April 26th…..Driving Evaluation

I took the day off and went with Marcia to Healthquest.  Marcia taught her class while I did some weight training and cardio exercise.  We drove to the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Woodbridge.  From 1:00 – 2:30, she was to have a pre-evaluation, followed by a road evaluation.  What followed was a stunningly eye opening, and heartbreaking.

Without going into too much detail, she did some reaction testing where she was asked to go from a gas pedal to a brake pedal when a light changed from green to red.  I was sitting behind Marcia and was simulating the test on imaginary pedals.  She was extremely slow!  Her evaluator urged her to go faster.  She was just so cautious.  From where I was sitting, we didn’t need to go through the rest of the test, but it was just getting started.  Many visual tests followed, similar to what she does when we see Dr. Honig.  One new test was three notebook sized charts full of letters about an inch tall.  Her evaluator asked her to count how many “D’s” she saw on the charts.  Sitting behind her, I counted 21.  She saw 13.  The rest of the day was a series of tests that frustrated her and totally taxed her mentally.  She cried, she wanted to quit, and we took more than two hours to do what was scheduled for 90 minutes.  And missed the road test.

The ride home was awful.  Marcia had a headache and she was emotionally spent too.  When we got home, Marcia took a nap.  I went to Riley’s lacrosse game at Vorhees High School.  The game was so therapeutic for me.  Not only did Somerville win, Riley scored twice!!  When we got home, Marcia was awake and in surprisingly good spirits.  Amazing how well she was able to shake off such a difficult day.

We were told we’d have to reschedule if she passed the pre-evaluation.  There’s no way she could have passed unless it wasn’t possible anyone could fail.  They told her that her vision was 20/200 (afterwards we had her eye doctor test her and her vision is fine).  I got a call two days later to schedule the road test.  Really?  I asked if they could tell me what the results said and I was told they could not share with me over the phone.  The results were sent to her doctor.  I called the doctor and never got a return call.