That Sinking Feeling

I've heard stories about people dreaming they're falling into a bottomless pit and then wake up and fall out of bed. This week didn't have any strange dreams, but did have a sinking feeling in the middle of the night.

Central Iowa started September with a heat wave. All week was under a heat advisory with highs in low to mid 90's and night-time lows staying in the 70's. About 1:20 Wednesday morning, I was actually fully asleep for once. At that time, the electricity went off and instantly stopped everything using electricity.

My night nurse noticed as the lamp beside him turned off and my room went silent from various devices that are always running. Something also alerted my parents sleeping on the other end of the house. I was blissfully unaware of any change until my dad and caregiver were chatting a few feet away from me and woke me up.

Using my diaphragm pacemaker, I can breathe fine without needing electricity. However, the air mattress I sleep on does require power to stay inflated. As the two men talked and I figured out what was going on, dad would poke my bed to check on its status. With one eye buried in a pillow, I peered through my other eye to watch the action.

Dad or my caregiver had the emergency light sitting on my dresser and I noticed the side of the mattress was slowly getting higher in relation to my viewpoint. As the bed slowly consumed me, I heard dad say they would wait 5-10 minutes to see if the power turned back on and then see what to do. I had yet to say anything or acknowledge I was awake, but started counting. I receive 15 breathes per minute, or 75 breathes in five minutes. Starting at 75, I counted down and waited to get to zero.

Thankfully, with underground power lines, the electricity in my house has been very stable for at least 20-25 years. We had theorized plans on what to do if the power went out, but never tested them. Soon enough, my breath count reached zero and I chimed in on the ongoing conversation that we should work on getting my mattress hooked up to power. It was continuing to ingest me at a slow rate, but I definitely was going down. 

Dad and caregiver set off on our theory of connecting an electrical inverter to my van and then plugging in my mattress via an extension cord. Apparently the first attempt of using the cigarette lighter didn't work, but the two then connected the device directly to the battery. After figuring out cord configuration, my bed soon hummed back to life and slowly returned me from the depths to which I had fallen. One device was now functioning, but that was all.

Without air conditioning, my room stayed around 77°-78° in the warm night. Staying without a sheet, or anything else, on me allowed my temp not to clime too high. Thankfully, power returned around 5:00 and the van battery lasted long enough to keep me aired up. I never heard what caused the outage, but was thankful the plan worked. I also reviewed in my head how to tell my caregivers to setup the power source if my parents aren't around.

The quad life indeed has unexpected times and events. It is a reminder to be prepared, but also trust in God at all times.