Friday was to have been a celebration, of sorts. That was my last day of cardio rehab. 35 sessions from Nov 20th± to March 14, with interruptions for Thanksgiving, Christmas, my seizure, and two trips to Massachusetts. I did not see an improvement on my weight or waistline, which I attribute to two weeks of restaurant food in Massachusetts, but the muscle tone in my legs sure is better. Since Dec. 22, Lynda’s had to do all the driving (20 miles each way) for all these, since I’m not allowed to drive due to the seizure.
Friday was a windy day. We were southbound on Interstate 49, Lynda constantly fighting the wind. At one point, she was driving in the left lane on a 3-lane stretch when a box blew out of a flatbed truck just ahead of us and a lane over. The box bounced in our path, and it seemed we could not miss hitting it. But the wind blew the box across the lane in front of us, with debris spilling out on the pavement. We missed the box but ran over the debris, whatever it was.
By the time we got to the rehab place, the low-pressure light was on. By the time I got out of rehab an hour later, the tire was flat. I called AAA. They sent a truck, but I had trouble using their online locator guide and had him going to the wrong place. We were in a huge parking lot for the hospital/dr offices building. The guy found us, actually fairly quickly, aired up the tire, and it wouldn’t hold air. So AAA sent a tow truck, which also came fairly quickly. I had them tow us to the Dodge dealership we use, which was only 3 or 4 miles away. In the process, we learned that our minivan did not have a spare tire in the place allotted for it.
The dealership mounted a new tire and had us on our way in an hour and a half, me downing two cups of coffee and one package of peanut butter crackers during the wait. Just before we pulled out of the service garage, it started raining—pouring, actually. At times, Lynda couldn’t really see the road. Then came the hail, really hard and probably grape size. We passed several churches with drive-unders, but other cars had already parked under them before us, so we kept going. By the time we got to the main road through Bentonville, the hail had stopped, and the rain tapered off to a fine mist. By the time we got back onto the Interstate, all rain had stopped. Our neighborhood was dry, as it was west of the storm line. We drove right through that line.
By this time, neither of us felt like celebrating the end of rehab. But it was 5 p.m. and we also knew neither of us would feel like preparing supper. So, as planned, we stopped at our nearest Mexican restaurant and got take-out fajitas.
As a result, I lost the entire afternoon for work, and two items on my 4-item Friday to-do list didn’t get done—still aren’t done. And neither of us even want to look at what damage we might have to the car from the hail.