I
don’t remember what we did for New Year’s Eve.
My leg was hurting and my brain was so hazy with painkillers, that I
remember very little of the days after the accident. I think we watched the ball drop at Times
Square and we drank a toast to 2012, but the exact chain of events is
debatable.
I was
so knocked out by the painkillers that I spent the remaining days of Margaret
and Kenneth’s visit in the bed reading, sleeping, or playing games on the Nook
I had purchased with a special employee discount prior to the holidays. The knee immobilizer made sleeping difficult,
as I could not turn over easily. And
walking with the crutches meant that I just shuffled, as I could not put any
weight on my left leg.
Margaret
and Kenneth left on New Year’s Day so they could both be back for school and
the store. It was a long drive, but they
made it in record time as the traffic was light. I was still confined to bed or the sofa, so
the days went by very slowly. By the
time I saw the doctor on January 6th, the pain had lessened, but the
knee immobilizer still made sleeping difficult.
At least Dr. Leighton adjusted the immobilizer for a better fit and
adjusted the crutches so that I could actually use them. He suggested that I keep putting some weight on
the leg, but to keep the leg straight. So
far, it had not been an auspicious beginning to the New Year.
Kept
out of work because I was unable stand for any length of time, I began to work
on various projects at home. Soon I
began to hear all sorts of banging on the edge of the hotel parking lot just
beyond our patio door. It looked like a
lot of stakes were being driven into the ground. Even with binoculars I could not tell what
was being built. After a platform was
placed on the stakes, metal struts and white cloth were added to make it a
large tent structure. It finally hit me
that it was something to do with the Honda Classic golf tournament, as it was
scheduled to be the last week in February.
After
my second visit with Dr. Leighton, he said I could start putting weight on my
leg, but still had to keep in straight.
I could drive if necessary, but I could not bend the knee. I had an automatic, so driving with my right
leg would not be a problem. The only
problem seemed to be getting into the car – I had to let the seat back as far
as possible, get my leg into the car without bending it, then move the seat forward
until my right foot could reach the gas pedal.
It is a good thing I did not have any incidents where I would have had to
exit the car quickly because I would not have made it.
Being stuck at the apartment meant that I could start
working on writing a history of the Arts Study Club, Horton’s Books &
Gifts, and Mary Malinda the ghost.
Reviewing all of those CDs and files from jump drives was
time-consuming, but the results were worth it.
There were ads from Horton’s for many years, stories about my family and
its part in Carrollton history, and information about the folks in our CHS
Class of 1966. I started working on
posting items on the store Facebook page as well as looking at what we could do
with the calendar of events on the Website.
In between all my work on the CDs and other files, I had
to visit Dr. Leighton again and then begin my physical therapy. For three days, I did leg lefts, rolled on a
big rubber ball, and worked on getting my knee back in shape. I even had homework – exercises to keep my
knee flexible. In addition, I was to
walk every day, so I would set out each morning to walk around the lake and
tennis courts, passing the ever-growing Honda Pavilion on my path.
After being off of work for a month, I went back to work
the week of the Honda Classic. Every day
we had to make certain that our parking passes were in the car, and that the
policeman at the entrance to our apartments was able to see it when we would go into the area. ABC news bought all the copies of the Palm Beach Post the first day of the
tournament, and several people came in that were connected with the event. As we were not able to get tickets, we sat at
home on Saturday and Sunday to watch the action as it took place just outside
our apartment. It was great fun.
In early April, it was time to travel home to Carrollton
to visit the Ann Fazio, our tax accountant.
I had hoped to also see Chris about the website and other computer
concerns, but all of my days were spent trying to get all the tax stuff
together. I did manage to make it to
the Art Study Club meeting where I gave a short report explaining what I was doing
with the newspaper scans and asked for contributions of books and other items
relating to the club so that we could donate the items to our collection at the
West Georgia Regional Library.
Once we had taken all of our tax “stuff” to Ann, we were
able take some time off to visit the Carlos Museum at Emory. It had been a while since we had visited
there, so it was nice to just wander around the exhibits and then check out the
bookstore. After visiting the museum, we
stopped by Atlanta Vintage Books were I found some copies of the “Little
Colonel” books and then Eagle Eye Books where we were able to talk with the
owner’s son. Our next stop was the
nearby Indian restaurant where we had delicious curry and other Indian delicacies.
That Sunday, David and I drove back to Palm Beach
Gardens, this time taking the Florida Turnpike rather than I10 and I95 as we
had done on our trip home. There had been
construction in Jacksonville, hard rain, and then more construction after
Valdosta. We had managed to take a
secondary road to bypass the construction, so on our trip down we were prepared
for some construction delays. Much to
our delight, there were little delays and the turnpike cut about an hour off of
the trip. We decided that on our next
trip, we would look at the “SunPass” as a way to pay rather than to carry toll
fares with us.
David went back to work the next morning and I went to
pick up Alice from the vets where she had been boarding while we were
gone. All of us, including Alice, were
glad to be back in our little apartment.
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