2005 – April 17 – Trip to Belterra
From a Letter written by Anne to Sue, Buck, Faye and Russell
--- Old Main Street Apt –
Munfordville, KY 42765
April 17, 2005
Hello Aunts and Uncles,
I hope this finds you doing okay. I’ve been to the doctor for an X Ray of my knee (Diagnosis: old age – never – and deteriorating bones), I also went because of congestion and another lump under my left arm and in my right breast. I’m suppose to have another mammogram done the end of this month or the first of May.
Mother has been to three different doctors the last two weeks and is scheduled to go to the orthopedic surgeon May 2 to see when she will be having another surgery on her left shoulder. Mother says the pain is just getting to be too much for her. I’m just afraid that the “bathtub incident” aggravated everything. Oh! I forgot you all don’t know about the “bathtub incident”.
Remember I was telling you all that we were going to try to make it to Belterra? Well, our trip started from Elizabethtown to Stanton and then on to Rising Sun, Indiana where the ship Belterra is. Mother and I went up to Teri and Barry’s, in Stanton, on Thursday afternoon and Thursday night Mother decided that she wanted to get into the bathtub and take a bath. This is something she hasn’t done since she injured her left shoulder. Showers – yes, sit down in a bathtub – no. Anyway, I heard her calling me and went to check on her. Mother couldn’t get her knees under herself and since her bad side, the left shoulder, was on the outside of the tub, she couldn’t get enough leverage to get herself out of the bathtub. After trying to turn her different ways to get her out of the tub and realizing non of them worked, I decided there was only one thing to do. Drain the water out of the tub and get in myself. By getting behind and then under her and lifting her up I got her out. But that is when the pain in her rib and shoulder started getting worse. And that is also when my knee started getting worse. The rest of the Belterra trip was just as interesting.
Our rooms were free, thanks to Teri and Barry having coupons, but we found out our meals had to be paid for. Teri and Barry had let us think that the meals would be free also. They were on Saturday morning, when Teri and Barry had their cards validated and comped, but it cost almost $80.00 for the four of us to eat Friday night. Anyway, Mother and I both lost what we had brought with us, $60.00 to $100.00 does not last long at all, especially when you hit the wrong button on the penny machine and realize too late that you have hit the maximum bet to be made! Mother and I went to our rooms about 10 PM, we left Teri at the Blackjack table (about $975.00 ahead) and Barry was at the Red, White and Blue Sevens machine.
The next morning, about 9 AM, there was a knock at the door, it was Barry with two large cups of Starbucks coffee. Mother was in the shower so I confirmed with Barry that 11 AM was checkout time and that we would be ready to leave by then.
Mother had just got out of the shower and I was doctoring the rash she has under her arm, when the fire alarm went off. The loudspeaker started blaring, “Guest of Belterra, an emergency situation has been reported and our employees are checking it out. Please do not panic, we will be keeping you updated.” This kept repeating over and over. I looked through the peephole and could see that all of the lights were flashing but there wasn’t anyone in the halls. I thought maybe it was a false alarm, so I went on and got into the shower.
Barry knocked on the door, Mother grabbed my bathrobe and answered the door. Barry told Mother we needed to go on and get packed up.
It was about now that the funniness of the whole situation hit Mother. (1) Every time she had got naked to clean herself up, something drastic had happened. (2) The preacher had found out she had gone to Belterra and reported a fire. Needless to say she had me laughing right along with her. When Teri knocked on the door to make sure her Nanny wasn’t having a heart attack from being scared, that was what she found. Mother and me laughing until we cried. Teri turned around to Barry (their room was straight across from ours) and told him it would be okay, the sounds they heard through the door wasn’t a panic attack, it was just Nanny and Mother laughing their buns off. So Barry comes in and tells us, “If you all were ready to go home, you didn’t have to pull the fire alarm, you could have just said so.” And we started laughing again.
Teri pulled me outside and told me that since we were on the eighth floor and we had a wheelchair for Mother to ride in that Barry had gone all the way down the eight flights of stairs to check the situation out and they had told him that the possibility of a fire had not been eliminated and that we should start our way down the eight flights of stairs. Barry told him, “You don’t understand. I have my wife’s grandmother with me and she is in a wheel chair and I don’t know how we can get her down the steps.” They told him they would send someone to help.
Belterra wound up sending five employees to help get Mother down the steps. Just as Mother was realizing that we were eight floors up and that there were people waiting to get her down stairs the all clear was sounded. But I don’t think Mother wants to go back to Belterra again. She says the fire alarm was God’s way of telling her she shouldn’t have gone in the first place.
I’m still spending more time in Elizabethtown than I am in Munfordville, but I enjoy my time with Mother – she keeps me laughing.
Have I told you that I am going to try to go back to school – and hopefully back to work at a good paying job? If everything works out I’ll be starting classes the end of July or first week of August.
Well, guess I had better run for now. Mother is waiting for me to drive to church.
Love you all,
Your niece
Ann
Note from Ann:
My favorite part of this is that mother told on herself to the associate preacher. We met him in Wal Mart’s and because she thought I had said something she told him what a great time she had before the alarms started going off. I really had a good laugh when she realized he had not a clue what she was talking about. Then she had to tell him because she had started the story herself.
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