#282 went to Sister Cheryl to help her recover from foot surgery

We went to Falls Lake after Thanksgiving until the 13th of December when I had agreed to be of assistance to my sister Cheryl after her foot surgery.

I figured I had the time on my hands and she needed some help. My sister Darylene helped her on the day of the surgery transitioning to being home.

My eldest sister Sheila stayed for about 1 week just to help with the essentials. She’s a career RN and knows a few things. After 1 week it was believed that I could be useful just making meals and running errands and just stuff like that. I thought since I had some time available I should jump in. I had no idea it would be such a really neat bonding experience. Cheryl is 5 years younger than me she's had a really hard time with arthritis in her feet and knees. I guess it's what they call bone on bone and it's so bad that they're going to break apart her feet sections and put metal bracing in where needed and very complicated foot surgery.

I ended up helping out and making omelets and just doing all kinds of neat things and we talked forever and it was just a really good time. India hung back at the RV entertaining Bert and did a lot of her stuff. The only real way it could work is if I lived in my sister's house full time. We laughed at it was kind of like she would ring a bell and I would come running.

It was a labor of love. We parked the RV at Oak Hollow RV park in High Point. I stayed at Cheryl's house in her guest bedroom. India stayed back with the RV and babysat a cat named Bert

I wouldn't trade that 2 weeks for anything it was great. She had borrowed a contraption from Darylene who had some knee surgeries which circulate ice water around the affected area. My job was to refill the ice bucket reservoir with a gallon of ice water. I would take her dog Charlie on walks to relieve himself. One day I said all this stuff I’m doing ought to have a job title. Then I said, there is, it's called a Butler. We laughed plenty about that, my new nickname.

On Christmas Day itself, we ended up having a nice family meal with Cheryl’s next-door neighbors. They served lasagna and tasty, wonderful food. We had the best time visiting with them.

I took my sister to various doctor's appointments and whatever need be. I also did a little work on her yard. We rented an aerator and I planted some winter rye grass seed and some fescue I hoped would sprout in spring as the rye dies off. I would not hear about the results for quite a while but it came up quite nicely and it greened up real good. Next, we would wait to see how much of the Fescue survives the winter. I thought it would come up but one of the lawn guys that came by said it tends to rot during the cold months and so I guess that was wasted seed. All the same, the rye looked great all winter.

While visiting with my sister the insurance company called and said they would give me $17,000 for the damages to the RV bridge incident. At first, I thought I could take the 17 and keep the rig that sounded pretty good.

To go this route I would have to turn it in as salvage.

If I keep the rig they would give me like 1700.

I didn't know what to do as I had believed fixing it was sort of penance for hitting the bridge.

My sister talked to me pretty extensively about maybe it would be better to let it go and look at something newer.

I thought ok Ill take the money and start shopping for something in the 17 to 20,000 range. She said what is your problem why don’t you just consider a brand new one.

I hesitated it because I have issues with, I'm not worthy or it's not right to buy new stuff or whatever. I had insisted how my RV had a custom soaking tub and you cant get that in a new one. She looked on the internet and found a new RV with a soaking tub and said so there.

We begin to entertain it and we found the most perfect rig in the whole world at camper’s world but it was about $76,000. My sister was healed good enough to be on her own. I needed to move on to head towards Florida and all that. I figured I would do a swansong at Ben's bus for a few days so we went by the Raliegh area for a few nights.