“WHAT’S COOKIN’?”

Precious Starts a Trend, Joe’s appointment goes Well, We Almost Didn’t Make it Home!

We decided to get an early start on our trip to the NYU Cochlear Implant Center in New York City. This would be another fine-tuning of his implant. We left close to 9:30am on a beautiful day, but it proved to be a trouble filled trip.

The first thing that happened was the fact that Precious sneaked out just before we left. We tried to stay calm and lour her in, but she was not cooperating. Our tactics finally worked and she was safely inside. Doug, Joe’s buddy, would see to it Patchy and she would be taken care of while we were gone..

Route 206, which starts at the NY State Reservoir, was closed. It was badly marked and a number of cars were parked trying to figure out what to do. We ventured into the road until we came to a trooper, who was issuing tickets. I got out of the car and walked to him. “I don’t know what to do. I do not know of another route and have no maps with me, I said.

“I will give you 10 seconds to turn around and go back. Take Route 30 to 17”, he said with authority. We did just that with the other cars following suit. When we got to the bottom of the hill we stopped and told the folks to follow us to Route 30. Route 30 was a pretty ride, but it took us way out of our way, lengthening our trip even more. We finally got to Route 17 and, in time, got to the rest stop where we had the lunch I had brought.

We got to Staten Island and parked the car in the Park & Ride and found that it was getting full. The bus ride was about an hour and a half. We arrived at the VA Hospital at about 4:30pm and got situated and relaxed. It was a beautiful day and I so wanted to go to the park nearby and relax, but Joe just wanted to stay put. The desk clerk said that there were sandwiches, beverages and dessert for us if we wanted a bite to eat. The tuna fish sandwich was good with milk and peaches for dessert. The evening brought overcast skies outside the window on the 10th floor.

I awoke at 6:30am and found it had rained and was pouring out. We were totally unprepared for this. We had umbrellas in the car, but it was in Staten Island. We went downstairs and got coffee and a bagel and sat down to contemplate what our next step would be. IT WAS POURING!! We decided we had no choice. We had to venture out. . .

Fortunately we found an abandoned umbrella, which, although badly bent helped. We walked from the VA Hospital to the Implant Center and were drenched when we arrived.

We were meet by Betsy Bromberg Joe’s audiologist.

It was getting worried about you two,” she said. It turned out that the office had us down for 9:00am and my appointment card said 10:30am. .

Betsy wasted no time. After we dried off some, we were ushered into her room.

“ You are doing very well Joe and I am going to give you a vacation. You needn’t come again until December”, she said. She went through the series of tuning and then loaded them in the spare unit as well as Joe’s regular unit. We said goodbye and then braced ourselves for the seven block trip to the bus stop. This time we hailed a cab and this driver got us there with no trouble and we were dry. The ride was very busy and about 1½ hours to the depot.

The day had taken its toll and we were anxious to get going. We got it the car and began our trip home with Joe at the wheel. I replenished our bus ticket for the next time. The rain was heavy and continued without letting up.

The rain was hindering the traffic of several lanes and we were very careful, however a state highway vehicle went off the left and a heavy black limo tried to avoid heading him and came to a stop without hitting it. We however, couldn’t stop Joe had no control of the car. We hit the limo. The driver came out and he and Joe checked the cars. The limo had a light scratch; it was not even dented.
“I have no damage. Do not worry about it. Go home and I will not call the insurance company. My car however, had considerable damage to the front end. In moments the NJ traffic police arrived. I gave him the necessary papers and he went on to the limo driver. In the meantime, the state truck and workers disappeared in the traffic. I will not know what the accident report will say. It will be mailed to me. The police did not issue tickets and called a tow truck to get us going again. All this was done in the pouring rain. The accident happened at 2:00pm.and it took till 4:00pm before we could head home in my brother Bruce’s car. WE WERE SOOO BLESSED. What if a tracter trailer was behind us and he couldn’t stop? Number 1 was an escape from near death with my appendix and this. What will # 3 be?

Thought for the Week: Be thankful and thank you GOD for his blessings, again and again.