An Adventure With Verlie

My big project for today was to accompany my mother-in-law to her appointment with an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) specialist.

Verlie is still at the rehab center, so they arranged for her transportation to the appointment.  I got to ride along.

The van we rode in has a driver's seat (of course) and the front passenger seat.  The rest of the van is designed for transporting a person in a wheelchair.  The wheelchair --with the patient sitting in it -- is lifted into the van by a special lift that is on the side of the van.  Once the wheelchair is secure in the van, the lift itself is folded up inside the van so that the door can be shut.

The lift rattles around a bit while the van is moving.  Somewhat noisy.  And if you're on the outside looking in, the patient appears to be behind bars.  (Verlie joked with the driver about taking her back to jail instead of to the rehab center.)

The van is equipped with a somewhat sarcastic GPS.  It has a computerized lady's voice, and she sometimes mocks you.  I got a kick out of her.  She tried to send us on a route that no local would have used, and the van driver went my way instead.  The GPS lady had to "think" a bit after that.  Ha ha!

The ENT office is undergoing some renovation.  Verlie's appointment ran into the late afternoon, and it was already dark outside by the time we were heading to the last phase of her appointment.  There was a big L-shaped room that we had to go through that had no working lights.  It was dark.  But fortunately there was no furniture in the room for us to bump into.  And the lights on either side of the room were working, so we could kind of see despite the L-shape.  Verlie was in the wheelchair, I was steering her, and the audiologist was with us.  We were never in any danger.  :)

Between the van ride and the dark room, Verlie and I had quite the adventure today!