Mary’s death was a big blow.  We thought all was going well.  We owned our own house, she was getting treatment for her cancer, and we thought she was getting better.  I had been at this new job of mine for over a year. all was good.

The devil knows when to strike.

Mary’s death was the tip of the iceberg.  She was recieving social security income at the time and we figured she would get her August check since she lived through most of July.  The money came into the bank and we paid our bills, including our mortgage.  Then, the government found out she was dead and took their money back before the bills cleared the bank.  Everything bounced.  Mortgage, electric, gas, cable, all of it.

We eventually covered all of those bills with Ted’s income and my own, and we got back on an even keel before September.

On September 26 I got an emergency call at work from Ted. “I fell down the stairs and now I can’t get back up.” I asked him if he broke his leg, what happened.  He didn’t really know, all ne knew was that it hurt and he was about to pass out.  I told him to call the paramedics and get help.

He called me again from the hospital telling me where he was so I could find him.  It took five hours for him to be seen.  When he was finally taken in some x-rays were taken and the nurse practitioner’s “professional” evaluation was that he had twisted his knee and dislocated his knee cap.  I had to ask why his kneecap was four inches up into his thigh then, that’s not normal.

She sought a second opinoin from a colleague and they determined he had severed his patellar tendon.  That requires surgery, so he was going to be staying for a little while.

I called around and informed everyone what had happened, and a friend ran me home that night so I could get some clean clothes, feed the animals, and get some books to read.

While I was gone they did an MRI on Ted to determine the severity of his injury.  His patellar tendon was completely severed.  Your patellar tendon is a big rubber band that holds your kneecap to your thigh muscle.  When he fell down the stairs he ripped that away from his kneecap so it slingshotted up into his thigh.

The next morning he had surgery, and nearly died.  It turns out the surgeon nicked one of those big arteries that runs through your leg, and Ted lost a lot of blood.  The hospital did not tell me about this however, we found out when a nurse told Ted about it in te recovery room.

Ted stayed in the hospital for two more days.  A friend helped me bring our bed downstairs so we could make Ted as comfortable as possible when he came home.

He was wearing a cast, and a full leg immobilizer that stopped him from bending his leg.  The cast came off shortly after he got home, and the stitches came out soon after that. He wore the immobilizer for eight weeks.

We were able to organize in home physical therapy since we can’t drive, even with that help when his immobilizer came off we were amazed to find his right leg was about 1/3 the size it had been before the accident.

I missed about three months of work to take care of him, and that made paying the bills tough.  We started missing mortgage payments, then fell behind on the gas and electric.

After I went back to work in February we were able to catch up a little bit, but the end was coming.

Ted got back on his feet and was working again, but since he is self employed the clients don’t always come as often as would have been nice.

He did however start working with someone who owns a bunch of apartments in the area, and he turned out to be a really great guy, not to mention a steady and long standing customer. 

We did pretty well for another year or so, but the payments were behind on the house, our gas got turned off when the weather got nice because we owed so much money, and we fought to keep our electricity on.  Finally in February of 2008 the mortgage company had had enough.  They started foreclosure proceedings.  With the housing market being as bad as it was at that time we were advised that most likely it would take up to a year for the foreclosure to go through so we really didn’t need to move right away.

We started selling the unnecessaries.  Having yard sales, pawning things.  Emptying the house out as much as we could because our plan was to move into an apartment when the time came.

In September we were ready to go.  We wanted to be out before the snow flew.  Ted’s client (the one who owns the apartments) said he had a place for us, and it was cheap, so we took it.

With the help of a close friend and his grandson we moved all our stuff.  We used his covered trailer which was only a ten footer, and were able to make it in only two trips.

I have not included pictures of Ted’s injury because some are quite graphic, if you would like his side of the story and some pictures please click here.