Jersey Boy June 2013 | Page 99

if we wanted to be the first customer for their brand new Toyota Prius( hybrid). As they showed me what to do they were very unsure what they were saying as they had not test drove this vehicle. It was quite funny as we couldn’ t tell if the engine was running but the proof was there when I pushed the accelerator and despite the fact that there was not engine sound, it took off. It was like a golf cart as it was super quiet and once I got it onto the highway its ride was incredibly smooth and had good power. The internal screen display was dazzling that showed when it used the electric or petrol engines. After a short 1.5 hour ride we arrived at our hotel in the Gold Coast. Unfortunately, the hotel did not cater for wheel chair access and it was extremely difficult to get to and from our room. I was forced to call around to other hotels in the peak Christmas season 1 day before Christmas to see if I could find a wheel chair friendly facility. Fortunately, I did but we could not get into it for two days. Our first priority was to find a radiology facility to get an Xray of Mimi’ s knee as we had a referral from the doctor in Port Douglas. We got the Xray done and saw that there was a bone fragment in her knee that may have been caused by some very high impact Swing Dancing we did the night before we left for our vacation. This was good news to us as we now had a diagnosis. With the help of Mimi’ s sister in Perth, we were able to secure an appointment with a orthopedic surgeon soon after our return to Perth.
Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve day, we went to one of the theme parks on the Gold Coast for the day and had as much fun as you can have with one person in a wheelchair. The ride back to the hotel was great in our brand new Prius and we parked right in front of the hotel. A couple of hours later, we went to get into the car to drive out to dinner and the car would not start. We called the car rental and they sent over a mechanic who scratched his head for over an hour trying to figure it out but couldn’ t. He had never seen such a car before and was baffled. He was also very concerned as he did not want to strand us, particularly since he saw the wheelchair. The rental company could not get us another vehicle until the morning so there we were on Christmas Eve without a car. So I pushed Mimi for only about 3 / 4 mile to where all of the many restaurants were, and after a long time reviewing our choices, we decided on one and we had a great dinner. We felt so good afterwards that we returned back to the hotel the same way. The next morning, we took a taxi to Hertz and after apologizing gave us another vehicle, but not a Prius. We checked out of the hotel and went to the wheel chair friendly 5 star hotel. We booked the buffet dinner that night and had a great time although it was a little difficult navigating through the buffet line in the wheelchair. There were some other health issues over the next few days that really turned against us but we managed to get through it and back home soon after New Years. As you can see from the photos, it doesn’ t appear that we had so many health problems and it looks like we did have some fun and we actually did. The surgeon did remove the bone fragment from Mimi’ s knee and referred her to a rheumatologist that said Mimi now had rheumatoid arthritis that was causing the fluid build up.
BARRY STEVEN EPSTEIN- PhotoAutobiography DRAFT 99 of 156