On Transportation (part three)

Six weeks after my car was returned with a fully functional door, Suzanne and I packed up three days worth of caregiving accoutrements, meds and clothing to head to Baltimore for half a dozen medical appointments. It just so happened that my roommate from college, Megs, was coming to spend the day with me on Tuesday, the day before I was scheduled to leave. Because she is one of my all-time favorite people to spend time doing absolutely nothing with, I coerced her into a number of really fun activities during her brief getaway to Ithaca. Keep in mind I hadn't seen her without her kids since before her oldest was born (he is currently 12), but rather than rolling out the red carpet and planning some sort of relaxing togetherness time where we could maximize the day (a luxury that isn't afforded to either of us ever), I convinced her instead to fully participate in my life. First we visited the lab so I could get blood work for my GP, then we hit up BJ's so I could have her fill my car with gas, next we visited the "Shoppes at Ithaca" (a.k.a. the saddest mall in the United States) with my dog for some rainy-day mall-walking and finally we headed to Target for a gallon of water for Wednesday's trip (a feat that was somehow harder to accomplish than one might think). Though we did get a moment or two of relaxation while sitting in the mall to people watch with my absurdly insecure service dog, I'm sure the day wasn't quite what Megs envisioned when she carved out time to spend with me in Ithaca during a four-day trip to visit her parents in Skaneateles, but at the very least it was one-on-one time that was way overdue.

Unfortunately, when we returned to my house in the pouring rain and she went to open the door to the Pilot to let me out, the back passenger door – once again – refused to open. As it had just been fixed I was convinced it was an operator error, perhaps Megs just wasn't yet proficient in finessing the door open (even though she had had no problems during any of our previous errands). I asked her to grab my mom from the house hoping that another person would have the lucky touch. Nope. Still wouldn't open. Thinking of nothing other than the logistics that went into coordinating six different medical appointments within two days in a city five-and-half hours away, I slipped into panic mode faster than a rational person should have and immediately called United Access in Syracuse (where the car had just been fixed). As it was 4:30 PM, the main office was already closed but I eventually got through on some sort of emergency line and spoke to someone on call. He, naturally, was not familiar with the Honda pilot's accessibility features, but he contacted Mike – the mechanic involved in my door's most recent fix (see "On Transportation, part two"). While I waited to hear from Mike directly, I called Shelly – if anyone could get me out of the car (again) it would be Shelly. She agreed to postpone her Peloton workout and arrived within 1/2 an hour; she pulled into my driveway just as Mike called me back. On speakerphone, Mike patiently talked Megs and Shelly through the disassembly of the panel that covered the inside bottom of the broken door (thank goodness I don't leave the house without a set of Allen wrenches in my backpack). Once the panel was removed, Mike was able to help my two friends problem solve a few things in order to release the latch. At that point, the goal was merely to get me out of the vehicle. Quickly, our short-term goal was achieved, but the long-term problem remained: how do I prevent this from happening 300+ miles away from home when I'm in Baltimore?

I then tried to long-term problem solve with Mike on the phone, emphasizing my desperate need to make it to Baltimore the next day. Unfortunately he was disappointingly uninterested in sending someone out to Ithaca the following morning to fix things. He explained that if – and only if – they had the technicians, the tools or the time to make a house call, it would necessitate a service charge for two hours of round-trip driving in addition to the service charge associated with a presumptive "fix." I countered with another idea,

"Since this problem was clearly not fixed properly less than two months ago, maybe you could deliver a rental car here and take my car back to your shop? Then I could still get to Baltimore for my doctors' appointments?"

That option was quickly shut down as well. An option like that was "was out of [his] hands" so I would need to contact corporate. Plus, the two people bringing me to Baltimore were under 25 and ineligible from renting a car anyway. By this point, I was out of the car and in the laundry room of my house, and my mom was privy to the runaround. She quickly usurped my phone and lost her mind. (I had warned Mike several times that he should make things right in order to avoid my mom's involvement.) Nonetheless, my mom's decidedly undiplomatic lamentations failed to earn us any favors, but did lead Mike to angrily suggest we contact "customer service" with our complaints and direct our frustrations elsewhere. I asked him for the number before we finally got off the phone on (somewhat) less-heated terms. To conclude, by the end of my phone call with Mike, I had no guaranteed transportation for the next day's travel. And in case you're wondering, the customer support specialist that I contacted never called me back.

I suppose, while it put a damper on the conclusion of my afternoon spent with Megs, she did get an honest glimpse into the current status of my life.

I headed from the laundry room straight to my computer to email the study coordinator at Johns Hopkins and let him know that as of 6 PM on Tuesday night my car was not reliable to drive and there was a high likelihood I would – once again – be canceling my participation in the study. I'd have to wait till the following morning to cancel my DEXA scan, Botox and MRI at KKI . He might have been the only person as irritated as I was because he had coordinated all of those study-related appointments around my time-consuming caregiving schedule – appointments needed to happen late enough in the morning that we wouldn't have to wake up at 5 AM, but early enough in the day that we could leave shortly after for the five and half hour drive back home.

While I contacted the study coordinator at Hopkins, my mom called her industrious contractor (see part two) who summoned Paul, another guy who had worked on our house. Paul's side-job involved cars, so he had the desired amount of mechanical acumen and history with my family and he agreed to check out my door before 8 AM the next day. On the off chance that Paul – the man who had recently installed closet doors in my mom's bedroom – could fix my handicap accessible car seemed like a shot in the dark – but it was the only shot we had left. Suzanne planned to come at seven the next morning in hopes I'd still be leaving. (She even agreed to be my contingency plan should I miraculously hear from customer care and they were willing to provide me with a last-minute rental for the trip.)

I went to bed Tuesday night hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

Wednesday morning, though, by 7:45 AM, Paul had exceeded those expectations. He dissected the door, diagnosed the problem and fixed it using zip ties. Apparently the replacement cable was several inches too long and Paul was surprised it had functioned for as long as it had. He mentioned he had never seen something so haphazardly "fixed" which I explained – when it comes to a vehicle's accessibility features – seems to be par for the course.

Gem and me at Kennedy Krieger (a few years ago)

Jill (my patient and technologically savvy caregiver from my previous blog), her friend Madi and I left for Baltimore shortly after noon that same day. We made it to Baltimore – even with pretty despicable weather – in time to order in Indian food and relax for a few hours before heading to bed. And the next morning, despite waking up to a migraine that persisted throughout the entire day, Jill got me to all three of my back to back appointments on time; appointments that each required a dependent transfer under offensively bright fluorescent lights. She was even somehow able to hold my arms still during 12 separate intramuscular injections and two separate blood draws (all of which make my arms reflexively spasm) before finally taking a short nap during my 90 minute MRI (the last appointment of the day). The next morning we packed up the hotel and headed out to Hopkins for the three remaining arms of the study, and we were on the road back to Ithaca by two. Caregiving for me with a migraine undoubtedly made Jill the MVP of the rapid-fire trip (although Madi did an incredible job navigating to and from Baltimore with such confidence in following the GPS and competence in highway driving that I relaxed enough to nap with confidence, a complete luxury).

But the true MVP of the week? Paul. The contractor-turned-accessible vehicle miracle worker.

My pilot – in case anyone is wondering – survived more than a week with Paul's zip-tied remedy. And it is currently being serviced at United Access Rochester. Most importantly, for the first time ever, I'm driving a complementary accessible rental van.

On Transportation (part two)

2018 VMI-converted Honda Pilot

Five months later – out of seemingly nowhere – I had another issue with my accessible vehicle. I went out to dinner with a friend (who I had not seen in ages) and when we got back to my house, she opened the back passenger door and the handle fell off. Fortunately, it fell off after she had already gotten the door open and I exited the vehicle. Hoping it was something we could re-affix easily on Monday morning, I didn't lose any sleep over it. It turned out, however, that the handle hadn't just slipped off the metal shaft, it had physically broken. So when I went to get in the van to do some erranding on Monday, reattaching the handle was trickier than I anticipated. If you held it just right it unlatched the door, but it wasn't catching the way it was supposed to. Nevertheless, we loaded me into the vehicle and drove to Honda to ask some proper mechanics for advice. The mechanics graciously examined the broken handle, explained that it was part of the modified portion of my vehicle and directed us to Home Depot to try to find a replacement handle. We headed to Home Depot and unfortunately found nothing, but we were able to get the van door open so I could accomplish my shopping at T.J. Maxx and pet smart. Suzanne, my new-ish caregiver, and I arrived back at my house around 4 PM.

Unfortunately, the broken handle decided it was done for the day when we returned. The handle wouldn't catch on the metal rod attached to the latch, so the piece that kept the door securely closed would not release. Panic slowly set in for Suzanne as she envisioned transferring me – sans wheelchair – out of the passenger door, when I noticed a truck parked on the street in front of my house: "Suzanne, go in the house and see who's here? Maybe it's a man that knows how to fix things!" (Not very feminist of me, I know, but when you are me and you have gotten yourself into innumerable pickles, you start to know when to outsource your problems.)

The broken door handle

Suzanne came out of the house – not only with a man – but with my mom's contractor. A handsome, industrious man who had just happened to be the one that converted our previous dining room into an accessible living area for me. I started to think that Bella, one of my dates to the wedding in part one of this story, was right when she said, "God has favorites and you are one of them!" Art (the contractor) came out to the car, diagnosed the problem and retreated to his truck for a proper tool. He then affixed a channel lock to the metal shaft and was able to gently coax the shaft to rotate in order for the latch to release. I was free. Suzanne was ecstatic. Art then generously left his channel lock in my van so Suzanne could get me to school the following day. All was right with the world. At least temporarily.


I called United Access the following morning and explained the broken handle and asked if they could order me another one. They told me they'd let me know when it arrived and that the Pilot should probably be checked out in their Syracuse location for a full assessment and reinstallation of the handle. In the meantime, Shelly, my personal MacGyver, replaced the cumbersome channel lock with a smaller wrench which continued to get me in-and-out of the van with no issues. 10 days later, the new handle had arrived and my mom and her angel of a boyfriend (Russ) trekked up to Syracuse on a Friday morning for things to be checked out and the handle reinstalled. The two of them left the pilot at United Access and went to lunch with a friend thinking my car would be ready to go within a few hours.

It wasn't.

My mom texted me around 3:30 telling me she and Russ were heading back to pick up the car and they'd likely be back by five. Relieved, I continued doing whatever I was doing and didn't give it another thought. Then my phone rang: United Access Syracuse. This couldn't possibly be good.

I answered the phone, already prepared for the bad news, "Oh no, what's the problem?"

Mike replied matter-of-factly, "Kate, we were just showing your mom how well the door opens with the new handle, and it wouldn't open. We did some further investigating and the cable on the inside of the door is corroded. Your car is unsafe to drive. Your mom and Russ will be getting a ride back to Ithaca with your brother, we're gonna need to keep the car until this gets fixed."

I immediately understood why my mom didn't want to be the one to share that news with me. I proceeded to lose my shit.

"What do you mean the car is undriveable?"

" With a corroded cable the door is not latching properly and it could fly off on the Thruway."

" Can you give my mom an accessible rental van to get home with?"

" We don't have any in stock currently."

I exited the phone call shortly thereafter, seething with anger and too disappointed to even use my words.

One of my friends told me once that he thinks I am incredible at getting myself out of jams. At that moment, though, I felt defeated. I felt defeated because that phone call happened after 4 PM on a Friday – how the hell could I find an accessible vehicle before the close of the business week? It was Russ's birthday weekend and I'd made surprise plans for him at a karaoke place in town, and we had dinner reservations afterwards with his daughter. Plus, the day after was the last regular season hockey game and Madison and I had season tickets. Was I just going to sit home all weekend feeling sorry for myself?

I called Shelly. Shelly can usually fix anything. She had just fixed my door temporarily. I called her and gave her the rundown and we both started thinking outside the box. We wondered out loud: does the local rental car company have a minivan I could rent and we could pull out the seats in the back and use my manual ramp to enter? No, that wouldn't work because my wheelchair's too tall and regular minivans don't have lowered floors. Shelly suggested putting me in the back of a U-Haul – sometimes they had trucks with ramps. We could potentially put the wheelchair in the back and transfer me into the front seat; it would definitely be a hassle but it could get me out of the house with my wheelchair. Shelly jumped in her car and drove downtown to the U-Haul company before it closed, and I started making phone calls. First on my list: Tompkins County Airport transport. They answered and told me they thought either Yellow Cab or College Town Cabs might be a possibility, but the airport itself did not offer accessible transportation. I then called Yellow Cab. Apparently they used to have an accessible vehicle but they did not anymore. They advised me to call College Town Cabs. I did.

"Hi there, my name is Kate and I'm wondering if you guys happen to have a wheelchair accessible cab?"

"… (Awkward silence) why yes, ma'am, we do. When do you need it?"

"No way, that is such fantastic news! I'd need it tomorrow around 3:30, and then again at 5:30 PM just to get to dinner locally."

"Oh, I'm so sorry ma'am, it is not available at all tomorrow. And the man who drives the van does not give rides after 5 PM."

" Oh, so I couldn't reserve the van to get to the hockey game this weekend?"

"No ma'am, the accessible van is not available on the weekends at all."

The conversation continued much like this for another 10 minutes. Whoever this mysterious man who is in charge of driving the one accessible cab in all of Ithaca, works only very specific hours and is booked out for weeks. Could I reserve it to get to school on Monday? No. How about school on Tuesday? No. Could I reserve it to get to my dentist appointment on Wednesday? No. Could I reserve it to get to a research study at Cornell the following Friday? No.

To use another of my friend Bella's favorite expressions: Christ on a bike!

Shortly thereafter, Shelly returned from U-Haul – their current inventory would not accommodate my chair. I was flummoxed. And back to feeling helpless. How – in a world where artificial intelligence can now write full essays for students and Elon Musk is transporting people into literal outerspace – could I not figure out a way to get myself (and my 360 pound wheelchair) out of my house?

Shelly and I decided not to cancel the surprise karaoke plans. I sent my mom out the following morning to retrieve my manual wheelchair from a family friend (who was not using it anyway), my mom cleaned off the dust and cobwebs from years of nonuse and we decided I would transfer into Shelly's passenger seat, head to K house the next afternoon, and sit (albeit uncomfortably) in my manual wheelchair during karaoke. Then, my mom changed the reservations for Russ's birthday dinner to a restaurant within a mile of my house so we could come back to the house immediately after karaoke, transfer me out of Shelly's car and back into my power wheelchair where, together, Russ and I could "walk" to the restaurant.

Shelly (a.k.a. MacGyver) and me at K-house

So with a few added complications (and additional transfers in and out of regular cars), I survived the weekend without an accessible vehicle. I even made it through a 2 1/2 hour hockey game sitting in my manual wheelchair. I had not, however, figured out how I was going to get to school, the dentist or the study at Cornell the following week. It was a problem no one could solve until Monday.

By 8:30 on Monday morning I had already called United Access in Syracuse to check on the status of my car (they were still waiting to hear back from VMI), called 311 (per someone's recommendation) to get information on accessible transportation options in Ithaca and then called Gadabout to learn how to become eligible for its ADA paratransport program in Tompkins County. Even if United Access suddenly had a rental car available, I was vehemently opposed to paying $150 a day for the indefinite amount of time we might be waiting for a replacement cable on principle. Besides, using Gadabout could be empowering were I to ever find myself in this predicament in the future; it couldn't be too hard to figure out.

The thing I just cannot overstate, though, is how hard it is to accomplish anything without functional hands. Throw a 13-page PDF form my way that does not interface with my Dragon dictation software and I slip precipitously close – once again – to defeat. Luckily my caregiver on Monday morning was Jill, a recent OT grad from Ithaca College; someone with infinitely more patience and technical acumen than I possess. She helped me tackle the entirety of the application. But even with my able-bodied assistant, there were a number of questions throughout the application that we could not answer. I.e.) how does your disability limit you from taking the bus? I looked at Jill,

"Are all of the buses handicap accessible?"

"I have no idea."

Great, so in addition to being disabled I am completely ignorant about how public transportation even functions in Tompkins County. For example, I know there’s a stop at the end of my street, maybe 400 m from my front door, but where does that bus go? Does that bus have a lift and tiedowns to accommodate a wheelchair? Does that particular bus go to the high school? Would I need to research the specific bus routes that I may or may not be able to access? Jill quickly snapped me out of of my anxious hypothesizing:

"You really can't do any of this independently, because you can't even open the front door of your house to get outside. And if it's raining your head array doesn't work, and if it's too cold your neck is too stiff to safely drive your chair."

Oh yes, that is all true.

So we answered the questions as briefly and honestly as we could and sent it to the kind woman who worked for TCAT by early afternoon. Much to my relief I was approved for ADA paratransport by 5 PM on Monday – mere hours after the paperwork was submitted as opposed to the 7-21 days the website warned it might take for approval. The only bad news was that gadabout/paratransport was closed by 4:30 and one needed to request an accessible ride 24 hours in advance. I wouldn't be able to start scheduling the rest of the week until the following morning. After problem-solving this predicament since Friday afternoon, by Tuesday morning I'd finally be able to schedule the rest of the week.

On My Way to School

I called them in the morning as soon as Suzanne got me out of bed and attempted to schedule rides for three appointments that week – school by 1:30 PM on Wednesday, a dentist appointment by 1 PM on Thursday and a research study at Cornell University by one on Friday. Scheduling the rides was not difficult, but they couldn't tell you the specific time they'd pick me up until after 3 PM the day before. And then no one told you what time you'd be picked up after the appointment until the morning of the scheduled appointment. They tried to coordinate the rides to be within an hour of the proposed appointment time, but they couldn't make any guarantees. For example, I called on Tuesday after 3 PM to see what time someone would pick me up to be at school by 1:30 the next day. The answer? 12:15 PM. Then I had to wait until Wednesday morning after 8:30 AM to see what time they were picking me up (the day ends at 3:40). The answer? 4:45. So this is how it went. Paratransport offers an immensely valuable service to the entirety of Tompkins County and I could not for the life of me imagine the difficulty of coordinating rides to-and-from doctors appointments for every person that might qualify for this service. But at the same time, my mere existence already necessitates so much time that my tolerance for wasting it is nonexistent. Spending an extra hour on either side of an appointment waiting for and relying on public transportation – as grateful as I am that it exists for people with chairs like mine – pushed me just a little bit closer to the end of a very thin rope.

I have absolutely no idea what my life would be like were I able bodied, and I’m sure I could still find an amalgamation of things to complain about on a daily basis. But for those two weeks, I thoroughly resented the heck out of my current life. In addition to the oppressive amount of time and energy I waste on this disease (my morning and night routine, on a good day, takes a minimum of seven hours), if I think about the financial impact this disease has had on both my own bank account and my family's, I absolutely do lose sleep at night.   

All of that said, I made it through an entire week without an accessible vehicle. By Friday afternoon though – even before the Cornell research study (that should be a separate story of its own) – I did decide to call uncle on life without an accessible vehicle. We paid extra for someone from Rochester to deliver the only available accessible rental vehicle (saving my mom and Suzanne yet another trip to Rochester) and were grateful that despite a rate of $150 a day, we only needed it through the following weekend. The mysterious part that United Access had warned us would take 10 to 14 days at best to receive from VMI did arrive without any additional delays, and my Pilot was fixed exactly 2 weeks after it had been deemed unsafe to drive.

How well it was fixed, however, is a story reserved for part three.

 

On Transportation (part one)

Danielle, Bella, and Me

I got a text from a friend last week letting me know that there is currently a class action lawsuit against Dunkin’ Donuts for discriminating against people with disabilities. Unbeknownst to me, lactose intolerance now qualifies as a disability under the ADA, and as such lactose intolerant customers do not feel they should be charged an extra $0.50 for oat milk.(see more here!) This lawsuit, if it ends up going to court, seems like a dangerously slippery slope for companies that manufacture things such as vehicles to people with disabilities. For example, a moderately priced, middle-of-the-road 2024 Honda Odyssey costs $46,895. Modify that same exact van and the average wheelchair user looking for the relative freedom that a car provides will pay $83,929.

 

At the end of September, on the way home from my "sister's" wedding in Chevy Chase, Maryland, my friend Danielle (also one of my two “dates” to the family only wedding who is both a cherished friend and newly retired caregiver) got into a car accident on 270 N. right outside of Frederick Maryland. It was the scariest accident I’ve ever been involved in, but miraculously the three of us escaped unscathed. Bella, my other “date” was holding a Green Machine smoothie, turning around to give me occasional sips out of a straw. When – with no warning – Danielle slammed on the brakes at 65 miles an hour to avoid the Dodge Charger who abruptly came to a halt in the fast lane of the highway, the contents of the juice ended up all over her face, neck and bosoms as the front driver side of my vehicle decimated the rear end of the Dodge. Still though, we were incredibly lucky: no one was injured in either car and the only noticeable internal damage to my Pilot was the contents of green smoothie all over Bella and the passenger seat. Moments after I processed what had happened and Danielle had pulled the car over to the left shoulder, my relief was exchanged for panic. We still had five hours left of our drive back home to Ithaca on a Sunday afternoon. What were we going to do if my handicap accessible vehicle was no longer safe to drive? Bella, still in her sixth year of PT school at Ithaca College had class on Monday, Danielle needed to get back home to Rochester that night and I had school the next day. Knowing it would take a dad of some sort to help problem solve, I called Sonya (my sister who is not actually my sister) and told her what happened. She told her dad (who is not actually my dad) and he went in to fix-it mode. >Thankfully we didn’t need any immediate fix, because finding potential solutions proved impossible – both in the moment and – as it turned out – once we returned to Ithaca, even for a pretty awesome dad. So despite the immense hassle that I'm about to document, I must first acknowledge a freakish number of providential things that happened immediately after the accident. First, the guy in front of us was not injured (although we couldn’t say as much for his Dodge Charger), second, the cop and volunteer firefighter at the scene determined that our Pilot seemed safe to drive. Especially after the various pieces of it were retrieved from the road and safely placed in the back of the vehicle. The firefighter responsibly suggested that we take the next exit off of 270 and purchase zip ties from Home Depot in order to hold my bumper together, but other than that, nobody seemed concerned about sending three non-mechanics back onto the highway for a five hour drive home.

My car upon safe(ish) arrival in Ithaca

Providential occurrence number three occurred in a handicapped accessible parking spot at Home Depot in Frederick. While Bella ran in to get the zip ties, Danielle got out of the driver’s seat to attempt to open the passenger side back door – the only door of the vehicle that I am able to exit because of the ramp under the floor. Unfortunately, the door did not open. At this point, the car parked next to us was just about to pull out and the driver – noticing there was a problem – put his own car back into park and got out. He asked Danielle if she needed help because he noticed we had just been in an accident. Relieved, she explained what happened and he helped her get the door open (this door becomes a prominent feature in my next blog). The helpful man, whose name I don’t remember of course, just happened to be a mechanic for Volkswagen, so by the time that Bella returned with the zip ties, he also offered to help temporarily fix the bumper. The mechanic was soon joined by yet another volunteer firefighter who stumbled upon the scene and he helped us check a few things before we drove again – that the blinkers worked, the hazards worked, the steering wheel turned properly, and that nothing was stuck underneath the front end of the car. He also was the one that listened when I said “something smells like it’s burning”, and fortuitously looked under the car and removed the dragging splash guard under the vehicle. After getting what seemed like a basic 10 point inspection from two benevolent strangers outside of Home Depot, we felt immensely more confident about the remaining five hour journey ahead of us.    

Unfortunately, though we did make it home safely, the end of our journey also marked the end of benevolent strangers coming to my rescue. Back in Ithaca, the reality of the accident-related hassle started to set in by Monday morning. As I often do, I slowly lost my grasp on gratitude and replaced it with irritation. First source of irritation: my insurance company, USAA. I have had USAA insurance for my entire driving life thanks to my dad “serving “ in the Air Force. Not only did USAA insure all the vehicles I’ve driven in my lifetime, they also insured my parents' vehicles, their home, and even my own rental insurance throughout 12 years of apartment living in Baltimore. Even my myriad investment accounts that I started in my early 30s were entrusted to USAA. To date, I was always pleasantly surprised by USAA’s customer service and commitment to its members. After this accident, I no longer feel that way. They made every part of the claims process a complete nightmare. Starting with – and I know this the case for every accident where you hit someone from behind – immediately assuming the accident was our fault. The driver in front of us came to a dead stop in the middle of a highway where the traffic was moving at a steady 63-65 mph. Danielle – unlike many drivers I know – was not following too closely behind, was not otherwise distracted, was not driving irresponsibly. She was, however, driving a shockingly heavy converted Honda pilot that had no chance to stop on a dime the way the Dodge Charger did. And when Danielle got out of the car and immediately checked on the other driver, his first response was “I thought the car in the median was pulling out” – an admission that he stopped in the middle of the highway. Naturally, that detail did not appear in his retelling of the accident to either insurance company, so we were assigned blame. There were no other witnesses to interview (the people who hit us from behind fled the scene). 

More obnoxiously, rather than send an insurance adjuster to our house to appraise the damage of my vehicle, we were asked to send photographs to the insurance company so they could assess the damage and assign a monetary value they’d be willing to cover – a mere $3400. We ended up taking the car to a mom-and-pop shop that has – to our knowledge – never tried to nickel and dime us in the past, and even though they had it fixed within less than a week, the cost was still $6600. If you’re thinking to yourself, Kate, this sounds like every other accident story I’ve ever heard about and you should just count your blessings that you were okay and your vehicle was drivable, I completely agree. But here is where the wheels come off the track. While my car was being fixed – the duration of which we didn’t even know – I could either stay home and do nothing or I could rent an accessible vehicle. USAA determined they would help defray the cost of the rental vehicle by $30 a day. The only problem that remained was a) there were no accessible vehicles to rent in Ithaca New York and b) accessible vehicles cost $150 a day to rent. Plus mileage. And naturally, that would include the cost of the mileage between the distant rental company and Ithaca, despite the fact that there were no other options (I personally find this more egregious than having to pay an extra $0.50 for oat milk in my coffee).  

My Honda Pilot was fixed by Mullins garage in four days for a mere $6600. USAA covered everything except the deductible. We weren't so lucky with a rental van. Because accessible vans are in short supply, you needed to pay upfront and you could not add on extra days once you'd reserved your dates. Just to be safe, we planned for a full 10 days with the rental. In addition, my mom and caregiver (who also charges me by the hour) needed to make two trips back-and-forth to Rochester; a grand total of eight hours worth of driving. The grand total for the rental, at a discounted rate of $120 a day, was $1200. USAA reimbursed us $300. 

Oh, and the icing on the cake? They raised our rates.

My sister (Sonya), Kirby and me pre-wedding