The Broken Ankle Adventure

Our trip to Atlanta finally happened on Wednesday, February 19, 2014.  We had planned the trip for the week before, but had to postpone it due to bad weather.

One of the reasons for the trip was to get Tegan Marie's wordly goods into a truck to be driven to the house in Texas.  Her wonderful neighbor Kathy Hall is a professional truck driver and was going to transport the 26' U-Haul, along with Tegan's '71  F-100 from Atlanta to our home in Wylie.  Sadly, another reason for the trip was that Tegan Marie's dear mother Dorothy is failing quickly and no longer wanting to eat or drink.

The trip started out great!  We had Execucar come pick us up at the house in a Ford Expedition and deliver us directly to the American Airlines curbside service at Dallas Fort Worth Airport.  Upon arrival, we stowed our luggage, got our boarding passes, then proceeded directly to our gate.

Right before they started boarding the plane, I decided to make a pit stop in the ladies room.  As I sauntered towards the rest room, I suddenly found myself down on the hard floor with a gentleman extending his hand down to help me up.  

I was shocked about the fall!  I work out regularly, rarely fall, and have never had a broken bone in my life! After the man helped me up, I noted that my ankle was hurting pretty badly as I hobbled into the ladies room.  As I used the restroom, I kept thinking that the pain would go away once I got on a roll walking back to the gate.

Unfortunately, my ankle had other plans!  There was no relief from the pain as I very slowly hobbled back towards the gate.  A very nice lady serving samples outside of one of the restaurants ran and got a man with a wheelchair to take me up to the gate.  He was very kind and got me there quickly.  

I got out of the wheelchair and hobbled over to where Tegan Marie was sitting.  She looked shocked to see me limping!  I told her about my fall as we started over to board the plane.

Once we got seated on the plane, our flight attendant got me some ice to put on my ankle.  We sat next to a gentleman who played a lot of sports and had experienced injuries.  He gave me a few pointers on how to keep the pain and swelling to a minimum.  My ankle ballooned out quite a bit, but I  was able to put my boot on for some compression and to be able to get off of the plane.

Our flight attendant made arrangements for a wheel chair to meet us at the plane and transport me over to the train that would take us to the rental car office.  The lady that did this was very sweet and got us on our way on the train.  

Once we got there, Tegan Marie held my arm and we shuffled a few feet towards Avis.  We didn't get too far before some of the Avis folks ran to get me a chair and a gentleman went and got our car and loaded the bags into it, which we appreciated greatly!

We drove directly to Piedmont Hospital in Henry County, where Miss Dorothy was staying.  Before we went to see her, we paid a visit to the Emergency Room to have them look at my ankle.  Here I am sitting in a wheel chair in the waiting room:

Mae in Wheelchair in ER Waiting Room

We waited for about a 1/2 an hour before they called me back to examine my ankle and take x-rays, then they put me in a bed in a room to await the results:

Mae waiting for X-Ray Results. in the ER

By that time, my ankle had become extremely swollen!

My Broken Ankle

About 45 minutes later, the doctor came into the room and told us that my ankle was broken.  He said that they would put a splint on my foot to wait for the swelling to go down until we got back to Dallas, upon which I would need to see an Orthopedic doctor to set it and put on a cast or boot.

I'm very happy to say that the staff at the Piedmont ER was very efficient, kind and professional and I was very satisfied with how they treated me there!

They released me from the ER with a pair of crutches and prescriptions for pain and inflammation.

Once we got out of the ER, we headed up to the 4th Floor to see Miss Dorothy.

We found her in her bed crying.  She seemed confused and we couldn't understand what she was saying. She had fallen out of her wheel chair at the nursing home a few weeks previously and had broken the orbital bone of her eye.  Since then she has refused to eat or drink anything. 

The only way to keep her hydrated is by intravenous fluids, which she's been receiving.  Unfortunately, the only way for her to eat now would be by feeding tube, which is not in keeping with her advanced directives. So now poor Tegan Marie is faced with ensuring that her mother's advanced directives are executed, which makes Miss Dorothy's death imminent if she doesn't start eating again. We're praying that she'll do this soon!

It's all terribly sad!  Here's a picture of Tegan Marie sitting with her mother at the hospital:

Tegan and Mrs. Dorothy

We visited a little longer and then headed to Kroger's to fill my prescriptions. 

As soon as I entered into Kroger's on my crutches a nice lady at Customer Service sent one of her people to get me a motorized cart.  What a relief it was to get off of those crutches and drive that cart around!

Mae driving motorized cart in Kroger's

Once we got my prescriptions, we quickly checked in at the hotel and then headed for some supper at the Longhorn Restaurant.  The food was great as always, but the service wasn't the best probably because the people working there wanted to go home.  After dinner we went back to the hotel, drank a glass of wine and then went to sleep.

The next morning we got up and had some breakfast at the hotel and then went to register Tegan Marie's Ford F-100 at the County Registration office.  After that we went to Manuel's Salon and got our hair done. Everybody is so nice there and they did a great job!

After that we went on a wild goose chase to find a medical equipment store.  My brief stint on crutches was enough to tell me that I didn't want them!  After driving around to 3 different stores only to find that they'd gone out of business, we finally found a store named the Mobility Warehouse only to find out that it had closed 20 minutes previous to our arrival.  I was so disappointed!  

As we stood looking in the windows, we noticed a young man looking out of an office in the back.  When he saw us, he came and opened the door to talk with us.  We ended up getting the last knee scooter that he had in stock, which he discounted $50 since it was a floor model.  What a nice guy!  I'm so happy to be off of those crutches !  Here's a picture of me on my scooter:

Mae on Knee Scooter

After we left the store, we went to see Miss Dorothy and visited for about an hour.  Then we went to supper at a Thai Restaurant and headed back to the hotel. 

Tegan Marie was upset about her mother and wanted to have a few drinks and relax, so we bought her a few olive martinis and me some wine, put on our pajamas and relaxed.  Here I am kicked back in a nice chair and ottoman in our room drinking my wine:

Mae relaxing with glass of Beringer's White Zinfandel

The next morning we got up early and headed straight over to Tegan's house to wait for the carpet people from Lowes and the HVAC contractor to arrive.  Tegan had a house fire back in 2010 which burned the carpet in her living room and hall badly.  Unfortunately, the insurance didn't pay out enough to replace the carpet, so she had to endure living with plywood sub-flooring up until she left last year.  Not only did this look unsightly, but the odor from the crawlspace underneath gave the house a terrible musty smell.  Here's Tegan sitting by the fireplace before the carpet people came to do their magic:

Tegan by Fireplace with Sub-flooring

Here's Tegan standing by the fireplace after the new carpet was installed.  That new carpet made all of the difference in the house!

Tegan Standing by the Fireplace after carpet installation

The HVAC man came and changed the filter, which also made the house smell fresher. After finishing at the house, we headed to see Miss Dorothy, who had been released from the hospital and returned to Westbury Nursing Home.  We met up there with our friend Patti Sullivan, who was kind enough to make the drive up from Ocala, Florida to help Tegan load up the moving truck since I was now out of the equation due to my broken ankle. We spent some time with Miss Dorothy and then headed to La Parilla Mexican Restaurant to have some Supper.  The restaurant was packed to the gills and we had to wait, but finally got a table.  Here's a picture of us at the table waiting for our food:

Patti, Tegan and Mae at La Parilla

After Supper, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.  The next morning we got up and ate a really nice breakfast at the hotel, then headed over to pick up the U-Haul Truck and Auto Transport that we were renting to get Tegan's wordly goods from Georgia to Texas.  Here's a picture of Tegan posing with the truck right before she drove off::

Tegan getting ready to take off!

Here's a picture of Tegan driving off with the rig to Jodeco Storage:

Tegan Driving off with the rig

We spent 6 hours at Jodeco Storage while Tegan and Patti loaded all of Tegan's thing in storage onto the truck. I wish that I could have helped, but my broken ankle made that impossible.  After they finished loading, Tegan drove the rig over to Kathy and Mike's house and Mike loaded her Ford F-100 onto the auto transport.  After that, Tegan, Patti and I headed to Ruby Tuesday's for Supper.  Here's a picture of us making a toast with our wine there before our food arrived:

Patti, Mae and Tegan Marie at Ruby Tuesday

After we finished eating, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.   The next morning we got up and ate a nice breakfast at the hotel and then headed over to Tegan's house for Tegan to get some things out of the attic and put into the U-Haul truck. We also had to get some cash for Kathy for gas and expenses on her drive to Texas.  We rushed around to two different BB&T ATMs and the were out of order, so we ended up having to get the cash in six $100 dollar increments from an ATM at a Shell gas station.  We were so rushed for time to get to the airport that we couldn't visit Miss Dorothy before we left, which was very upsetting!

We said goodbye to Patti, Mike and Kathy and rushed to the airport to drop off our rental car and then get through security.  Fortunately, we made it with plenty of time to spare so we stopped in to the Jazz Bar and had a beer and some brisket sandwiches, which were delicious and really hit the spot!  Here we are sitting at the bar there:

Tegan at the Jazz Bar

Mae at the Jazz Bar

We finished our beer and sandwiches and then got on the plane back to Dallas.  The flight was smooth and we arrived back in Dallas on time with our Execucar driver waiting for us.  We had a very comfortable ride back home. Once we got home, we unpacked and then went right to bed since I had to be up early to go to work the next morning.  

What a strange, but successful trip that was!  Never would I have imagined that I would break my ankle in the airport!  However, everything went smooth with getting Tegan's wordly goods on the road to Texas.  They should be arriving there on Tuesday.