Sunday Stroke Survival: The Wait is On

Or, should I say continuing. It seems I'm constantly waiting on something these days.

Monday, we got in the car to go to my vascular surgeon's appointment and it wouldn't start. It wouldn't have been so bad if the doctor didn't have an 24-hour in advance cancellation policy./ A missed appointment  cost me $50 and it wasn't my fault. The appointment was for a six-month scan of my right carotid artery.

It wouldn't have been so bad but we got slammed with storms from Bertha and Cristobal, and then Laura. The access road, really another driveway, washed out. Even with 4-wheel, drive it's near impossible to make it up the hill from our place to the main road. It has rained almost daily here and with each storm the drive gets worse. The owner of the land the access cuts through is hard pressed to repair it without a storm washing away his repair work.

Where I have trouble getting up the hill is the trouble spot I'm talking about. It actually looks pretty good in the video compared to now. There's no clay left on the broken pavement and the potholes I talk about have been repeatedly been filled in with broken cinder blocks and large rocks. Those bits and pieces are exposed and new bigger potholes have emerged as the water finds new ways to get down the road.

The tow truck drivers that have come to our assistance in the past have just refused to even try and that was when the drive wasn't that bad. Now, they look at us as if we're insane. "You want me to go where with my tow truck?! Uh, NO." So just how were we supposed to get our vehicle to the shop to get it fixed? We are both transplants here and didn't know anybody to call.

Mel and GEICO were working furiously to find someone. It took two days. but an angel of the last towing service in a three county area, said he'd try. He got halfway down and had to stop. He manage to get his flat bed tow truck back to level ground before he called with the bad news.

Mel's frustration turned to desperation and tears as she talked with him. Then, he said, "Wait a minute. Let me call you right back."

The dogs went nuts and tore up the driveway. Not only our two but the "community dogs" too in hot pursuit. Around the bend in our driveway came a big, burly, bear of a man. He hollered over the commotion of the six large dogs, Big and burly, but soft spoken and polite. "You were right. Passed that downhill bit it was smooth."

I called to the dogs to let him pass. Mel met him at our huge car park/turn around area by the barn.  Of course the Blazer wasn't there, it was back behind the house where Mel had dropped off 100 lbs of chicken feed. "I checked with my boss if I could come down and see if I could help," he explained. "So what's it doing?" They walked around back. If it wasn't for the virus scare, Mel would have hugged his neck and kissed his cheek. He'd walked almost 1/4 mile to get to us carrying a hefty toolbox.

After a couple of attempts to start the vehicle there was a definite gas smell, and then the the engine kicked over in a roaring start. Mel looked flabbergasted. She thought he was thinking, "Dumb females. panicking for nothing. But, he wasn't. He recounted a story of how a friend of his had a similar problem with his car. The result was a tiny pinhole leak in his fuel line. His friend almost tore his engine apart looking for it. He advised Mel with trying to start the car. It would start eventually. When she had the money, take it to the only garage in town. They had a liquid which would show where the leak was, but it wouldn't be cheap.

Mel once again suppressed the urge to hug him, but thanked him profusely. Now, we're waiting on enough days in a row for the owner of that portion of the driveway fixed. But we have remains of another slow moving hurricane passing over us with no break in sight for another week at least. So we are waiting for that.

We were able to get groceries and make it to my Botox appointment. Now, I'm just waiting for the Botox to kick in.

Nothing is impossible.