So who is going to escape this prison first? Two 80 year old guys drag racing for the exit. At this age, one of us might escape by keeling over...dead! The mere excitement of the contest could kill us. I really expected to beat out Frank. I felt I was progressing well in the therapy games, while I could hear and see him struggling. We had got here about the same time, but who would leave earliest?
The way the therapist were talking, it certainly sounded like I had the inside track, but then a-sudden he seemed to be gaining on the discharge date, if nothing else. It was quickly noted that his family was going to be let in to meet with him and the social worker. They would be discussing what his care would have to be at hime.
Good golly, if he left I would be getting a new roommate, maybe another howling man! I knew he was as anxious to get free of here as I was.
The day of his family meeting came and he was antsy. Was it going to happen? The morning was slipping away and he had heard nothing. Like the clock in High Noon, that minute hand ticked ever closer to the hour and he was still in the dark. I was taken out for therapy to the gym and when came back he was gone.
He was gone awhile, but finally they brought him back to the room. The result of the meeting was he would remain for another 50 days, and then if he didn't reach some goals, he would be sent down stairs. Getting sent down stairs meant you were going into long-term care, and who knew when you would get out, if ever.
Meanwhile I had been rewarded with a walker in my room. This was a big step. I was told I should walk about in the room, not that there was much room for that. With two people, their space and the wardrobes there wasn't a lot of rambling about room. You hear the expressing, circling about like a caged tiger, well walking in our room certainly told you why the tiger circled. I still headed for the wheelchair most of the time. I could go wheel in the hallways, but I wasn't allowed to walk with the walker in the hallways, at least unattended.
Then I was told I would be going home on the coming Thursday.
Well, don't thing that didn't make me nervous. I wanted to go home. I thought Frank was going to win that race and go home on Thursday, but they formed me I was going home instead. Of course, Thursday was the 13th. Now it concerned me. I had to get discharged before anything went wrong. I mean, I could get sick or the Covid test they were going to give me on my last day could come up positive. Or dread, I could fall. If I fell they would insist on keeping me for more therapy. It was so easy to fall. I had been good at that.
On the twelfth I packed up my stuff. Frank thought I was silly. "They'll take care of that," he said. He called me a packrat.
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