Just a little stressed...

Last night I came home from work and had a triple shot apple-tini for dinner cuz this pic pretty much sums up how my week went. And probably how it'll continue to be until January 21st. I mentioned a very time-consuming project in my last post so I'll explain.

There is a police officer that I work with whose 9 yr old daughter had to have a bone marrow transplant. Her 4 yr old sister was the donor. She's doing very well so far with the treatment and was even allowed to come home from the hospital much earlier than expected. She's lost all of her hair from the chemo and because of her weakened immune system she's not allowed to leave the house. Her family members have to wear masks around her. She has to travel about an hour away to the children's hospital for follow up treatments 2 to 3 times a week. She's not completely out of the woods yet. Her body has 100 days to reject the donor and she is about halfway through. But she is doing well considering. His wife had to leave her job to care for their daughter and he has since returned to work after exhausting all of his paid leave. His wife may be off work for as long as a year while they get their daughter well again. You can imagine the financial burden on the family to be reduced to one income when you need two. They also have two other children. So an idea was hatched to have a fish fry to raise money for the family.

I agreed to help with this project. I told the person who came up with the idea and got the ball rolling to put my name down for whatever she needed help with. Well, no one signed up for the "Donations Committee" except for one other officer's wife... and she didn't even know it. He had put her name down without consulting her first. Nice. So I agreed to do that even though I'd not planned to take on something so big that I have no experience with. But ya gotta have donations or there's no money to do this thing, right? So it's been a little stressful especially trying to handle all of this over the holidays.

Why am I about to pull my hair out? I'll tell you. I can't get into a lot of detail cuz I know that some of my co-workers read this. But let's just say the person who is basically in charge (who will now be referred to as TPBIC) and I are butting heads. At first, even though she said she assigned committees because she couldn't do everything herself, she wouldn't relinquish control and trust everyone to do their job. I understand accountability but if you want me to do this... then let me do it. Second, let's talk about accountability. About 2 1/2 weeks before the fish fry, I call TPBIC to ask about food donations. I've only been getting cash and items for auctions and raffles so far. Someone thinks they may be able to get some food donated so who should I direct this person to. She gives me the name of the guy in charge of the kitchen. I call him and he tells me "I'm not in CHARGE of the kitchen I just told her I'd help out." So I panic a little. The person who is supposedly running this thing doesn't even know what is going on with our food? Do we have food? WTF is going on?! That problem gets solved. Let's move on to the next.

During our meeting last night, the guy who we've now determined is in charge of the kitchen... the experienced guy who has done this many times before at the venue we've chosen.... stands up and tells the rest of us inexperienced folks in no uncertain terms that this has the potential to be a disaster. Because we have a completely unrealistic idea of how many people we can do this for. He tells us to scale this back. There were 1000 tickets printed and being sold for this and he tells us that 600 pre-sale would still be a pretty packed house. So what does TPBIC say not 5 minutes later "The parish has said that we can use their big lighted neon sign out in front to advertise it and draw more people in." What!? Are you not listening?! We possibly already have too many people as it is.

So let's move on to the next disaster. All the permits we need that TPBIC was told weeks ago to start working on have not been done. The fish fry is in 2 weeks! Some other experienced people come up with a potential solution. That's still trying to be worked out and I will know more on Monday.

Oh and did I mention that TPBIC is giving birth today? Yep, she went in at 6am this morning to be induced. Yet, she thinks she will still somehow have time over the next 2 weeks to do all the things she refuses to except help with. And she has 3 other children at home including a 16 mth old. Everyone else involved in this project can see the reality in this but not TPBIC. I know her heart's in the right place but, unfortunately, her head is not which is causing a lot of stress for the rest of us trying to pull this together.

These are just a few of the issues that are going on with this project. I can't wait until it's over. Between trying to handle my real job and all of this, I've been so busy I haven't even gotten to eat lunch for the last 3 days. But I'll put my effort in to make this a success out of compassion for the family. I've been there. I've been sick and I've been through a very difficult recovery. I can't imagine having to go through that with my child. I've recovered and I want to pay it back in a way, I guess. So I'm hoping and praying that we can pull this off and make it a success for their family's sake. So I'll suck up my stress for the next couple of weeks because I know it can not possibly even compare to theirs.

So please say a little prayer for the family and their beautiful little 9 yr old who is struggling right now. And understand that I may not have the energy to post a lot until this thing is over. Alright, time to get up and go start getting all the Christmas decorations put away. Not looking forward to that either and I've procrastinated it long enough. Thanks for the vent.