When it rains

After having the most ridiculous and stressful day at work yesterday, I can home to find that our septic system had backed up (again). This has been an ongoing issue, cropping up every 8 months or so. We did a bunch of work last summer and thought we were safe-guarding ourselves from having this happen again. I guess not. Then we were given worst-case-senario news that what failed on our system is, well, the whole system. Basically a $10K repair. Oh, and we couldn’t use any real water since yesterday afternoon, so nearly every dish in my house was not only dirty, but the baby who is fighting a cold ended up coughing and puking before bed, onto my pillow and blanket, and several other things. Of which we couldn’t wash because we couldn’t use any water. It took me until 2am to get him back to sleep, and I had to be up at 4 for work.

This comes on the heels of a week that was stressful and upsetting in its own ways, the biggest thing being my 7 year old nephew’s PICU hospitalization and diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. So I am well aware that my septic problems are solveable and things could be worse, and my stuff is truly a first world problem. But sleep deprivation make coping skills non-existent and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. And my period decided to show up this morning as well, as just the icing on this craptastic weekend.

I have no idea where we are going to get $10K for this repair. Our tax return (that wouldn’t even cover this anyway) was used for some other bills that needed to get paid off and some other home repairs. There is no insurance coverage or otherwise that covers for this sort of thing. I doubt anyone will give us a personal loan of that size. I’m looking into county loan programs but so far am coming up empty. Most of what I have found puts us just above of any income-qualifying income. I don’t know yet what our options are with the septic company, but I am sure they won’t do $10K of major work on a goodwill payment plan.

Some days, small bumps seem like huge mountains to climb. Today is one of those days.