Accidents happen, life moves on.

It was Father’s Day and a beautiful day it was too.  I was just settling down to watch the final round of the US Open (a Father’s Day tradition for me) when my cell phone rang.  It was Marilyn, obviously shaken up telling me she had just been in an accident two blocks away.  I ran for my truck.

When I arrived I found a much shaken woman with no apparent life threatening injury.  Thank God!  A young girl driving an SUV loaded with tires of all things; nevertheless a very heavy vehicle had turned left right into Marilyn’s car as she crossed the intersection.  Marilyn’s car lost the battle and was dragged clean out of the intersection.  Both vehicles had pulled to the curb and the police had just arrived.

It took about 45 minutes for the police officer to take information for his report.  When he asked Marilyn to fill out a basic information form we realized that her hand had been injured a little more severely than we initially thought.  I had to fill out the form and sign it for her (this was to become a recurring theme).  The officer indicated that the other party was obviously at fault and asked me to pull Marilyn’s car around the corner into a subdivision which I did.  He then asked if we wanted him to call an ambulance which we declined.  I would drive her to the emergency room myself.

When we got to the emergency room we realized there would be a little bit of a wait, even on Sunday morning and since we thought that only her hand was the issue, we decided that I would leave her there and go try to salvage the car load of groceries that were starting to bake in the 105 degree temperature.  While I was doing this, Marilyn called our insurance company, reported the accident and arranged for a truck to tow her car.  Back to the vehicle for me and the tow truck driver advised me to empty the car of all personal belongings which I did.  The car was obviously totaled.

At the hospital I found Marilyn with a large bandage on her hand waiting to be discharged.  The physician explained that her hand had indeed been broken and advised us to see a hand surgeon as soon as possible.  After another half hour wait we were on our way to the pharmacy for medication and home.  Marilyn seemed to still be in shock so we made her comfortable in a recliner and she took a nap.  I of course, took a dip in the pool and watched the final couple of holes of the US Open; don’t remember who won though.

Later, our girls came over for dinner as was our Sunday night tradition.  We joked with Marilyn a bit because she seemed a little out of it which we all thought was due to the pain medication she was taking.  The girls left early and we settled down for what was an uncomfortable night.

The next morning, Monday, Marilyn was in a lot of pain up and down her back, especially in the neck area and her hand ached considerably.  Before dealing with anything else we took her to her physical therapist.  After about 30 minutes he told us both that Marilyn was going to be very stiff and sore because she was suffering from a bad whiplash injury and her neck was really out of alignment, he encouraged us to get her to a chiropractor as soon as possible.

Back home we dove into a whirlwind of phone calls to work, the insurance company, the tow yard, the chiropractor’s office, finding a hand surgeon and by early afternoon we were fielding calls from Marilyn’s office, clients and a bevy of concerned friends. 

That afternoon we made an appointment with a hand surgeon for the following day (apparently a hand injury should be addressed as soon as possible) and made arrangements for Marilyn’s business calls to be handled by her office manager who would then contact me if necessary.  Many wonderful friends wished to drop by and bring food for us which was both good and bad.  The food was appreciated but Marilyn was in no condition to receive many visitors, she simply needed to rest so we arranged to funnel all calls and food through a good friend who would schedule and limit the visits.  Thanks Herme!

The insurance company calls and questions were becoming difficult to deal with and we were receiving what we believed to be irrational requests; it was time to hire an attorney to deal with this.  We were becoming overwhelmed.  The attorney we were referred to arranged to meet us on Thursday but in the meantime suggested a physician to manage the case.  We saw him late Monday afternoon.  From the physician’s office we went directly to the imaging center for a complete set of back and neck X-Rays and to the hospital to pick up her hand X-Rays.  Whew!  We returned home to a wonderful meal prepared by one of Marilyn’s friends and tried to relax.

Tuesday began with more physical therapy and a trip to the hand surgeon’s office.  I had an engagement that couldn’t be broken that day so our friend Brit drove Marilyn to her appointment where she filled out all of the paperwork (thanks Brit!).  The surgeon spelled out the choices and it was decided that Marilyn would have surgery in order to save as much use and capability in her hand as possible.  The surgery, to rebuild the shattered knuckle at the base of her index finger and hold it together with 4 pins was scheduled for Friday.

We did find time for an hour with the chiropractor Tuesday afternoon (more forms for me to fill out and sign on Marilyn’s behalf) who took the time to discuss the ramifications of whiplash.  As it turns out, the brain is concussed during a severe whiplash injury and doesn’t process information as quickly or as well for a couple of weeks and the chiropractor strongly recommended that Marilyn make no important decisions for at least week or two.  She also informed us that Marilyn’s short term memory would probably be pretty lousy for the same time period, which meant that I needed to be the one listening to instructions. 

Thus began a seemingly endless series of trips to the chiropractor, physical therapy, the surgeon’s office, the case management physician and the lawyer.  Marilyn couldn’t work and was on short term disability, living on pain drugs and anti-inflammatories.

For 6 weeks Marilyn pretty much stayed on the couch and slept, if she wasn’t with a doctor of some kind or a physical therapist.  Rehab for the back and neck were ongoing two or three days a week and then after the hand surgery, rehab for the hand was needed three times a week.

Our daughters were wonderful and my clients were patient since my travel schedule was completely disrupted.

We cannot begin to explain the value of having a qualityattorney to assist us through this time.  He allowed us to focus on Marilyn’s health and try to straighten out our suddenly disrupted lives.  We did not have to take one more phone call from an insurance company!

It was the middle of July before we knew it and we were unsure just how badly our Peace Corps timetable had been interrupted.  There was some good news however:  Frannie and Nathan, two of our friends from the TEFL training class were going to come and visit us in August!

Getting on track...

We were on track, for the time being.  Seemed like there was no end of things to do; setting up paperless statements, taxes, scanning records, scanning photos, scanning, scanning…….

After all the scanning there was shredding, and shredding…you get the point.  We killed at least one shredder and our printer/scanner would never be the same but that was okay, we didn’t care; it wasn’t going with us.

About this time our youngest daughter and her roommate began to talk about traveling abroad and taking a TEFL course like we did.  Their destination; Istanbul wow!  Our original thought was that this was a little bit exotic for two young girls on their first trip abroad but who were we to judge; after all, we’re nuts right?

A funny thing was beginning to happen to us as we slowly began emptying out all those custom made storage cabinets in the garage and shredded our paper files; we were closing doors on many old, no longer relevant parts of our lives.  Yes, there was some laughter and some teary eyes as we found pictures, letters and items with memories of people and events from long ago.  It was pretty good therapy actually.

We also started making a special effort to spend more time together, you know, just to see how that might work.  How the hell were we going to do that?  Well, this may sound corny but we started with “date night” where at least once a week we would go out together, have dinner and a couple of drinks and simply talk.  This gave us time to plan our now complicated lives and to simply listen to the other which was something we found we had stopped doing.  Pretty quickly, we began having date night a lot more often than once a week.

We were really out of shape and were working our rusty old bodies out for an hour or two, at least twice a week and probably would have injured ourselves if we hadn’t had a physical therapist designing our program.  The problem is that by the time you are fifty, if you haven’t maintained a regular exercise program, your body has had time to degenerate and injuries both small and large have accumulated, so care must be taken to strengthen all areas, slowly in order to avoid injury.

Marilyn started wrapping up service on all the Boards and Commissions she was involved with, letting them know that she would not be available to serve in the following year.   Projects that needed special attention required some hand off and she found people to work with her, so that they would be able to carry on without her into the future.   Wonderful people stepped up and most of the big projects that are very close to her heart (see links below) were taken over by competent, caring individuals, who will undoubtedly continue them successfully.  She also had a built in network of professionals that she could hand off any client that had unfinished business to, when the time came.

The Turnbow Foundation
Ms. Senior Arizona Pageant
The Cameo Ball
The Cameo Foundation
Save The Family
Butterfly House
Tempe Chamber of Commerce

Mike’s partner of several years and he ended their partnership in the spring, not over any disagreements but due to the fact that we were planning to be abroad for an indefinite time period.  We were starting to investigate things we could do to earn money abroad that would help us stretch our savings and were encouraged by what we found.  Writing, proofreading, photography and many other things in addition to teaching English were all things we could do anywhere we found ourselves, provided we had access to the internet.   We both still had to maintain our existing clients while investigating these alternatives and otherwise preparing our lives.  We were busy!

It was a beautiful Sunday morning on Father’s Day and I had no plans to play golf.  Marilyn was running a few errands and I settled down to watch the final round of the US Open golf tournament, my usual Father’s Day thing.

Then my cell phone rang and I answered to the sound of my wife’s sobbing and shaken voice……”I’ve had an accident.”

The other eye and other delays.

The New Year brought good news, bad news and news; well we were unsure how to classify some of it.

The Peace Corps informed us that there was no hurry to complete our medical evaluations because, due to budget problems in Washington DC, they weren’t going to send any volunteers in the second half of the year.  It would be at least a year before we would be called to serve so we had some time for my eyes to recover.  This also meant that we didn’t have to rush to put our house on the market in the spring. 

Most importantly, I couldn’t see in one eye and that had to be dealt with.  On January 4^th we returned to my ophthalmologist’s office for another biweekly visit; only this time it was different.  The doctor, with Marilyn watching, had his assistant hold my head against a padded bracket and proceeded, by hand, to poke a needle into my eye repeatedly.  Even though we had discussed the possibility of my needing this procedure; it was still a little bit of a shock.

By my next visit to the doctor I was seeing better if having double vision can be called “seeing better”.  We didn’t know it then but my eye was finally on the way to recovery and it continued to improve throughout the month of January.

At this time we were still evaluating whether to sell our house or simply rent it out.  We were looking at the possibility of purchasing rental properties and were seriously considering traveling to Nicaragua to look at investing in a small casita in a golf course development on the Pacific coast.  A positive aspect to these possibilities was that we would always have a place to live and a place in which to store some of our remaining stuff.  Obviously, we hadn’t quite yet let go of the little house on the golf course retirement concept and were still planning to keep some of our “stuff”.

We had been working diligently to convert our banking, insurance, tax filing, credit cards and other bills to be completely electronic.  Believe it or not; it can be rather difficult to go completely “paperless” with the insurance and investment community being the hardest cases.  We looked at the rows of filing cabinets in our garage containing past financial records, client information, research, writing and 50 years of photographs and realized that we had an incredibly large scanning and shredding project in front of us.  Thus, began a very long project that, at times, we were unsure if we would ever finish.

We had been reading periodicals such as International Living, Live and Invest Overseas, and The Overseas Retirement Letter  which had sparked our interest in a variety of places that we might want to visit or even live for a period of time.  Places such as Spain, France, Italy, Thailand, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Columbia and Uruguay were touted as having a high quality of life while remaining reasonably inexpensive.  These countries, and others, reportedly welcomed expats and some even had straightforward visa, residency, banking, tax and importation regulations for those wishing to live, invest or retire there.  The idea of traveling extensively after serving in the Peace Corps was starting to take hold.

By early February I could see 20/15 in my problem eye and it was time to turn our attention to the other one.  The procedure this time would be different and it was expected that it would take 3 to 6 months for my eye to heal completely and achieve the best possible vision.  The procedure went as expected and once again, for several weeks, I could only see well through one eye; the other one now but other than readers, no more glasses!

My golf game was in tatters, I was 15 pounds heavier and in terrible physical condition and my old back problem was beginning to resurface after spending 3 months doing nothing but sitting on the couch while I couldn’t see well enough to do anything.  I needed to get back to work immediately because several of my clients were experiencing significant difficulties.  This meant a lot of travel and stress. 

About this time I had a conversation with my friend and physical therapist Widd Workman at Diamondback Physical Therapy.  Widd had worked with me to rehab my shoulder after rotator cuff surgery and I had been very pleased with the results.  Widd developed program for me to strengthen my back, legs and core and I started to put my poor old, neglected, out of shape body back to work.