Flying from Oregon to Arkansas
Just six weeks after having a full right hip replacement, my second surgery in less than six months on my hip, I hopped onto a plane and headed to Arkansas, my Dad by my side. I was leaving behind friends and family and everything I knew as I had lived almost my entire life on the West Coast. I was scared, excited, curious and anxious all at once. I was moving to rural Arkansas to live with my father and his wife, my step-mom Carmi. I hadn’t lived with my father since I was 18 years old and prior to my accident it had been over five years since my father and I spoke.
The journey, no doubt, sprouted some new gray hairs on my Dad’s head. His traveling companion (me) was someone who was in extreme constant pain, was on a CPAP machine and oxygen, needed a wheelchair and was unable to sit for prolonged periods. To top it all off, we had first class seats next to each other and due to an error, they were trying to seat us in different areas, our luggage appeared to have been left at the first airport and when we arrived at our halfway point our shuttle driver passed our hotel to stop at a liquor store for his other patrons before doubling back to drop us off at our hotel. Once inside, there were no wheelchairs and the room was several hundred yards down the hall. Dad’s solution, he put me on the bell hop cart and wheeled me like a piece of luggage to the room. We kept the cart in our room and used it in the morning to bring me back to the entrance. That was just the first day.
The next morning, against all odds, we flew the remaining distance and landed in Little Rock, Arkansas. We were picked up by Carmi. It had been almost two months since her and my father had seen each other. When my Dad flew to Oregon to come get me, he met me in the hospital. I had just been rushed to the ER yet again just a day prior. This time, after x-rays they told me the ball of my right femur was almost completely ground off. The blood supply to the femur head had been cut off on impact from my accident and it was finally showing the effects six months after the accident. Instead of my father and I getting on a plane to head back to Arkansas I went into emergency surgery just a week later and had to wait six more weeks before I was cleared to fly. What Carmi and my Dad thought would be a week or two separation as he flew to Oregon, became almost two whole months.
