You Leave Me Weak (Ballad of an Ersatz Mechanic)

Greetings, y'all! 👋😊

As if 2025 hasn't already thrown enough stuff at me, I recently found myself in the unenviable position of having to figure out how I was going to fix my car myself. 😬 Now, I'm not completely clueless about cars, but I've never tried to actually work on one, so this was going to be a challenge.

Here's what happened - as I was driving home from the city (about 30 miles from home), I heard what sounded like a weedeater hitting a thick patch of weeds, except the sound was coming from under the hood. About a minute later, I heard it again, then it stopped, and the battery light on the dashboard came on. 😬 My first thought was that the serpentine belt had broken or come off, so I pulled into an empty parking lot in front of a church to take a look under the hood. My suspicion was correct - the belt was nowhere to be seen. Since the car's power steering and brakes seemed to be unaffected, I made the decision to continue driving to get as close to home as I could. My previous vehicle's water pump operated off the serpentine belt, so I turned the climate control temperature all the way to 'Hot' and kept one eye on the temperature gauge and the other on the road ahead as I drove carefully down the road (sweating and praying the whole time). When I saw that the engine temperature was staying steady in the safe zone, I relaxed a bit and just prayed that the battery would hold out. Long story short, I made it all the way home without any other problems.

Now I had to figure out what I was going to do next. I knew I had to get a new belt, but how was I going to get it installed? Money is tight, so I can't just get a tow to a local mechanic shop, and mobile mechanics aren't free, either. So I got online and searched for tutorials on how to install the belt myself. What I found wasn't super encouraging. The 'easy way' involved removing a tire and splash guard, and utilizing a long screwdriver and floor jack to install the belt from underneath the car. 🤯   

I don't have a floor jack, nor the stamina to jack up the car and remove a tire. I also have a gravel driveway and ants build nests in the darndest places, so the idea of getting under the car with no easy escape if something went wrong was a big ol' NOPE! My only viable option was to attempt this job from above, under the hood, and I knew going in that I had very little room to work. Thankfully, my arms and fingers are long (and probably the only body parts I have that I'd call 'slim'). 

My first foray was to determine where the pulleys were located and whether I could get my hands into the space with the new belt. There was just enough room, but it was a tight squeeze, and I couldn't get the belt seated in the slot on the main pulley. After two unsuccessful attempts, I called it a day and decided to take some more time to think on things. The next day, I was able to get the belt threaded onto 2 of the 3 pulleys, but I couldn't release the tensioner pulley to get the belt seated in the groove of the last pulley. I was at an impasse, and I knew I'd gotten as far as I could on my own. The following morning, a friend from church came over to lend a hand, and between the two of us, we figured out a solution to the tensioner pulley problem, and finally the new belt was installed!

I know that I could have saved myself a headache and bruised arms by just calling around and asking someone for help from the beginning, but I felt that I needed to at least try doing the job on my own. Even though I eventually needed a second set of muscles, I was able to get 99% of the job done through determination and creative problem solving. I'm used to having to figure out how to do things in unconventional ways. 😄

I'm not planning to give up my careers as a computer worker or musician to take up auto mechanics, and I probably won't do it in my spare time, either. But if minor repairs are needed, I don't feel like I'm just stuck without options, and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. 

Off to new adventures! ✌❤🙏🏻😊  

Oh, February! (What Did I Ever Do to You?)

Greetings, y'all! 👋😊

Well! 2025 isn't going at all the way I thought it would. January took 6 months to get through. I was looking forward to February, because I was going to be celebrating a milestone birthday - the big 5-0! - but the universe had other plans. 

It is, but I would've liked a cake and maybe a little party.

On the evening of February 1st, my husband began having trouble breathing and became very weak, and his blood pressure had dropped to a dangerously low level. He had been feeling poorly for about 8 weeks already, but at this point, he agreed that he needed immediate medical attention. I called for an ambulance, and he was brought to our local hospital's emergency department. Blood tests revealed that he was in diabetic ketoacidosis, was severely malnourished, was dehydrated, and had an intestinal blockage. (Side note: he has a disease called 'gastroparesis', which affects his digestive system and causes problems with digestion and nourishment. This is a result of many years of uncontrolled diabetes. He had been receiving regular care for the diabetes in recent years, but the damage had already been done.)

He was admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit, where he received IV insulin to bring his blood glucose level down, as well as IV fluids and medicine to bring his blood pressure up. He developed sepsis and went into septic shock while in the ICU at our local hospital, so they started IV antibiotics treatment. They transferred him to a larger hospital 3 days later for more tests that they weren't equipped to perform, and he spent another 3 days in the critical care unit at the larger hospital. They were able to stabilize him enough to move him to a regular room, where he stayed for another 6 days. He was discharged last week, after a total of 13 days in 2 hospitals.

The doctor in our local hospital's emergency department was very frank with me and told me that my husband was very close to the end of his life when he came in. He was in critical condition for 48 hours, then upgraded to 'guarded', where he stayed for another 48 hours. Once he was upgraded to 'stable', we knew that the immediate crisis had passed. 

Hubby and me in July 2005 - 30 years ago when we were still young...ish. 😉

I can't say that I was necessarily scared that he would die, but I did have to face the reality that not only was his dying a possibility, if he didn't respond to their immediate treatment, his death was likely and imminent. Knowing how close he was to death, I could do nothing but watch and pray like I've never prayed before. I wasn't ready to spend the rest of my life without him in it. Not then. Not now. God answered my prayers by pulling him back fully to the land of the living.

✨Side Quest✨: It was around this time last year that I wrote a post about "going through it". At the time, I felt strongly compelled to have a "sit-down" with hubby and have a big talk about a lot of things that had piled up over our 30 years of marriage. I felt like this conversation had to happen now, because time was getting short. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but we both had our say, and finally cleared the air. Our relationship and marriage has never been better since that talk, and I'm thankful that we've resolved our issues. We've also learned to talk to each other without fearing an overreaction. 

My 50th birthday arrived, and I spent the day with hubby in his ICU room. It wasn't exactly how I imagined I'd be spending my "big" milestone birthday, but honestly, it was the best birthday I've ever had. When he wasn't sleeping, we held hands and talked, and except for when they had to come in his room, the nurse and staff pretty much left us alone. The day was quiet, peaceful, and just nice. 

When he was stable enough to be moved to a regular room, I stayed with him and slept at the hospital on the couch in his room. I helped him as much as I could, trying to be a good "nurse", which subsequently helped the real nurses and staff, because they had many other patients to see about. Helping him to the bathroom or writing down info that the nurses needed took some of the load off them, and by not being "needy", when he did require the actual nurse, they came quickly and did what needed to be done. We were always kind and appreciative, and I think they were a little sad to see us go when he was discharged. 😄

Since he's been home, we've had a whirlwind of follow-up appointments and there are new tests being scheduled. He has new medicines to take, and he was taken off a few that no longer benefit him. We're starting over from scratch as far as managing his health conditions goes. The easiest thing to change is our diet, but we have new routines to learn, patterns to watch for, and new knowledge to absorb. It's a lot, but we're a strong team, and we'll get through this together, with God's help. ✌❤🙏🙌🤗