first business day after K came home, Steve went and submitted papers to the electric company and the 911 service. They basically stated that we had an infant at home with special needs and that if power is out, we NEED it for that oxygen and then (for 911) that if a call comes from this house, it’s very important! The equipment company had given us one for the phone company, too, for if service was out but we didn’t fill that one out because we both have cell phones.

So, yes, I know we were not a priority house because it was such a huge problem. However, don’t you think it would have been good for the electric company to give us a call? Say, “hey, look, we got this problem… wanted to make sure you’re ok… we think it will take us this long to get things back up, can you make it that long? …do you want us to help you find a place to go where you can have electricity?”

Yes, I am aware that electricity is a glorious privilege, and, yes, I’m aware that they didn’t have electricity x years ago, blah, blah, blah. But to think about it, if this had happened when Kayleigh’s life still depended on extra oxygen support and what if we didn’t have portable tanks? And what if we had nowhere to go? And it took 4 1/2 hours to get that support back? She’d have had to go to the hospital. It was also extra aggravating because they got the rest of the county back up about an hour and a half before the town and immediate surrounding area.

So, thanks for nothing, electric company, I’m glad my daughter’s life wasn’t in your hands.