Feb.4/12

Hello All,
   How is everyone doing this evening? I am doing well, although a little tired. We left off yesterday with me unsure of what was going to be going on for me and work. I worked for some of the summer as a sider and I also was working for a construction company. I had a few other things come up for me, but as I stated earlier, I wasn't even close to 100% and wasn't ready to be leaving town again for work. Looking back, that seemed to be my biggest obstacle where it had NEVER ever affected me before. This whole being scared of travelling anywhere alone or leaving Red Deer for work was flippity flappity stupid. Which is really easy to say; "Shawn, that's stupid that you feel that way or are feeling that way." See, I just said it and it wasn't hard at all. But to put that into motion and live by that, well, that was just a whole other thing.
   I was really trying to figure my life out and what I wanted to do. I applied at a few heavy equipment places for work, but didn't get a sniff as I don't have a class 1 license. There is a program that you can take through the government to get your class 1, but you have to have a guaranteed job waiting for you when you complete the course. I didn't have that. I still really would do something like operating heavy equipment if given the chance I think, but I do really love my job now. So I don't know. But, I digress...I really felt that I wasn't going to be able to leave RD at all. I felt trapped here but also very secure. If I never left this city again for work, that was fine with me. Now the kicker; I had to find something that was good paying. With me being down so much of the year, we had to have something good that was going to pay our bills and catch us up back out of this stupid hole.
   All savings and whatnot were pretty dry come August. I wasn't going to get a mud job and I had NO ideas as per what I wanted to do. I knew one thing and that was I wanted to be happy. With nothing else coming up and the Stateside work not looking promising, I was pretty much forced to go back to a rig. The real crappy thing about that was, that I was 38. This body has been beaten, surgically repaired, mentally challenged, concussed and unsure whether or not I could do it. Truth be told, I knew I could do it physically because I had to provide for my family. Mentally? I was really unsure and really scared. I hadn't done that kind of work for 8 years. Everybody and their dog was looking for rig hands, so I didn't have to wait long for a job to come along.
   I got hired on and was to go out as a Derrickhand in 3 or 4 days. That afternoon (sometime around the end of August) they called me and begged me to go out as a Motorman near Caroline. Sure, I said. So, I got there for 7am on a Thursday. At 8am, I blew my ankle apart. Well, I didn't blow it apart, but I shredded up some ligaments in it pretty good. The right ankle/foot hooped me. So I went on Modified Work Duty(again, for those of you who know me well) and was down and out until the middle of October. Their office was down in Calgary, so I spent the week Monday to Friday and went home for the weekends. Thankfully, I was able to stay at my parents house for those weeks. That really helped me out mentally as well as helping us out financially too. Now, I gotta admit that I was pretty anxious that day I went out to the rig for work. I was feeling REALLY anxious actually. I phoned Krystle and talked to her all the way to the rig that morning. Then after I buggered up my foot, I was supposed to drive to town with the toolpush to go to the hospital. Yeah, that didn't happen. There would have been no way in Hades that I would have made that trip without a handfull of Ativan. So what does that tell you? That I was still not doing overly well and still needed some sort of a good change.
   That change came when my Dad got home from Albania after his hitch. He was home for a few days when this families' lives changed. Thank goodness! I didn't know it yet, but things were going to get good.