Many Steps Without a Foot to Stand On

Even though our RV wreck was disastrous, it was a given that Ben and I would hit the road as soon as we were able. Not long after I left the hospital, Ben purchased a new tow car. By Christmas we had another RV. When I was told in January that I should have my leg by the end of February, we dared to hope I could be ready to travel by mid-March. So it was that we began preparations to go to Florida, just as I’d started the long process of learning to do life as an amputee.

There’s an old figure of speech that goes “so-and-so is busier than a one-armed [wall]paper hanger.” I have both arms, thank goodness and I don’t know much about hanging wall paper, but there’s a lot that keeps a one-legged senior citizen busy in everyday life, wall paper notwithstanding. I did as much as I could on one leg. Just going about my daily business was trying. Juggling random objects in my lap as I pushed myself around in my wheelchair was tricky. Unless you have the gift of Shiva’s extra arms, multitasking with a walker is impossible. I am a problem solver and I got the bright idea to get a wheeled adjustable stool to get around. A few clicks on Amazon and it arrived a couple days later. It was about the only time I was able to do work at counter height—it lowered to 18″ and raised to 30.” It had a saddle style seat, which I thought would be easier to manage. Thanks to the wheels I was able to zoom from stove to pantry, fridge or counter with a push of my foot. I could make conversation with Ben at eye level. I started cooking for us. That stool gave me a sense of normalcy…but…no one, absolutely no one thought my wheelie saddle was a good idea. I was told repeatedly that I going to break my fool neck. The home Occupational Therapist suggested it wasn’t safe to use, so of course I ignored her, and subsequently hid it when she came to visit. I also hid it from the visiting Physical Therapist, and the Home Health Nurse. The minute they left I’d drag it out in the open. Ben thought it wasn’t safe either, and said so every time I saddled up. There was no way I could hide it from him, so I ignored him. Since the accident I had been advised by every doctor, nurse and therapist to avoid falling. If any of them really knew me they would have known not to waste their breath. Anyone who has ever hiked or biked with me knows I have taken many tumbles when I had two good legs. Still, I was as careful as I could be but still had a few mishaps. I’d forget to lock my wheelchair and have it scoot out from under me and I had a few somersaults from my walker, but nothing that counted as a fall—according to my criteria, which was whether or not I displayed an obvious injury someone might notice.

When it began to look like we were going to be allowed to travel, we started readying the RV. The lead up to this departure was grueling. We started packing a month before I was due to get my leg because we were starting from scratch with this “new” RV. Some years ago I wrote about loading up our first RV. At that time I thought it was a lot of work, but it’s even more work for a one-legged senior citizen. First came cleaning—any time you move into a new place you clean, because living in other people’s crud—ew. Ben’s sister Julie pitched in to help. Lacking a leg and because of all the aforementioned reasons a walker or a wheelchair wouldn’t work, I used my trusty “wheelie saddle” to get around in the motorhome. Both Ben and Julie told me it wasn’t safe, and guess what? I ignored them. Everything went well until the end of the day. I leaned over just a little too much and the wheels kicked out from under me. I instinctively extended my nonexistent left leg to catch myself. Whammo, I landed right on the knee of my amputated leg, hard. This met all my criteria for a fall. I bashed it pretty hard, but an ice pack and a pain pill hoarded from one of my previous surgeries took care of that. I half expected my knee to turn black and blue, but thankfully it didn’t. A couple days after my tumble in the RV Ben took me to my regular checkup, and the PA asked the dreaded question—“Have you had any recent falls?” I looked at Ben with that intimate eye gaze every spouse has to communicate “keep your trap shut,” then I looked her straight in the eyes and said “nope.” I said the same thing when the OT, PT and Home Health Nurse came for their visits. “Any falls?” Nope, nope and nope. I think Ben was a little alarmed at how effortlessly I lied. So, sue me, add lying to my ever growing list of faults. The only way they’re gonna know is if they read this blog. So there. That was my one and only fall off the wheelie saddle (so far) which was a miracle.

With the cleaning out of the way, we began loading the RV. It was more complicated because Ben and our friends had to rush to empty the contents of eight years’ worth of stuff from the wrecked RV into random boxes, bags and crates to bring back to Ohio. All that was stashed in the basement and the garage, untouched for months. When we finally started loading the new RV, Ben would bring one box at a time of stuff from the basement or garage and set it in front of me. I’d go through it and tell him what to keep and what to discard. He’d put the keepers aside and when we’d gone through most of them, he schlepped them out to the RV. I’d take my wheelchair out to the RV, scoot up the steps on my backside and use my trusty wheelie saddle to put things away. There were a few times where I got exhausted and weepy, especially when Ben had to pick up the slack for what I was unable to do. “This is too hard for you, especially when I can’t help you. Let’s just stay home” I’d wail. He sat me down and held my hands. “It will do us both good to get away even if it’s only for a little while,” he said. “I need this. You need this. We need this.”

We’ve spent 8 winters at our little Florida campground, long enough that both our Amazon and Silver Scripts accounts have the campground listed as an alternate delivery address. The campground isn’t one of those glamorous RV resorts with fancy landscaping and paver parking pads. It’s more of a “Florida gravel lot fish camp with a relatively clean pool” type of joint. It’s located right on the St. Joseph Bay, where sparkling water and nightly sunsets are plenty of glamor for us. The other attraction is the group of campers who have become treasured friends, to the point where we try to get together at other times of the year. We reserved our sites for the winter last year.

After the accident, all our RV friends kept in touch. December came, and Ben hung Christmas lights in the window of the RV, though we didn’t decorate the house. As December turned to January, Ben took down the lights and started cancelling our reservations, a few weeks at a time. “Hope you can make it eventually,” friends would say, after each cancellation. When we made the announcement that we were coming, they were thrilled. With two weeks left on our campground reservations, we climbed into the RV with Chase the red poodle, the wheelie saddle and headed south, six months after our wreck. Onward!