Gratefulness and Hypochondria

Our furnace inspection yesterday didn't turn out exactly the way I had anticipated. I was nervous about it since our furnace is old and we've had issues with birds sneaking their way all the down into the chimney this year. Thankfully the inspection of the furnace itself went well. Sure it's old, but it's a workhorse.

It's when he got to the smoke test that the inspection ran into a snag. The chimney vent wasn't actually venting because it was clogged. The inspector got very quiet and then started talking about carbon monoxide and chimney fires and other dangerous things. He was supposed to just write up a report about the problem but he didn't feel safe leaving it as is, so he dismantled the vent and knocked out enough leaves, hay and debris from my chimney to fill a 30 gallon trash bag.

(there was also a hilarious bit where we bet each other who could make it up the stairs faster if a bat flew out of the chimney. I'm a self-professed giant chicken but he was pretty sure he'd have me beat.)

I'm incredibly grateful that we had the inspector that we had, someone who took the time to do the job right and then went above and beyond to make things safer for my family. I'm very grateful that despite the danger, we never had a chimney fire or had our furnace or hot water heater break down due to the clogs.

I'm also grateful for my families health. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, so right now I'm going over every illness and headache recently and thinking, "was that CO poisoning?" I think I'll just chalk up any minor ache and pain over the past few months to this situation. I was feeling tired? Poisoned. Irritable and confused? Sorry, it was the hot water heater. Didn't pay my bill on time? Couldn't be helped, I was being slowly killed by a bird's nest.