Riding Home

This is the last post from Durham (I hope!). We expect to be driving home by midday.

You'd think we'd be experiencing pure bliss. But we are both very concerned about one particular aspect of how this three-hour ride is going to work.

I'll delicately state that we have some issues with Bill having a ten-second warning before he needs to get to a restroom, and that this happens about every half hour. And by "ten second warning" I mean "nine second warning". I simply cannot imagine how this trip is going to work, and neither can he.

He can't stand up straight. He can't walk without a walker. He can't walk alone. I can't go into men's restrooms and help him. Nine seconds of warning--even ten seconds if we're lucky--isn't enough time to find an exit.

The doctors refused to give us Imodium of any kind.

And on top of all that, the doctor is sending him home WITHOUT restitching his two-inch gap in his surgical incision, so can you imagine the cleanliness issues with THAT?

In gas station bathrooms?

The only solution I can see, and he'll never do it, and probably shouldn't, would be to give him a skirt of mine to wear so we can just pull off the highway during the nine-second warning, hike up the skirt quickly and let 'er rip on the side of the road.

Not in twenty million years will he ever agree to this plan.

Oh, one side point: the elevator broke in my hotel, expected to be out for a week. All my luggage and Bill's, down three flights of stairs by myself. What a day this is going to be.

Well, off we go. Lord, help us.

And thank you for every prayer, every thought, every minute of your life you donated to Bill's recovery while we were here. I know that we will never know how much some of you have prayed. We are both humbled, and all we can say is THANK YOU, and hope that those two words are some kind of tiny start in expressing our gratefulness and amazement.

Most of all, thank you, God.