They say 'Never travel faster than your angels can fly'

Like many others in the country, our health insurance premiums have sky rocketed and we can no longer afford our Cobra. But Mr. Clay still has the Veteran's to fall back on. So yesterday, Wed, we took another trip to the VA Hospital in Salt Lake, 150 miles away. We were hoping to get them to carry the oxygen order for the hubster and save us a few shekels.
We packed up the car and headed for Salt Lake City at 6am. We made great timing, the roads were clear, not 1 deer in sight as we drove the most dangerous Hwy in Utah. Mr. Clay insisted on driving the first part of the way, which is of course the most dangerous part, and I knew he would be loathe to give up the reins after we made it through the mountain pass.
1/2 way thru the pass we stopped so I could strap in his oxygen tank. I totally forgot to do that when they loaded it in the car yesterday. So I gotter strapped into the seat belt, which is not easy in the best of circumstances, but was even more fun when it was 20 degrees outside and dark still. And Mr. Clay is 'tudey' because 'I should have had this done last night and blah blah blah...' So he reaches up and switches the station on the radio after we got back on the road, and on came a Christian channel and they were playing music and telling inspiring stories on the air. Now normally he would say 'change it and find something good'...but because he's being 'tudy' with me, there is this silence between us, and I figured maybe he needed to listen to this stuff and mellow out.
We got through the mountain pass and just as I suspected, he continiued to drive on. Still listening to the Christian channel as the sun came up and we were flying down the highway! I saw the speedometer bounce out of range we were going so fast! We got to the VA an hour early, and got some details attended to beforehand and then sat........they were running late and it made for a long day exhausting day. We were drained physically and emotionally when we left. They have now ordered Hospice for my dear husband. They no longer want him making the long arduous trip and exposing himself to more cooties coming into the hosital for Dr. visits. At this point, they just want him kept comfortable. Everytime this disease takes another notch out of him, it is so emotionally draining on both of us, and we both kinda go through a stage of processing and getting used to the idea.
We were really tired by the time we got out of there at 3:30pm, AND we had promised a friend to stop and see him before we went home. Once again Mr. Clay wanted to drive, so we pulled out of the parking lot into the long driveway of the hospital and there was a big thunk! Both of us said 'what was that?' and we looked to see what we ran over? and then Mr. Clay says "I lost the steering" (on the car). He managed to get us pulled out of everyone's way into the Ambulance loading area. I went back inside to the VA and called our friend who was still waiting for us ALL DAY and told him what happened.
I could see that something was hanging under the car (maybe the drive train?) but I didn't know what it was. And Mr. Clay can't bend down anymore so he couldn't know what it was. His guess was a CV boot. All we knew was, he pulled on that steering wheel like heck to get us where we ended up and then it wouldn't budge anymore.
Our friend showed up with AAA card in hand, phoned a tow truck, called his long time mechanic, made arrangements for our car to be repaired, took us to his house, fed us and put us up after a night of reminiscing. It was good for Mr. Clay to get to visit his friends, but you could see the whole car thing was taking a toll on him and the sooner we could get home, the better.
This morning, Thurs, we got the mechanic's call that the engine had dropped off the car, onto the steering column with the motor mounts intact! What are the odds of that happening? And how insanely protected were we flying all way up there? It certainly felt like the Angels were all around us; after all their broadcast was coming though on the radio! We are so thankful that it didn't happen while we were on the freeway busy breaking the sound barrier.
We are home now at last after a repair, but I can see we now need to save our pennies up for a new car. So that's how my last two days went...

Until next time,
XOXOXOXOX and never travel faster than your Angels can fly :)

Cindi