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When we got back to the house it felt even more stifling than when we left. It was 97 degrees inside the house. It was unbearable. We put the ice in a cooler and filled it with Gatorades. I put some ice and water in a bowl for the kids to dip washcloths in to wipe down. With battery powered fans, it helped a little. We set up the cupcakes and let the birthday boy blow out his candle as we sang "Happy Birthday" to him.
We tried calling the power company again and this time got an actual person who said they were working on it. We tried to call the doctor on call several times for a new prescription but they didn't call back. Nathan's mother called one of the TV news stations and they had been told that our county might not get power for up to a week. At dusk we took the outside furniture back on and sat outside since it was now cooler outside than it was in the house. We would have stayed outside longer but we heard some animal. Our neighbor had killed a rabid skunk a few days earlier and we did not want to run into anything like that. So we went back into the intense heat. We made more calls. We were told there was only one cooling shelter but it was open only a few hours during the day. There was no other help. The heat was horrible. The house felt like an oven. We called around to find a room somewhere. All of the hotels were booked. We called hotels for quite some distance from our home. No luck. Three of us are on medication which makes you heat sensitive, so we weren't doing well at all. I just couldn't take it anymore, so I pleaded with Nathan to take us back to Walmart. So we all piled in the van again to go back to Walmart.
At Walmart we sat in the gardening section with the patio furniture. Nathan wandered off to look for something. I sat, nursing my youngest son. His soft spot was sunken in and he was pale. I looked around at the other kids. Everyone was strangely pale and just sitting there staring off. A few of the kids had diarrhea on and off throughout the day from the heat. Everyone looked ill. My baby was strangely lethargic. When Nathan came back I pointed this out. He looked around at his family and agreed everyone looked ill. He was concerned about our baby too. So we decided to go to the ER. I didn't want anything to happen to the kids.
The ER was not happy to see us. They actually bitched about having to treat an entire family for heat illness. They were also complaining about the amount of people they had to see that day for heat illness. Can you believe that? I was stunned by their heartless behavior. By this time, the anxiety I'd been feeling all day came to a head. I felt like I was going to break down, which rarely happens. They split us all up, which made my anxiety worse. My oldest daughter texted me that the doctor said we were neglectful for not giving our youngest daughter her antibiotics. I called a nurse in and explained that it had reached 100 degrees in the house and the antibiotic was to be kept cool. It was already dead by the time we had woken up at 7:30 am and it was 97. I told him how we had even asked a pharmacist who said it was probably dead and didn't recommend giving it to our daughter, and that we had tried calling the doctor on call for a new one. It wasn't our fault that the power was out. We had put it in the cooler as soon as we could get ice but it had already been too late. I was feeling really high-strung by this time. My blood pressure was up. I had a 100 degree temp. The doctors blew us off. They ignored the sunken soft spot in my baby's head and the fact that he was lethargic. They ignored the fact that the kids had diarrhea from the heat. They ignored the fact that we told them none of us had urinated all day long despite drinking as much fluids as we could. We were just sweating out more than we could take in. The way they treated us was deplorable.
So we left the hospital and went back to Walmart. We sat around a little while longer and got more ice. We ran into a town cop and asked him if he knew anything. He talked our ear off. He said that there was still live power lines down in town. He said that he knew someone who worked at the power company and they told him the power company crews went home at dusk. He said all the cops had seen them leave to go home and they couldn't believe that the power company would not have a night shift out working to get power restored. I wish you could have heard him complaining. I looked at him and wanted to ask if he was actually a cop. Apparently the police were not pleased with the power company either. The power company could not get power restored if they were not out working.
No one wanted to go home, even though we were exhausted. We dreaded the heat. But we had no other choice. We opened up the sliding glass door to our deck as far as it would go. Then we spread a blanket on the floor in front of it. We all slept on the floor by the door. It was still horribly hot, but we all ended up just passing out from exhaustion.
Sunday.
Nathan and I did not sleep well though. We kept waking up every hour. By 7:30 am, you could feel the heat building up again outside. The house was no cooler inside. I looked at Nathan and told him that the kids and I just could not handle another day of this heat. We had to find somewhere to go. We were running out of water for us and the chickens. The stores were really low on water the evening before. So we started making calls again. Still no shelters except a "cooling" shelter, which was only open a few hours. Not a solution. The power company had their generic message up again. No one knew of any help available. There were still no rooms available. It was so humid in the house that it looked like the carpet was wrinkling up. Plus the carpet felt damp. I kept refilling the bowl with ice water for everyone to use to sponge off.
By afternoon, we were thinking of going to Walmart again. Nathan's mother finally found a hotel which would have a few rooms available. So we packed up necessities and went to the hotel. Of course we had to lie about the amount of people in the family. If we told the truth, then they wouldn't have given us a room. We had already learned that the hard way before. We also sneaked our cat in. We couldn't leave her behind in a hot house. The people at the hotel knew that all the people coming in for rooms were disaster victims with no power. So what did they do? They charged over $100 a night for a room! Their rooms had no microwave, no fridge, no amenities whatsoever except AC. Doesn't it just disgust you when people put money above human life? Well, it does me. This county is one of the poorest in the state and the hotels were charging that much to residents during an emergency. It disgusted me.But we paid it. Did we have any other choice? We had to get out of the heat.
We all collapsed and just soaked up the AC. We tried calling the doctor on call again for a new prescription. Still no return call. We went to Walmart for some food. Sandwiches. We hadn't brought our camp stove with us. It was only Sunday but it felt like it had been an eternity since we lost power. No one really ate much. We all felt too sick. Some of the kids passed out early. Most of us had still not urinated. I know, graphic, but it shows how we were being affected by the heat despite our efforts to stay cool and drink fluids. We kept calling for the doctor on call. Unfortunately, it was not our regular doctor. She was a total bitch on the phone. She said we should have given our daughter the antibiotics. I was thinking, "What the fuck is everyone's deal?" I tried to remain calm and explain to her what had happened and how the pharmacist said the antibiotics were no longer good. Then she snapped that we should have asked the pharmacist for an emergency three day supply and that he could have given it to us. That confused me because I had never heard of such a thing. Have you? Has anyone ever had that done? I would really like to know. So she snapped that she would call in a refill, but it was too late by then. We wouldn't be able to get it until Monday. I tried not to let her attitude get me worked up. I just added her to my long list of complaints.
We all fell asleep early from exhaustion.
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