Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery

By

Tony Wilson

Copyright 2012 Tony Wilson

Smashwords Edition

~~~~

Licence Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com where they can also discover the other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

The moral right of Tony Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

Discover the rest of the titles in this trilogy by Tony Wilson

Onward and Upward

Above and Beyond

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tonyymelvawilson

Cover designed by Tony Wilson

~~~~

Table of Contents

(Click on any chapter heading to return to the Table of Contents)

Title Page

Licence Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Authors Notes

~~~~

Chapter 1

It was supposed to be ‘another wonderful day in paradise’, so why on earth am I laying flat on my back in a helicopter when Sheila and I are supposed to be on a short break in our motor-home, perhaps it had something to do with all the tubes stuffed down my throat. Let me think, I remember Sheila (my wife of 32 years), Bonnie and Clyde (our Yorkshire terriers of five years) and I – Andrew Michaels (of 55 years) arriving in the pouring rain at the caravan site just north of Granada, after a pleasant drive down from our Villa (of 5 years). We are, or as it would now seem, were, going to meet up with some of our friends that we regularly seem to bump into on out travels, any excuse for G & T. The excuse this time - I am in serious need of some R&R as I slipped a disc three weeks ago, a bit feeble as excuses go but definitely good for the sympathy vote. Funny, I cannot remember meeting up with them.

With perfect timing it had started to rain just as we arrived at the site (it could at least have waited for another half an hour), and I remember dutifully checking into the office and then plugging ‘Winnie’ into her new home (I call her that because she is a Winnebago, not just because she is poo coloured). Leaving our two now very muddy hounds in their travelling cage we headed out into the rain in search of a cup of tea, or perhaps something slightly stronger.

As we walked passed a nearby pitch we noticed that the owners of a rather nice (for nice - read large) caravan were having a considerable amount of trouble positioning their ‘box on wheels’ on their sloping, and by now very wet and slippery pitch. As we consider ourselves to be fairly helpful sort of people I offered them our services, bad move. From what I remember of them they seemed to be a rather quiet, retiring sort of couple, the sort that I imagined would probably have preferred to do all the pushing and shoving on their own, but even they had come to realise that in this rain, and with the sloping terrain, they were not going to move it anywhere with just the two of them. Sheila and I opted for the rear of their caravan, and expending a fair amount of our valuable energy the four of us finally got the thing moving in generally the right direction, but unfortunately the rain, mud and finally the wind then decided to enter into the equation, and things moved on quite quickly after that. The caravan started to slide, and then he (the owner of the delinquent caravan) decided to slip, and after first banging his head on a conveniently placed rock, slid gracefully under it, with his head strategically placed for one of the wheels to run squarely over it - now was about the time that I should have remembered why the doctor had ordered me away. Whilst trying to stop the sliding caravan from crushing his head my tender back decided that it was not really ready for such abuse and I had that all too familiar feeling of pain, followed by the sensation of my spine wanting to bend in two – backwards. I knew that I wasn’t going to stop this man made titan in my condition but summoning up some unknown inner strength I managed to pull the rear of the van around, just far enough for it to collide with a rather large tree. I suppose the logic behind my action was that this poor soul would prefer to have a dented caravan rather than a flat head. All went well until too late I realised that ‘I’ was between the immovable tree and the careening caravan. At moments like that I think you are supposed to have your whole life flash before you, wrong, all I could think was ‘I hope Sheila will be alright driving Winnie back home on her own’ – and now I am laying on my back in a helicopter, ‘wonder where Sheila is’. I then decided that it was a good time to take a little nap.

--------------------

Five years ago we took the plunge and went for early retirement. Both children had gone off to do other things in the world so we sold the house and ‘family’ business, and after settling all our debts (and a few of the children’s) we had enough left over to go on a much deserved ‘once in a lifetime cruise’, and purchase an idyllic three bed roomed luxury villa. It came complete with swimming pool and Jacuzzi and is situated close to a small village fifty kilometres inland from Alicante - just far enough away from the coast for us to be in among the ‘real Spanish’, and away from the summer crowds.

Two years later, bored to tears and not wanting to get into the ‘G&T’s at 12:00’ routine, we blew a chunk of our savings on an American motor home. We promoted Doris, our Columbian ‘limpiadora’ (cleaner), who helps Sheila around the villa for a few hours each week, to ‘Jefá del Casa’ (boss of the house) and she now regularly looks after the villa and pool for us (with a little help from husband Pedro) as we spend more and more time away succumbing to the wander lust. In fact in the past 3 years we have covered most of Spain and Portugal, plus a fair amount of France and Italy, and meeting some fascinating people on the way. A week among the olive groves, rolling green countryside and convivial company was just what the doctor ordered, literally, as I had slipped the disc whilst cleaning the pool and apparently I now need to get out and about again and take some ‘light exercise’. For some strange reason walking to the car and winding my own watch don’t constitute ‘exercise’.

--------------------

The next time I woke I found myself on terra firma with a rather elderly gentleman in a white coat trying to talk to me in Spanish, stupid man, didn’t he know that I was English; everyone should speak my language shouldn’t they? If they didn’t then all I had to do was wave my hands and shout louder - then they would of course understand me. Then it slowly dawned on me that I could neither wave my hands (or any other part of my anatomy for that matter) nor even whisper any profanities at him, damn those tubes. I then guiltily wished that Sheila and I had carried on with those interminable Spanish lessons. Being a self-made man (and proud of it) I didn’t even know what a conjugated verb was in English so how could it be of any possible use to me in Spanish! ‘Time for another nap, hope I can sleep alright tonight’.

What turned out to be five days later I slowly realised that someone was holding my hand, it of course would be my Sheila, she was always there for me, no doubt about it; then PAIN, she/him/it was sticking what turned out to be a new cannula into the back of my hand, apparently the previous one had just blocked. Not my problem, go away and molest someone else, ‘I want to talk to my wife’ I tried to scream. There was no sign of Sheila but as I looked frantically around I was greeted by the equally pleasing sight of Alice, our very beautiful and talented violin playing daughter standing beside the bed. ‘How had she got here so fast?’ I thought, ‘Concorde was no longer flying’, Sheila must be getting me a coffee, ‘time for another nap’.

The next time I woke it was dark, with just a dim light glowing above my bed, ‘my bed? I don’t have a light over my bed, dim or otherwise’. It then slowly started to come back to me, the rain, the caravan, the mud, the stranger falling under the wheel, and the lack of Sheila in the helicopter. ‘Where is Sheila, I want to see my wife’ I tried to croak, and the blood started to turn to ice in my veins.

Alice woke with a start; she had been catnapping on the recliner chair beside the bed, and throwing off a blanket she was quickly sat on the side of my bed. Gently taking my hand in hers she started coming out with all the usual platitudes, ‘shush, go back to sleep, take it easy, don’t move, we’ll talk more later’, but it was obvious even to a mere male like me that she had been crying BIG TIME. She tried to calm me down - but to no avail, then I tried to sit up and lash out, at anything, or anyone, I wanted my wife, my lovely beautiful ‘always there for me’, wife, ‘and I want her NOW!’

Nurses came running, a Doctor came running, and a needle was slid into the cannula, and just as I was slipping off into blissful unconsciousness, in the half-light I could have sworn that I saw my Sheila silhouetted in the doorway. She was dressed in white, waving, and there was a strange glowing light behind her, ‘oh well time to sort that one out another day’.

This time it was daylight when I woke, and I was securely ‘supported’ by straps and pillows so that I could not move, and was sufficiently pleased with myself to realise that I was on medication - big time. Alice was sitting quietly in the now upright recliner, and I had never seen her looking so sad, not even when ‘Snowball’ her Angora rabbit had finally ‘gone to be with Jesus’. Sheila was definitely right; she was very beautiful, in a delicate sort of way, but we also knew that behind that slight exterior there was a tough little cookie lurking. Robin, our Veterinarian son, who a few days after the solemn ceremony with ‘Snowball’ had wanted for some strange reason to dig the poor animal back up, just so that he could ‘have a quick look inside’, and whose long suffering girlfriend couldn’t even drag him away from his patients for a much needed naughty weekend, stood quietly behind her, and it then slowly sank into my drug befuddled mind that something had happened that day, and my children were dreading having to tell me. ‘What happen to her’ I croaked, grasping the bull by the horns, I realised that no matter how dreadful I felt I was still their father and must look after my children, it was not for them to break such bitter news to me. Between them they explained to me that on that fateful day, after I had passed out the caravan wheel had unfortunately caught Mr Albright (our intrepid caravanner) on his neck, but had then quickly released him again as the van pivoted around me and my tree: and their mother, who had been pulling on the other corner, was spun into a nearby picnic table, which winded her, and gave her a nasty pain in the chest. The Paramedics quickly arrived, and first attended to me and ‘Mr Albright’, but after we were ‘stabilised’ one of them then checked a distraught Sheila over. He suspected that she may have cracked a few ribs, but unfortunately there was not enough room in the air ambulance for all of us so she would have to travel by road ambulance as a patient – no arguing. Once I was safely airborne he gave her a sedative to ease the pain, and with lights flashing and sirens blaring they set off for the hospital. About 10 minutes into the journey she died, without any warning her aorta ruptured. Robin tried to assure me that ‘she wouldn’t have felt a thing. Nobody could have done anything to save her’ he went on, but I found that small consolation for the meaning of my life ending.

--------------------

As I was being admitted, the hospital had found a battered business card of an ‘Abagado’ (Solicitor) in my wallet; it was fortunately ‘my Abagado’, Vicente. The hospital contacted him, and as he had previously sorted out our Spanish wills he had all the details on Alice & Robin to hand. He quickly rang Robin, and with his help they were both in Spain within 4 hours; he even met them at the airport. Vicente also set in motion the procedure for Sheila’s cremation, which took place two days later. We had both stated in our wills that this was our preferred choice and Alice, who attended the service with Vicente, was particularly surprised at the turn out. Apparently our local English radio station had covered ’the story’, and word had quickly spread.

---------------------

Over the next few days Alice & Robin ‘brought me up to speed’ (what a horrible saying) on what had happened to me. My recently slipped disc had taken a turn for the worse whilst I had been trying to manhandle the caravan, and it had ‘crumbled’. Surgeons had done what they could, managing to remove most of the shattered disc during the second of my operations, but unfortunately the pieces that remained were far too close to my spinal cord for ‘them’ to attempt removal. It would require Specialists on a far higher pay grade too remove those splinters. The corner of the caravan had crushed my chest, damaging several vital organs, and doing something very nasty to my spleen before leaving me to slump to the ground, so my first operation had been to try and resolve some of these issues, but unfortunately with only very limited success, apparently I was ‘quite a mess’ inside. If that was not bad enough, when I had briefly come round after my second operation (Robin insisted that I’d had enough medication inside me to render a medium sized cart-horse comatose), with all the moving around I tried to do I had somehow twisted my spine slightly, driving some of the remaining splinters even closer to my spinal cord and temporarily paralysing myself, hence a third operation, and all the straps & pillows. After getting the use of my legs back for me the Surgeon’s then tidied up the needlework, and as I was now ‘in a stable condition’, they called it a day. Apparently three operations in two days are not very good for you. One thing that neither of them got around to explaining to me though was when they were going to repair my broken heart.

Roger & Jeannette (our free cuppa friends) had visited me in hospital the day following the accident (although I was still well and truly out of it) and explained to Robin what had happened, and then went on to tell him that after O.K’ing it with a distraught Sheila they had persuaded a Paramedic to lift the motor home keys out of my jacket pocket so they could attend to Bonnie and Clyde. Both the ‘babies’ and ‘Winnie’ were now at their home and would all be well looked after until things were sorted out.

Over the next twenty-four hours (about ten days after the accident) it seemed to me that the entire Senior Medical Staff of the hospital took turns with a new game of ‘Do you want the bad news – or the even worse news’. My spleen had gone, my liver and kidneys were just about irreparable, my intestines (along with my colon) were a mess; and to top it all my back was ‘way beyond their scope of expertise’, although with the amount of drugs that I was on I wasn’t particularly bothered, although it did seem to upset Alice and Robin, they were still taking it in turns to be at my bedside 24/7.

A few days later, as I lay there thinking that things couldn’t get much worse, I sensed rather than heard someone enter the room. As my eyes came into focus I saw a pale, thinish man, about my age gazing across at me from a wheelchair. It didn’t need Alice to introduce me, this was Mr Albright, and if I had somehow forgotten his face (which I never would), the neck brace and wheelchair were a sure giveaway. After very stiffly introducing himself, not all of it down to his brace, George Albright gingerly shook my hand; fortunately all the drips were going into my left arm so that experience was relatively pain free, and after the introductions he thanked me for saving his life.

‘Don’t mention it’ I thought, ‘anyone would have done the same, saved yours, ruined mine - fair swap’. I don’t remember what I actually said but as Alice didn’t give me one of her ‘looks’, I must have uttered the right responses.

He then enquired about my injuries, although he seemed to know more about them than I did, he had obviously done his homework, well it was his guilt trip, let him enjoy it. Just as I was about to make some feeble excuse about being tired he came to what seemed to be the main event, ‘apparently in some cultures it is customary for the person that saves another’s life to take responsibility for them thereafter’.

’God’ I thought, ‘now he wants to sue me’; surely things can’t get any worse, but just as I was about to tell him too politely ‘go away and speak to my Solicitor’ (or words to that effect) he went on to explain that he wanted to reverse the custom. He was a very wealthy man, he had more than enough money to last him and his wife for several lifetimes, so it was his wish that as a way of trying to repay me for saving his life, and to compensate me in some small way for my tragic loss he wanted to split his wealth evenly with me 50/50, just like that, oh and to also arrange for me to receive the best medical treatment that money could buy (out of his half – of course). I not so much thought that all my dreams had come true, more ‘get this raving nutcase out of my sight’. I had not only just lost my wife, and nearly my life, but now it seems that I was being forced to lay here and listen to the demented ravings of a deluded, guilt ridden stranger, but I was fortunately saved from doing myself further physical harm by the timely arrival of Robin.

‘Hi Mr Albright’ he chirped ‘I’ve just been speaking with the hospital Administrator; the Air Ambulance will be here within the hour’.

Perhaps I had been just a tad hasty in my initial assessment.

~~~~

Chapter 2

George Albright’s father had been a fairly prosperous doctor, although he only had a small country practice with few real patients, but that didn’t seem to be a problem at all; in fact it allowed him time to indulge his real passion – medical research. George wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but it seemed to keep them ‘in a manner too which they quickly became accustomed’. Throughout his formative years George attended private schools (to which his father willingly donated heavily to all their causes, new gym, new swimming pool etc.) and he turned out to be one of the fortunate few that didn’t have to study very hard to pass exams, it was assumed by all and sundry that he had a natural talent when it came to examinations. It was also assumed that he would follow in his father’s footsteps, but during his first year at medical college things seemed to change. No matter how hard he tried to study (in between the parties of course), his progress started to seriously flounder, and finally, in desperation, he went to his father, pleading with him to pull a few strings. The only response he got was ‘work harder, I’ve done my bit, now it’s up to you’. This of course made George quickly realise that partying and late nights didn’t ensure good exam results, large donations did.

Towards the end of his first year George had a phone call, not from family or friends, but from a reporter.

‘Do you have any comment on your father’s dealings with MEDILUX?’

Of course he had heard of MEDILUX, his father had been dealing with them, one of the largest Pharmaceutical Companies in the Country for years. He always seemed to be writing reports about one ‘clinical trial’ or other for them, but having the sense to utter the time honoured words ‘no comment’ he hung up and then tried to ring his father, first at the family home - no reply, ‘he must still be at his surgery’ - no reply there either. As he was returning to his room he overheard the name MEDILUX mentioned on a neighbouring student’s television, and standing just outside her door he was informed by a very prim and proper Television Newscaster that the said company was in turmoil, and Members of the Board `and others’ were under investigation, for among other things ‘falsifying results of clinical trials’. As the report continued on he began to realise where his family’s wealth had come from, and it was certainly not from the small country practice. George returned to his room, and medicine suddenly didn’t seem as interesting as it had done twenty minutes earlier. Even if he did manage to ‘pull his socks up’ and struggle through all the exams he had a shrewd suspicion that the name ‘Dr George Albright’ (he had been named after his father), was not going to be synonymous with good medical ethics, but what to do next? A couple of acquaintances had recently been extolling the virtues of ‘trading’ and ‘playing the markets’ in ‘the big smoke’, while at the same time showing off their flash new motors. This sounded right up his street, and it was, he took to it like the proverbial duck to water – and although he didn’t realise it at the time his timing was perfect. One quick phone call and he was on the next train to London, within a couple of days he had a job, within three months he had his own flash motor and within six he was naming his own terms. A year after that he went for broke, and putting all his eggs into one basket, and committing himself in a big way to ‘new-fangled modern technology’ he became the master of his own destiny. He started off quite modestly really, no staff to eat up profits, just emerging computers and a rapidly expanding market. His first million was the hardest - that took him almost a year. The rest; the multimillion, the first billion etc. came quite easily after that.

His father managed to stay out of the courts; instead he became a statistic in someone else’s court case. Some months earlier, to cut yet more corners he had apparently become a self-medicating human guinea pig, using, as it turned out to be, one of the more dubious concoctions that MEDILUX were conducting trials on. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he succumbed to a very quick, but relatively painless demise; poetic justice, and his mother Maud survived her husband by no more than 3 months. George believed that it was not so much that she couldn’t live without his father, more; she just couldn’t live without his money.

Having no other surviving relatives George found himself friendless, relative-less, and starting to get rich, and as time progressed George did indeed become very, very rich, which could have tended to cause problems for a lesser person. Fame, expensive cars, private jets, begging letters and so forth, but not for our intrepid George, he came across Millie, a financial wiz at the local bank. Like himself an only child, with absolutely no interest whatsoever in increasing the world’s population, and ‘sensible’ about money. First she fell in love with his bank account, then to everyone’s surprise she actually fell in love with George, and George reciprocated in kind. They shared the same values; hard work, a love of cutting edge technology, and not spending their gains wantonly. Don’t get me wrong they spent some of it, in fact quite a lot of it. They went on the cruises, not in the ‘best’ suites, that would have attracted all the attention, rather the ‘nice ones’, the ones that Bank Managers and Company Directors could afford. When they flew, yes it was First Class, but they never caused a fuss, always keeping in the background, as though they had just been given an ‘upgrade’ by the airline, in fact George’s only passion, outside of his dealings (and Millie), was flying. Not in the aluminium tubes that passed for mass transport, more the canvas and string of vintage biplanes. Millie, bless her heart, had seen the way her beloved George gazed on those ‘vintage string bags’ whenever their paths crossed, so realising that his birthday was looming she got her man, a man who could quite literally have ‘almost anything that the modern world could offer’, half an hour of history. It was a thirty minute flight in a Tiger Moth biplane, operated by a local flying school. When the pilot was eventually allowed to land, pleading that they really were flying on fumes, George leapt out of the aircraft and made a bee-line for the office. He quickly signed up for a course of flying lessons and promptly climbed back into the by now re-fuelled aircraft for his first one, and George found out that he also had an aptitude for something else in life, he sailed, sorry flew through the course with flying colours. On gaining his wings he took Millie up for a celebratory spin – literally - and after she had filled a conveniently located paper bag she demanded that he return her post haste to terra firma, and then explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that THIS was ‘his’ hobby, she was sticking firmly to her embroidery, and so his flying ability rapidly grew as he found more and more time to indulge his hobby, firstly by hiring the ‘Tiggy’ Moth at every possible opportunity, then by buying it. He then came upon the second love of his life (or was it his third?), a beautifully refurbished bright yellow North American Aviation ‘Harvard’. This Second World War training aircraft only had one set of wings, and no canvas, but he didn’t care – it had wheels that went up & down. He purchased a ‘quarter’ share in this wonderful machine; people accepted that it was expected that a man with ‘a little money’ shared such an exotic toy with other likeminded friends - he failed to mention to anyone that he had also purchased the other ‘three-quarters’ as well.

But how did George and Millie end up with a caravan? By the way please don’t call her Mildred, as in that popular sit com TV show of yester years, George did once and it nearly cost him a divorce. I wonder if I will ever pluck up the courage to call her ‘The Dragon’, nah I think not, now back to the question, so how did they