It's Always Something

So I cruised into my office yesterday, ready to deal with a few cases, and Wifey called. She was sobbing --"This TIME it WASN'T MY FAULT." I knew right away this was a car related issue. Wifey has had a LOT of them -- typically they ARE her fault. But this time she was calling from the Gables, where an 84 year old guy pulled out of a parking lot and T boned Wifey as she drove north. A Gables cop saw the crash, and called paramedics. Wifey's wrist hurt. I drove to the scene -- the cars were parked in the old Miami's Best Pizza lot. Wifey was sobbing uncontrollably -- her wrist hurt, but she was mostly in shock. She realized that if the old man didn't turn his vehicle, and take the impact on the front of his SUV, she easily might have killed him. The old fellow was there with his wife, shaken up. Turned out he was an Okie who married a very wealthy Guatemalan lady, and the two lived there and on Key Biscayne. They run a famous theatre in Central America. They apologized, and the wife had the look in her face familiar to me -- a look that said her husband's driving days were probably over. The cop ticketed the old man, and I called Dr. Lew, our hand surgeon friend. Luck was on our side: his one afternoon per week he sees Miami patients was Monday, and so I drove over to the medical plaza near Kendall Regional. He examined Wifey, and we caught up with his wife Maria, who runs his office. He didn't think there was a fracture, but told us to go get an Xray. We drove back to the car, called AAA, and followed the car to the collision shop in the Falls district. Then, we went to a Baptist Walk In clinic, and only 4 people were waiting. We figured we'd be in an out pronto. We figured wrong. Three hours later, a Cuban doc showed me the Xray -- he saw a scaphoid fracture. I called Lew, and he will follow up with Wifey tomorrow. PRobably no surgery -- but 6 weeks in a cast. Wifey immediately thought this might stop our upcoming Israel/Switzerland trip. Can she traipse around in a cast? D1 came over to eat sushi and comfort her mother. She and D2 think Wifey can most certainly still go...I guess we'll see, but those REFUNDABLE airline tickets are looking more and more like a good investment... This am I called the old guy's carrier. The adjuster told me they accepted full responsibility, would directly pay the body shop, and had arranged a paid rental at Hertz. I told her we needed a SUV -- we have to move D2 back from Gville in less than two weeks, and my pessimism about repairs tells me the damage to Wifey's vehicle will take longer to repair... I guess we'll see. Wifey was up most of the night having nightmares -- mostly about how much worse this could have been. She now understands the "pain and suffering" part of the lawsuits I handle. Still, we're both thankful it wasn't much worse. Roseann Rosanadanna's wisdom reigns again.