It wasn’t easy for my wife, Laura, and I to enjoy one of Elton John’s concerts on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour the other night.
Sir Elton was appearing at Nationals Park, the baseball home of the Washington, D.C., Nationals. Having seen a couple of ballgames at the stadium over the past few years, I thought there wouldn’t be more than the usual problems for a guy with MS who uses a scooter and canes in place of his legs, and his wife, who uses a crutch due to back problems and who can’t walk more than a couple of blocks without serious pain.
Right … and wrong.
I forgot to plan for something
Advance planning is a must when I want to go somewhere unfamiliar. I’d purchased the tickets when they first became available months earlier, but I’d forgotten to also buy reserved parking. I’d never needed to do that for ballgames — there was never a problem reserving a spot at the last minute — but the lowly Nats aren’t drawing nearly the crowd that Elton John commands. Even the accessible spaces were sold out weeks ago.
Not to be deterred, however, I reserved a Lyft car to take us to the stadium and another to bring us home.
So far, so good on the yellow brick road
Things started out perfectly. The car arrived a few minutes early. My scooter, my canes, and Laura’s crutch were all loaded in, and off we went. We arrived at the first-base gate, which is the designated drop-off location, about two hours before showtime. There, we hooked up with a stadium staffer with a wheelchair so Laura could get a ride to our seats on the stadium’s third-base side — quite a distance away.
Once there, I scootered though a food line to pick up a cheeseburger, hot dog, and fries, and we settled in for the show. Our accessible seats in the back of Section 111 gave us a pretty good view of a great show. For more than two hours, we Crocodile Rocked and zoomed into space with the Rocket Man.
But I couldn’t enjoy it quite as much as Laura.
Worrying about the next ride
For over two hours, I worried. I worried about finding a Lyft to take us home. Even after I had the return trip confirmed, I worried that the driver would arrive to pick us up before we arrived at the pickup location and that she wouldn’t wait, leaving us stranded. I worried that my phone battery would run out, leaving me unable to coordinate with the driver.
When we got to the pickup site, the Lyft app told us our driver was just five minutes away. Great! But a few minutes later, the app showed me that she was driving away from the stadium. An exchange of text messages, followed by phone calls, revealed that D.C. police wouldn’t allow her through their post-show roadblocks to reach our pickup spot. Oy!
Around and around she drove, but she could get no closer than four blocks away from us. Back and forth along the side of the stadium I scootered, looking for the gray Tahoe, while poor Laura could only stand at the curb, supporting her aching back against a lamppost. My phone battery was down to 1%.
Finally, 45 minutes after the original pickup time, the Tahoe rounded the corner, a purple Lyft light shining brightly on its dash. The driver and I greeted each other like old friends.
A lesson learned on the Yellow Brick Road
As we were waiting for our ride, a younger woman, also waiting for a car, told Laura, “It’s great that you two are doing this. My mom sits at home and does nothing.” We realized then that, despite health issues and age, we were out there doing something. It wasn’t an easy evening, but it was worth the fuss and the stress.
Last week, I wrote about not following my own advice about living with MS. At the Elton John concert, I was back to doing it. And that felt very good.
(Featured image by Laura Tobias)
(A version of this post first appeared as my column on the MS News Today website.)
