Mom's hip replacement surgery was a week ago last Thursday, preceded by a day's review appointments on Wednesday, so she and Dad arrived at Tsawwassen for me to fetch on the 22nd. (Gawd - that's two weeks ago!) From that point until Sunday at 3:00, my life was all about them. They needed my help, so they got it, but whoa, this has been a huge two weeks. For all of us, I suppose. The surgery went well, I'm happy to report. Unfortunately, the rest didn't go so well.
Last week on Thursday afternoon, the transfer ambulance that was supposed to take Mom and Dad home to their mountain eyrie on Salt Spring Island picked them up 5 hours late, while I sat (literally cooling my heels, and assorted other bits) waiting to meet them in Lane 35 at the ferry terminal.
By the time we got to Salt Spring Island all the slush that had melted during the course of the day had refrozen and become black ice for the entire winding road - on which I had to keep up with that speed-demon ambulance driver - all the way into the lovely town of Ganges, which we shouldn't have reached, as the aforesaid mountain eyrie is about a mile BEFORE the lovely town of Ganges. It turned out the ambulance could manage the winding road of black ice, but couldn't make it up the hill, so they tried to deliver Mom to the local hospital. Surprise! And another surprise - there was no room there. They'd already populated all the beds in the wards as well as in the Emergency Room.
So we all slid and slud all the way back through the lovely town of Ganges to the not-exactly-home, but mercifully convenient and well-equipped (they actually had a toilet seat riser - mandatory for hip-replacement patients) Seabreeze Inne. [The Seabreeze Inne is a nice, moderately priced roadside inn with very kind and helpful staff, and I am happy to recommend the Seabreeze anytime to anyone.]
The next day, the chains I ordered in the morning were in fact there for me to pick up at 2:30, and so, even with my new manicure, I (picture it!) installed chains on my car all by myself, and drove on up the hill to suss out the situation while my parents visited with the friendly village GP. When I got to the top, I found the snowplow had plowed snow into a 4 foot ridge in front of my Dad's driveway, and then two trees - one on each side! - had dropped massive branches into that same 4 foot ridge. And the concierge, who had promised to arrange for a couple of high school brutes to clear all this snow by 3:00, had apparently forgotten her promise.
So, wearing my favorite little ankle boots and kid leather gloves, I (picture it!) shoveled an opening through the snowplow's generous, and very dirty, deposit - just wide enough for my now chain-equipped Golf to scrape, literally, between the fallen tree branches, and then I shoveled a path just wide enough for my Mom to toddle the twenty feet, with her walker, from the car to the front door of the house. But toddle she did, and so did Dad, and now they're home, happy, and back to their life.
And now I'm so stiff I can barely raise my arms, and my back, my stomach, and my butt are still sore. What do the stomach and butt have to do with shoveling? I ask you! But I’m home, happy, and back to my life.
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