So, here we are in Florida
Apr. 22nd, 2005 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasWe're down here at Lis's folks' place, for Pesach, or, at least, for the seders. We are being slave labor until the seders, both for cooking, and doing some stuff at their business that has to be done and an extra set of hands will be useful for. Lis is staring at shiny things, of which there are many, as Lis's parents' business is primarily "selling shiny things."
Anyway, we dropped Boopsie off at Judy's house late Wednesday night, and, by "late Wednesday night", I mean "early Thursday morning." We would have dropped the cat off earlier, but I was in the hospital.
Lemme back up a bit. Just 'cause I haven't been updating my LJ too frequently this past week.
Um, okay. The downstairs kitchen caught on fire Thursday night. We stayed at my parents' house Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Insurance sent in ServiceMaster to start cleaning up the soot. I think we mentioned that I've got chemical sensitivity, but, oh well.
This made the house uninhabitable. The soot did a pretty good job of that on its own, but the cleaning chemicals were far more impressive. But I had to stick around a good amount of the time to let insurance investigators, cleaning people, and insurance adjusters in and to show them around. I spent all the time I had to be in the house right next to open windows with fans going, but it still didn't help all THAT much.
Fortunately, at night, at least, we were sleeping at a motel, so I didn't end up as sick as I could have. Even so, on Wednesday, I passed out. Well, sort of. I don't think I really lost conciousness. I just fell over a couple times. I don't entirely remember. So Lis made me go to the walk-in clinic at the hospital.
We met a family with a two-and-a-half year old boy named Dante, who I played with as we were both waiting (they came in later than we did, but were seen first, because, well, he's a two-and-a-half year old. I don't begrudge that. . .) and a drunk welder, who was drunk because he'd messed up his sciatic nerve and was in a great deal of pain, and had attempted to deal with the pain with a mixture of beer, whiskey, and Percocet. Even so, he was STILL in a remarkable deal of pain, and was hoping that they could inject steriodal stuff into the sciatic area. No, he didn't drive there -- he was drunk, not stupid. Nice guy.
We sat in the clinic waiting area from about six PM to about 10 PM, which meant that we couldn't drop the cat off at Judy's at 8 PM as we'd planned. It had been something of a night for the clinic folks. . . an 11 year old girl with a badly fractured leg, from playing in her yard, stuff like that. (It had been a GORGEOUS day that Wednesday -- 80 degrees and sunny, so everyone in the state was playing outside, and a lot of them, apparently, managed to injure themselves.)
Once we got seen, they checked me out, checked my blood pressure in various positions (standing, lying down, sitting up), grabbed some blood to check for I-don't-know what-all, and, at midnight, released me with the instructions to avoid the chemicals that made me fall over.
Which is annoying, since, well, it came down to, "Doc, it hurts when I do this", "Well, don't do that, then," but, on the other hand, we got a doctor's note effectively saying that I can't be in the house, which will be useful if insurance tries to not pay for us being elsewhere.
Oh, also, the insurance adjuster made a list of what he thought needed to be fixed, and how much it would cost. We took this list to my parents and grandparents (contractors all), to see if it's reasonable, or if we should continue negotiating.
My family thinks the list is quite humorous, really. They aren't sure on what planet people actually do work for the prices the insurance guy listed. So negotiations will continue apace when we get back to Boston.
Anyway, we dropped Boopsie off at Judy's house late Wednesday night, and, by "late Wednesday night", I mean "early Thursday morning." We would have dropped the cat off earlier, but I was in the hospital.
Lemme back up a bit. Just 'cause I haven't been updating my LJ too frequently this past week.
Um, okay. The downstairs kitchen caught on fire Thursday night. We stayed at my parents' house Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Insurance sent in ServiceMaster to start cleaning up the soot. I think we mentioned that I've got chemical sensitivity, but, oh well.
This made the house uninhabitable. The soot did a pretty good job of that on its own, but the cleaning chemicals were far more impressive. But I had to stick around a good amount of the time to let insurance investigators, cleaning people, and insurance adjusters in and to show them around. I spent all the time I had to be in the house right next to open windows with fans going, but it still didn't help all THAT much.
Fortunately, at night, at least, we were sleeping at a motel, so I didn't end up as sick as I could have. Even so, on Wednesday, I passed out. Well, sort of. I don't think I really lost conciousness. I just fell over a couple times. I don't entirely remember. So Lis made me go to the walk-in clinic at the hospital.
We met a family with a two-and-a-half year old boy named Dante, who I played with as we were both waiting (they came in later than we did, but were seen first, because, well, he's a two-and-a-half year old. I don't begrudge that. . .) and a drunk welder, who was drunk because he'd messed up his sciatic nerve and was in a great deal of pain, and had attempted to deal with the pain with a mixture of beer, whiskey, and Percocet. Even so, he was STILL in a remarkable deal of pain, and was hoping that they could inject steriodal stuff into the sciatic area. No, he didn't drive there -- he was drunk, not stupid. Nice guy.
We sat in the clinic waiting area from about six PM to about 10 PM, which meant that we couldn't drop the cat off at Judy's at 8 PM as we'd planned. It had been something of a night for the clinic folks. . . an 11 year old girl with a badly fractured leg, from playing in her yard, stuff like that. (It had been a GORGEOUS day that Wednesday -- 80 degrees and sunny, so everyone in the state was playing outside, and a lot of them, apparently, managed to injure themselves.)
Once we got seen, they checked me out, checked my blood pressure in various positions (standing, lying down, sitting up), grabbed some blood to check for I-don't-know what-all, and, at midnight, released me with the instructions to avoid the chemicals that made me fall over.
Which is annoying, since, well, it came down to, "Doc, it hurts when I do this", "Well, don't do that, then," but, on the other hand, we got a doctor's note effectively saying that I can't be in the house, which will be useful if insurance tries to not pay for us being elsewhere.
Oh, also, the insurance adjuster made a list of what he thought needed to be fixed, and how much it would cost. We took this list to my parents and grandparents (contractors all), to see if it's reasonable, or if we should continue negotiating.
My family thinks the list is quite humorous, really. They aren't sure on what planet people actually do work for the prices the insurance guy listed. So negotiations will continue apace when we get back to Boston.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-22 08:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-22 09:09 pm (UTC)Good luck with the insurance company. Hopefully your falling down days are over.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-22 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-22 09:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-23 12:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-23 12:22 pm (UTC)She had to replace most of her clothes, as the chemicals ended up staying in the material after they cleaned them, as well as draperies and carpets (she ended up not getting new carpets, just removed the old ones afterwards since they were a problem for her allergies anyway). If you find yourself reacting after the events it maybe that the chemicals hanging around in the clothes.
Best of luck on the insurance company arguments, they seem to regularly have the believe that you can hire roving bands of gypsies or migrant workers from some 3rd world country to do the work rather than professionals....
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-23 01:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-25 05:50 pm (UTC)dad