Water

It takes emergencies for me to realize how unprepared I am in the case of a major emergency, and to prompt me to get a little more serious about being "ready". The sad part is that when we went into emergency water mode we really weren't ready, but we were a lot more ready than when our pipes froze....twice.

For almost a week we'd been hearing about this horrible flu that was striking many families in our neighborhood (like 1/2 our ward was missing last Sunday). We were trying to avoid this dreaded flu when John came down with it on Wed. night. The following evening we found out that the dreaded flu was much more. Our water supply was contaminated with bacteria that was causing severe illness and we were put on boil orders for 2 days.

So we began using the half case of bottled drinking water that we had at home. Really impressive, I know. Meanwhile John was deathly ill with a 104 degree fever, severe gastrointestinal illness, and was so weak he was unable to even lift his head for three full days. It was the sickest I'd ever seen anyone for that long of a period. Really horrible.

The kids and I made trips to the store for more water so we could drink, brush our teeth, wash our hands, etc.... I remembered again why I was born in this time and not the pioneer times because boiling water to drink and wash dishes in is really not my cup of tea (major understatement).

Today our emergency is over. We have usable water again (not that we intend do drink it for some time) and life feels a little more peaceful. John is doing a lot better today but is extremely tired and weak (which we've heard lasts many days.)

We are grateful that the kids and I somehow managed to escape the sickness from the bad water. We are grateful that we were more lucky than most in that we found out the reason for John's horrible sickness and we able to get antibiotics on day 3 of his sickness to help shorten it a bit (we think). And we had a bit of a wake up call to become better prepared while we still had options like running to grandma's for washing dishes and taking bathes, and running to the store for more drinking water.

We've learned a lot and are glad that little nightmare is mostly over. The only thing John had to say on the whole experience came yesterday on his deathbed. He said to tell his mom and then he said tell everyone that NO ONE should ever drink their city water. A few words for the wise.