(no subject)

[rivka]

I still feel like crying today. I don't know why. Michael is clearly non-brain-damaged this morning, although horribly sore and stiff. No more portions of the house fell in overnight. But I feel all emotional and weak-kneed.

Also, this morning I was thinking: we have a big three-story house. There are only four of us. What are the odds that, at the precise moment that a portion of the ceiling fell in, one of us would just happen to be underneath that exact portion? They've got to be astronomical.

Comments

[eeyorerin]

I'd imagine that if you had to put off being upset yesterday to deal with things, that the upset might come calling today to settle the account. But that's how it works for me, not everybody.

And yeah, it's pretty darn unlikely that what happened, happened, isn't it?

[txanne.livejournal.com]

That's how it works for me, too. The worse the stress, the bigger the backlash--it's like I use up a week's worth of Being A Grownup at once, and then I'm five until my grownupness regenerates.

[ailbhe]

You held it together really quite *hard* yesterday. That on top of the stress of the event itself, and the ongoing worry, is almost bound to have a cost.

It is pretty unlikely, yes - mostly when you see things like this it's all about the near-misses, I've rarely heard of anyone being actually hit unless they were asleep in bed at the time.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

It's perfectly normal to be super-emotional when you've just gone through a wild emotional event like that. The energy takes a good long time to dissipate, and the physical reactions stick around for a longish time, and it's easy to keep getting hit by "but what if?"

And yes, it was a crazy high odds, though that suggests that there might have been some way in which it was on the edge and Michael's weight or movement ended up triggering it. I'm hoping they can find something wrong and verify that the remainder of the house doesn't have that problem.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it was just a structural weak spot (it appears that the bay windows on floors 2 & 3 were added on, as the laths in the ceiling have a very definite "these start here, and those start there" pattern, where they are attached to different joists), and us using the third-floor bedroom right above that spot added vibration and variable loading to it. That combination put a lot more small flexing on the plaster, and I had the misfortune to be under it at just the wrong moment. It had definitely already started cracking -- I had noticed the crack propagating a while back, but I never could pin down just how much it was moving. I found a fair bit of plaster dust underneath the spot when I came down yesterday morning. I wasn't doing anything that could have triggered it directly, as I was just checking my email. I wasn't happy about the performance of my fantasy baseball squad, but that displeasure isn't what you'd call tangible.

I hadn't realized the plaster could fall; I expected it to be just a cosmetic issue. I know better now, though. :)

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well... I dunno, that's 25 people you could be upset about, that *could* get pretty heavy... oh, never mind, I'm just blowing smoke about that. I guess, yeah, just trying to explain away the results. "Maybe if the floorboards touched against one of the studs, which connected to that particular joist"... or, maybe it was just hideously bad luck.

(I'm tempted to make some wisecrack about cosmetic issues, but it's probably still too early. Just accept my earnest good wishes for rapid healing.)

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking adrenaline let-down, myself, based on how I've felt after Dale has been hurt, and how I used to feel when he had a seizure, until I got used to them.

I think that I can't really calculate the odds of Michael being under the exact portion of the ceiling that collapsed. Astronomical sounds like a good approximation, though.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I'm just catching up with this now. Glad Michael's more-or-less okay and that no-one else was hurt, and I agree with everyone who's said that feeling weak and emotional today is a normal reaction to a very stressful event, especially when you had to hold it together at the time. I do that too, and it can take me several days to recover. I hope it happens quicker for you, but meanwhile, be nice to yourself.

[carbonel]

It's perfectly possible to be experiencing normal, rational, post-traumatic stress without it expanding into PTSD.

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

I think it makes a lot of sense, that now you have time to think about what happened, and worse, what could have happened, you are feeling pretty shaky. But also don't underestimate how much additional pressure you've been under lately. A single crack in the edifice of "holding it all together" might not just unleash anxiety about your house falling down on your husband, it might also let go plenty of the other stress, anxiety, worry, fatigue, anger etc. that you've worked so hard to keep in their place lately.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I feel all emotional and weak-kneed.

That happens after a tough situation like you had yesterday. It's normal.

As for the statistical odds, there are a lot of factors that would go into even a rough estimate. Y'all spend a LOT of time in that room. and that would surely factor into the calculation.

[redbird]

It makes sense to me. Yes, Michael has escaped serious injury, but you went through something very scary, and he's sort and stiff, which is going to be a reminder of it for a while.

The future

[(Anonymous)]

Please pay for a reputable independent building and/or home inspector to inspect your ENTIRE house. It's worth it if only for the peace of mind but it's an important way of ensuring your family's safety.

Best wishes!

[saoba.livejournal.com]

You are not one of the Wicked Witches of Oz- a house (or part of one) falling on a person you love is going to be upsetting.

For that matter, Michael is not one of the Wicked Witches of Oz and there is really no reason for any of you to have expected a house to fall on him. Plus plus also and you were a Brave Little Toaster in the moment but the crisis past is over and you have feelings.

Gentle loving Good Thoughts from here on the left coast.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, I only just saw this. I'm glad it was no worse. How incredibly scary.

[brainwane (from livejournal.com)]

My thoughts are with you.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

I think it is normal for the reasons mentioned above.

I also think that there is an adjustment period about mortality after you have kids. It's the realization that your KIDS are dependent on life not allowing, say, ceilings IN YOUR HOME to fall in on anyone. I had a cancer scare around when my son was 3 and I have never been so stressed about my own health because of that added dimension.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Of course you feel like crying. Being the brave one and pulling it together is *exhausting*. And I'm betting if you're like me you were working very hard not to think about a lot of things -- what if he's [insert horrible medical consequence], what if the house has to be torn down, what if more of it falls down today, blah blah blah.

I'd be shaking, once my true love and my household was out of immediate danger, and all the ghosts of What Might Have been rose up.

I wish that, right now, there were somebody else to be the grownup for you and let you sit down and shake.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"What are the odds that, at the precise moment that a portion of the ceiling fell in, one of us would just happen to be underneath that exact portion? They've got to be astronomical."

Oh, I don't know about that.

Let's make up some numbers. You have 2000 square feet of potential ceiling collapsing. It looked like about 10 square feet collapsed. There are four of you, and you're all in your house 1/2 of the time.

So that's 2000/10/4*2 = 100. One in 100. Feel free to plug in your own numbers -- and I completely ignored the complication of two people standing in the same spot -- for a more accurate answer, but it wont be astronomical.

What makes the whole event very very improbable is how often a chunk of ceiling falls down, which happens approximately never.

That being said, of course the whole idea is terrifying.

Be well.

B

[selki.livejournal.com]

I am glad that Michael is mostly ok (if temporarily horribly sore and stiff), but sorry that it was so scary and the after-effects are upsetting. It's a shocking thing to happen. Nobody expects the ceiling to come down!