Great wait...

Today is the Great Wait of 2018.

My timing belt is being changed out.  The manager said it would take approximately four hours.  Then, he said five.  I told him that four was a better number.  He said that the timing belt guy likes to go slow since he is taking apart an engine.

Well, darn it.  One cannot argue with that.  It is not like I am charged more for his carefulness.  SIGH.

So, I am sitting here in GoodYear, twiddling my thumbs.  And, right now, I am glare at my Highlander, since it is still sitting in the parking lot.  Twenty-three minutes into my appointment time and my car still hasn't been taken back.

The manager is so very lovely to me, so I cannot really complain.  But I am just not sure how I will survive this wait.

This is especially true because I had three night terrors one after another, a continuation of the dream.  I HATE it when my dreams do that, particularly with night terrors.  I get no rest and very little sleep, tossing and turning in the dream.

This dream was rather exhausting because I was trying to escape my captors.  So, I spent my seven hours of sleep time (yes, I stayed up too late for an early morning appointment) running and hiding and climbing and even swimming.  It was awful.

I loathe my brain.

I woke twice for fresh ice packs, and the severe flushing in my face was still taking place each time.  It is rather difficult to fall asleep when your face and ear and eye are on fire.  This time, it was the left side.  In fact, as I type right now, sitting here in public, half of my face and my eye and my ear are deep cherry red.

I feel like a freak when this happens.

Oh!  Look!!  Speak and it happens.  Seven minutes later, the Highlander is back with the mechanic!  Yay!

But ... oh! the wait I have.

One of the things that I like here at GoodYear is that the manger is whom I am comfortable with in being here.  It used to be a particular service man.  But he retired this summer.  I practically had a heart attack knowing that I no longer can work with him.  He was so very lovely.

You see, I first came here when I was weeping all the time.  All.  The.  Time.  He didn't bat an eyelash when I sobbed my way through my first appointment and the second and so on and so forth.  At some point, I realized that, in all the things that were happening as my life fell apart when I started remembering some of the abuse, I had stopped taking care of my beloved Highlander.

It was grossly overdue for service ... as in five years.  The good part was that for that past year, at that point, I was no longer driving it daily.  I average less than a thousand miles a year now.  Still, the Highlander was a mess.

There I was, sobbing my way through buying tires, when I had that realization.  He assured me that everything would be okay and made an appointment for the next week to do the manufacturer recommended service, as well as whatever they found that the vehicle needed.  Boy, when I drove home that day, it was like driving a new vehicle!

What I also like best about GoodYear is that they never try to up-sell me.  In fact, I have been waiting for the news that I need belts and hoses, since mine are the original ones.  My beloved Highlander is so very old, but they always thoroughly check the belts and hoses and will not replace them until they are actually needed.  I mean, if I insisted they would, but they would also try very hard to talk me out of it.  And no matter how many times I ask them about the belts and hoses, they always check them.

One time, a couple of years ago, the manger said he would have a second guy, since he was new to this place, look at them just for a second opinion.  That guy said they were just peachy.  Okay, not peachy, but you know what I mean.

So, when Jim retired, Jim whose name is the same as my father's, I melted down in the panic of how I was going to get my beloved Highlander serviced, since my vehicle anxiety is rather high.  August, the manager, stepped in and said that he would take care of me.

For my appointment this summer, my annual oil change, he came in to help me even though it was his day off.  He answers my 1,001 questions.  And he went through the entire service history since I started coming here and my vehicle booklet so that he could outline the things that were coming long-term.  I had known about the timing belt for a couple of years now.  He said that 15 years would be his red line if the vehicle was his.  I agreed.

You see, I just don't drive much.  So, it is difficult to look at mileage-related maintenance.  All the other maintenance can be visually checked.  But, with the timing belt, once you take an engine apart to check it, you might as well change it.

The timing belt should be changed at 90,000 on my Highlander.  I am just over 81,000 miles.  It would be another nine years before I get there.  But a 15-year-old timing belt is pushing it.

Eons ago, back in the dark ages, my mother's timing belt broke.  It severely damaged the engine. I may know rather little about vehicle maintenance, but I do know about the importance of the timing belt.

So, here we are.
Waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.

It is now 10:50.  The mechanic has had my Highlander for 20 minutes.  I am weary and ready to go.  SIGH.  But my realtor is coming by to fetch me for lunch at noon.  That way, I will at least have a small break from the waiting and waiting and waiting.

The problem with all this waiting is that I have more time to think, given that I am not lulled in to languidness by being curled up with my beloved Fluffernutter.  Or streaming.  Or napping.  It is difficult to do much else but thinking whilst sitting at a car repair place for hours on end.  And I am not really in a position to face much thinking right now.

• I am still struggling with what happened with the asthma attack.  
• I am utterly and completely overwhelmed over the news about my lungs: 1) that we need to shift treatment expectations from getting better to not getting worse AND 2) that we are at the point where we have to weigh the dangers of treatment with the dangers of my symptoms.  
• I am aghast at the thought that the shocking in my hands could be nerve compression in my neck needing surgery.  And I am not looking forward to the neurological testing that I am having in January.  And I am angry at not being able to have a cervical MRI since that is what is needed to determine what really is going on ... an MS lesion, a tumor, compression, or something else.  Right now, both the neurologist and the neurosurgeon have to work with one hand tied behind their backs. 
• I am despairing over the report on my eyes and having yet another problem with them.
• I am despairing over my teeth, especially the cost of them, but also the thought of losing them all so soon.  Each night, as I do the fluoride tray treatment, I wonder and worry and financially fret.  It is not that I am dreading the next x-rays at the end of February, it is that I have abject fear over them.  If all six troubled teeth need to be filled, I cannot see how I can do that.  How can I keep up with the rate of 10 teeth having issues over the course of a single year?
• I am overwhelmed by how much Sjogren's is ravaging my body and making affording medical care even harder.  I dread doctor appointments, given that I have to explain that I only have so much money and I cannot do everything asked of me or take everything prescribed to me.  I do like that I now have a phrase to use (focus on things that will affect management of care), but I still have to explain and decline things.
• I am overwhelmed at how easily triggered my PTSD can get these days, since things are being tossed and turned over in therapy.  I do not like my triggered self.  I am ashamed of her.
• I struggle with the things I am realizing about myself related to sexual abuse, all the lies I have incorporated into my world view and core self and how much that has affected every relationship that I have.
• I am despairing and terrified over the cognitive dysfunction that I am facing.  That I have messed up appointments four times in the past two months is devastating to me.  Struggling to find words.  The times I am faced with how much I do not remember.  Just the other day I learned that I have forgotten some very important information about my dear, dear friend Mary.  I do not know how she bears a friendship with someone who remembers so little about about her and about our friendship.  

I am grieving over the losses.
I am terrified over what is happening to me.
And I am weary beyond words.

So, really, waiting most of the day at a car repair place, even one as safe to me as GoodYear is, is the last thing that I want to do.