I was delighted to learn I would be
leaving the hospital and after the fact glad I didn’t know ahead of time what a
chore it would be. The girls had stayed on the boat for all activities for the
two days I was hospitalized. Their mother, my daughter, stayed in a nearby
hotel, stayed days with me, brought me food and did all the things for me that
I could not do myself. Someone, probably an aide took my BP early in the
morning and without exaggeration that was about the extent of my nursing care.
I
left the hospital at 7:00 AM by ambulance with a doctor for the 45-minute ride
across the island as the ferry was on the opposite side. My older granddaughter
rode with me in the ambulance while my daughter and other granddaughter
followed in a cab with the luggage. On arrival at the pier I transferred from
the gurney to a wheelchair. The ferry landing was a mob scene of people waiting
to board the ferry. All luggage was thrown up on the roof of the ferry. When
all was said and done I was stunned to learn I in my wheelchair was to be
lifted up onto the roof along with all the luggage for the channel crossing!
The doc stuck with me and my chair. My three girls were below inside the ferry
listening all the while to the cab driver muttering, “I hope my friend is there
with his truck.” Shades of what was to
come!
Arriving at the Baltra landing I realized
the tide was out as I looked up a good
two feet across a space of at least a
foot----boats never hug a pier as there is at least a bumper between the boat
and pier. Helpless with a bulky cast on my leg I’m wondering just how I’m going
to get up onto that landing. My daughter watched from land, praying, please don’t drop her, as 4-5 men picked
me up and over to terra firma.
In Baltra I had noted the lovely small
open-air airport terminal of old was gone, replaced with a new modern facility.
The old school bus that transported one
from the airport to the harbor was also gone replaced with a big modern tour bus which seemed like overkill as it was
at best a mile or so to the harbor. My problem was that there were two nice
steps up into the bus and one legged me
was never going to conquer them. However
my farm truck was waiting right behind that nice new bus. Up onto the bed of
the truck I and all our luggage plus my younger granddaughter –and the
doc—went. The duffle bags served as an extra wheelchair break as we rode over
the switchback paved road through desert landscape to the terminal.
In the terminal is where the doc was
useful, He knew the layout, maneuvered the various twists and turns straight to
the airport MD office and was able to communicate with him. After a BP and temp
check I had the papers needed to travel. We traveled Avianca Air (Columbian) to
and from the islands. With foreign airlines one never knows quite what to
expect and we already knew how rude and blaise the crew was.
Baltra’s airport has no ramps so one
deplanes via steps directly onto the tarmac. I had visions of sitting on the
steps and inching myself up backwards to the plane’s doorway. But I was denied
that exercise when a fellow grabbed the handles of my chair while two others
grasped the front wheel bar and carried me up the steps. They obviously had a
lot experience with that little maneuver.
Because I wanted an early morning flight
we had a long layover in Quito—but we were one step closer to home. On the way to the Quito airport a few days
earlier both my daughter and I spied a
Wyndham hotel very close to the airport. She had the foresight when changing
plane reservations to call them and reserve a day room for the layover. It was
only minutes after a call
to
the hotel before a new high-end van arrived. The two steps up into the van
left everyone scratching their head.
Before long the youngest of us asked the driver to open the hatchback. After
consulting with me we decided I could slide from the chair into the luggage
hold. With some pidgin Spanish and charades she conveyed this to the driver.
The other granddaughter grabbed her new blanket she’d bought at the market and
soon I was as comfortable as can be.
Arriving at the hotel the bellboys rushed
to open the hatch to unload luggage. U can imagine their dismay when they
opened up and saw this elderly lady sitting there with a cast on her leg, a
smile on her face waving while saying, “Hola!”
This van scenario was repeated a few hours
later to get back to the airport. We arrived at ABIA 27 hours after we started
and headed directly to our local ER.
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