Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Survived!

We are back, with only a few bumps. I'm sure we are still a topic of "conversation," but then I knew that would be true regardless of how the trip went. I thought it went as well as possible!

We finally got to her facility about 4. G had called ahead to tell her we were about 30 minutes away. I was sort of hoping she would be downstairs waiting, but I should have known better. We stopped across the parking lot to let Simone out for a short walk. That is when I got into the back seat. I gathered all my belongings around me, and I put Shadow into the front seat. It was a good thing because I found Simone isn't a good travel companion. She wants 2/3 of the seat - and from the middle!!

Over the 42 years G and I have been together, I have adjusted to the fact that he doesn't talk when we travel. I always have my book, and it is just normal. MIL - I don't know. She likes to talk - usually about nothing, but she likes to talk. It was a rather quiet 2 1/2 hours. She probably didn't like that at all.

But I am getting ahead of myself! We had to get her into the truck. G was smart in that he brought a cinder block. I didn't think that would do it, but after about 5 minutes of wrangling - she was in. He did a lot of pushing because she couldn't/wouldn't use the hand bar (sometimes referred to as the "Oh, sh*t bar) to help pull herself in.

Getting her out was about as bad as getting her in! First, she couldn't open the door. She proceeded to call her daughter to the truck like a dog!! Here "daughter," here "daughter." I almost laughed out loud.

We then trundled on to our house. Son and DIL had a wonderful dinner for us. It was a delightful evening.

We got to the reunion the next morning. It was nice. After about an hour, SIL and MIL arrived. They came to where we were sitting. MIL was going to sit but she would just flutter around the chair. Son kept trying to help, and she would flutter again. But it also went well.

At the end, there was a little light (heavenly) rain. SIL has a truck that sits every bit as high as ours, but no running board. She had to use her porch to get her mother in. There was nothing in sight to get her in. SIL never thought about loading her mother again, and we were in Son's Expedition which was full of bodies!

They kept trying to hoist MIL into the truck to no avail. I finally suggested getting the truck closer to a curb to add a few inches. I think Son had to finally pick up his grandmother to get her into that vehicle.

Large vehicles like we all have are in order for that area. The land is rough. It is semi-desert. It is rocky. You have to have high clearance vehicles. It all added to being a situation that was difficult for mobility hampered people not being able to get into those vehicles.

But we all survived. All are back home and into normal lives - sort of.

1 comment:

Judy said...

I have a mental picture of trying to hoist this woman into a truck that has those really big wheels on it and you have to use a hoist hooked up to a crane to get her up into it and then...she wants out because she has to use the bathroom, but SIL tells her to shut up and drives off.