Bad luck? Again?

Song of the day: “Disturbia” by Rihanna. Perfectly fine song describe the past week.

So much has changed, and so much is going to change, that thinking of how to write all this up was a bit daunting…not so much the coming disaster thing you’re going to read about, but everything around it, the consequences; they are profound.

First off, grandpa was feeling poorly last week, again, so we took him to the doctor, who told him that his heart murmur had gotten considerably worse and that he would do a lot better to have himself admitted in hospital for two or three days so he could get checked out. Now, you know grandpa, ever since the horrors with tenant and Sally, he’s been avoiding the Spanish hospitals like the plague, and I can’t say I blame him. I’m doing the same. Apparently it is still a trauma for all of us.

Be that as it may, on the way home we talked about it, and decided that big brother was going to fly to the Netherlands with him, where he’d be able to stay with tenant and Cousin Ed, who were more than willing to play hostess to his needs in this uncertain time. So it was arranged, grandpa had to visit his doctor again in the morning, and we’d have to stock up one some things so I wouldn’t need to go out all the time while they were both gone, and we bought the tickets.

We shouldn’t have. Apparently grandpa hadn’t heard that his doctor wanted to see him the next morning again to check if he would be able to fly…he couldn’t, so we landed into quite a pickle there, with least of the problems being that it is almost impossible to get a refund for tickets at that particular airline.

But alright, no sense in lingering on done matters, we had to think of a solution, and the only one was to take the Isuzu and drive the odd 2300 km. More arranging followed, but that same evening, at around eight, we were packed and ready to go. There was some discussion about whether or not Grandpa should take his dog Ollie. It’s a tiny little thing, 13 years old, and they are both rather attached to each other. We were balancing precariously between Ollie being a reason for grandpa to “keep going”, or being a burden, but after checking with tenant and Cousin Ed, who were more than willing to provide a home for Ollie should the worst happen, Grandpa decided to take him.

We left at eight in the evening, figuring we should be able to cross Spain during the night, with as little as possible traffic. We drove straight through, all went swell, despite a small “lost” moment in the middle of a thankfully sleeping Madrid, and we made good time, reaching the border at about noon the next day. We went straight into France where we pondered taking small roads (to save a buck or two by going around the toll roads) but decided to go for speed because grandpa wasn't doing well at all. I sometimes wonder if sickness can change people’s characters, because  I had never heard him complain as much as he did during the first leg of the trip. The bed in the back of the car was a little short, the rumbling car prevented him from sleeping, sitting was too this and that, the list was endless, and admittedly it set my teeth on edge since there wasn’t anything that we could do about it.

Had just let mom know that we were making good time, and that the car was going a splendid steady 100 mp when about 40 under Bordeaux, the engine started to make a suspicious sound. Looked like our luck had run out, within moments of listening, the sound started to get worse. We were on the toll highway, meaning fast traffic, so big brother took the first turnoff so we could check what was up. First we feared no oil, but there was enough, and after adding a bit, it turned out there was still a sufficient amount in there. Cooling liquid: same. So we tried again, for about thirty seconds the engine sounded normal, but then we had to pull over on a dirt road because it got worse again.

So there we were, in a nature reserve, of all places, at least an hour's walking distance from two towns (splat in the middle) with a sick grandpa in the back, and in a country where we didn't know the language at all. Did manage to flag a couple down who spoke a few words of Spanish. The married couple offered to drive big brother to the nearest town, and then the other, but by that time I had, by some miracle reached travel assistance in Spain (and they had an English department) who had managed to figure out from my explanation where we were, more or less.

Then the waiting started, with grandpa sickly in the back, and more phone calls were made when the one promised hour turned in two, and then three until the tow truck finally found us. He listened to the engine for about 2 seconds and declared it "Kaput", so he loaded us and the car up and drove us 20 miles east to the garage he worked for.

Y'all will be happy to know that due to some sort of holiday everything was closed, naturally. We would hear the official verdict until Monday, so there was more waiting as the insurance company started to arrange for a taxi and a hotel for the night. Not that we could do anything during this time. We were waiting in this tiny little garage, pacing while grandpa looked worse for wear.

Another three hours later the taxi finally turned up, and the driver had to wait with us for another half hour before we got the information about our accomodations for the night. Not easy to find a hotel for three people and a dog at the last possible moment.

So later that night, us keeping a wary and weary eye on grandpa and 24 hours into the trip, and 36 hours awake, without more than a few cat naps, another call with the insurance company made clear that the only thing that was covered in the insurance, was the destruction of the car in France and my and my companions' return to Spain...not our destination! Aaaaaargh. And the only way to get back to Spain was by plane, which grandpa wasn't allowed to do! I lost it there for a bit.

Seriously, my brain just shorted for several minutes. There we were, halfway there, grandpa a ghost of himself, big brother and me exhausted, and no solution. Couldn't find any words. But anyway, more talk finally got us in an agreement that I would get reimbursement for whichever way we went, for the equivalent that would have brought us home...which, due to the holiday was quite a bit, thankfully, considering that if we opted (according to the insurance our best option) to go by train it would be 300 bucks a head to reach Amsterdam, some odd 200 miles from our destination. That wouldn’t do. Grandpa would not be able to handle sitting that long, and then transferring trains in Paris, which means that you have to go from one station, across town to another, by foot or really expensive taxi…with way too much luggage, and a small dog. It was a pickle.

By then I just thanked them, tried to stop thinking and conked out for 6 hours. As the final arrangement by the insurance (I am infinitely grateful to their efforts, because regardless of all the bad news...we only had basic insurance...they did save our butts) a taxi picked us up and drove us to the train station in Bordeaux where we managed to rent a "limitless mileage" rental for a whopping 900 bucks, that should (cross our fingers, knock on wood, etc) get us the rest of the way.

But seriously, we were literally exactly in the middle of the trip, almost spot on the mile. How weird is that? If I were to believe in shaite like that, I would have thought that something didn’t want us to get grandpa to a safe place.

Be that as it may, I did manage to get the rental, and by some miracle there was enough money on my credit card. Then, of course, it started to rain the moment we got in the rental, started to pour buckets by the time we were 60 miles from Poitiers, which is when the traffic jams started. Yep! We could laugh about it by then…a little anyway.

I had to do most of the driving, considering the rental was only in my name. Stupidly I didn't think to add big brother, so he could only do a couple of quiet stretches between big cities, giving me an hour's rest here and there. Didn’t manage to sleep, but honestly by then I was past the tiredness and had shot straight into wide-awake exhaustion. It kept raining, and grandpa wasn't improving. We were starting to be afraid to pull over at gas stations because every time he got out the car he looked like he was going to keel over.

Another traffic jam started about 30 miles before Paris, so rather than risk it, we swerved the long way round. Had a very short pit stop at the Mc D then for some hot "fuel", but then we went on asap. By then we were so worried we just wanted to get across the border where at least they spoke Grandpa's language, in case we had to go straight to hospital.

Rain finally stopped around midnight, near Lille, and from there we shot across the border into Belgium where I got about an hour's sleep while big brother raced the empty highways.

Arrived at our destination just before four in the morning, where we phoned emergency services, and headed for hospital where grandpa was admitted.

Thankfully we didn't end up in the ER like he would have over here, but was send straight through to cardiology, where they put him in a room, started on the questions of the symptoms and the tests. There was indeed a rather severe murmur in his heart, and liquid behind his lungs explaining his lack of breath, so we might as well head on out to the place we were staying and phone later about the results.

Didn't get to bed until 8 in the morning, and was up again an hour and a half later to get on the phone with the rental's customer service, (holiday, so there was no way to reach the office) the insurance company, and all those other pesky little details like trying (and failing) to get me an affordable ticket back to Spain, in time to get me back in time for my job. Thankfully they have been very understanding about the whole thing, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything will be okay in that corner.

Wasn't able to book anything until Thursday, so that got my panic higher, considering I had promised to be home Monday because mom and the sibs were taking care of our dogs. Called home to ask if everything was okay, and that I couldn’t find anything affordable until Thursday, but thankfully all was well at home.

Seriously, I do not know what the heck is going on lately, but luck is not on our side. Jeeez.

Which reminds me, did I mention the last time that we had two dogs in hospital (on a Sunday no less). Cousin Ed’s Niobe, had his paw ripped open by one of the other dogs, and Abacara, (remember the small golden retriever I mentioned some weeks ago that we were worried about because she was losing weight?) had a uterus infection, so they both stayed in for surgery. Had a whopping bill for that, naturally. Remember those changes I mentioned at the beginning of the blog? We’re going to have to be extremely selective in the future about what kind of procedures we can have done for the dogs and what not, because that is just something that we can’t afford anymore with grandpa gone.

Another bit of bad news that happened while we were gone with grandpa, was that little brother had to have his Labrador put down. Poor darling had a disease that caused his spinal disks to grow out of shape, until finally it got to him last week. They found him on the bed, in pain and unable to move, so there really wasn’t any choice.

But back to the trip. We spent our time at Tenant’s and cousin Ed’s, part of it prepping the pantry, by changing it into a bedroom for grandpa. Turns out he’s going to have to stay with them for quite some time while all the necessary tests are done. There is a spare bedroom, but the stairs are too hard for him at the moment, despite the medication. Luckily the pantry was pretty big, and it would give him some privacy at the back of the house at least.

He’s probably going to need open heart surgery, because two valves are leaking now, meaning that recovering is going to be a long slow road for him. Worst of it is, the way things are looking, it is a big question whether he can ever come back. He’s going to need a lot of care, and what with us “roughing it” in the wild…it won’t do, because there is just no way for us in an emergency to get him over there again. I mean, this trip, with the loss of the car, was basically all the money we managed to save with our jobs this past year, we’re about 4 inches from flat broke. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that we get some money back from the insurance. It looks grim, and unsolvable, unless there is some miracle, but thus are the facts and we will have to live with them.

We’ll have to see, I suppose, you just never know.

As to starting on solving things. Big brother and I did a lot of talking over there, while we waited for my return trip. We have looked at options, and of course there are some, but none of them are going to be easy, if for no other thing than that they will change life as we know it. We have some time to get it all sorted, and change is just that, change. It is only awful if you let it be, isn’t it? For now, I’m going to let everything go, my expectations, my hopes, and just see where life flows to, so to speak. I’m tired of all the holding on to the tiny little bits everywhere, and I have once again reached that point where I feel hollowed out, with nothing left to give.

I mean, as I sit here with our dogs (they were naturally ecstatic with my return) I can’t even really enjoy it, because at the moment they are a problem that needs solving, or else suffering lies in the future, and that is a most horrible feeling. But like I said, things are going to change. They have to. There is no other choice. The money we had saved so that we could hold out for the remainder of their years, is basically gone, grandpa’s pension, which helped a lot in this time where jobs are sparse, is out of the picture for the time being, and even though I would like to do magic, I can’t. In the end you can only do so much. But we’ll get back to this mess later on. Can’t think of it now. Too many immediate things to think about still.

My flight home was uneventful, thankfully, and mom picked me up. First past the insurance to arrange the paperwork, then home. Spent about an hour with the dogs outside on the old paddock. Just sat there and had them crawl all over me one after the other, rubbing their heads into whatever part of me they could find, until they finally settled down.

The rest of the day was a blur of exhaustion, and when I finally fell into bed, I passed out rather than slept, really. It has been an emotional roller coaster for sure.

Was up again just after seven to head to town for all the necessary arrangements. Though there was enough money on my creditcard when they checked for the rental, our insurance withdrew their monthly due a day later, and we had to buy me a tickets, so I had to deposit the money.

Next was a visit to grandpa’s GP, who thankfully agreed to write a note saying that grandpa was unfit to travel by plane, so maybe that will help to get a refund. Then I had to make an appointment for the Land Rover. Nothing serious, but the fuel gage doesn’t work, and it needs to be fixed. Then the other garage for the Isuzu, where I talked for a long time with our mechanic. He was shocked that the engine quit on us, and was outraged that the French mechanic had declared it “dead”. He’s pretty convinced that we should be able to get the car towed here through the insurance, regardless of what they’re saying. He had an insurance agent friend of his look at the contract and according him, they owe us the amount it takes to get it here.

So I’m going to visit a lawyer on Monday (I hate it, because except for the car they did help us out in our time of need) and see what comes from that. I mean, even if the engine is broken (we did push it hard, which supposedly isn’t good for old cars…and now, after everything, I do remember our mechanics warning us for that when we still pondered driving it to the UK. We were supposed to make plenty of stops to allow it to cool down. But in our fear for grandpa’s health, we forgot that.) we have time. We can wait until we can find a 2^nd hand engine on Ebay or some such place for a bargain and replace it. It’ll be cheaper than another car, and it will allow us to fix up, and sell the Land Rover after all.

Keep your fingers crossed. At the moment I think it is a matter of honor for our mechanic who took care of that car for 12 years. He’s been spending his afternoon and weekend looking into the matter and arranging for the lawyer.

We’ll see.

Anyway, all the arranging took a cozy six hours, meaning I was beat, and needed a nap so bad that I couldn't sleep a wink, of course. Hah.

Been busy making dog food, getting old bread and veggies from our usual spots, which is time consuming. Did manage to get to the gym last night, which was truly necessary. I pumped some serious iron, and kicked the heck out of the boxing bag, which soothed me considerably. Slept like a baby after that.

Which brings us to today. Finally some time to unwind, although the tension is still there just simmering under the surface. Have been out in the sunshine with the dogs, though, and they are extremely content, which is also soothing.

That’s about it, for now. I will keep you posted.