DC trip 7/10-12/12
We left the house at the insane hour of 2:30 AM. Off to Dayton we headed with a stop for some food first.
Got to DAY in good time. Had a fun time trying to park. I'd looked online for which lot was cheapest, but when we got there Economy looked spookily dead. So we chose long term and in we drove. Parked as close as you could get and hauled ourselves in.
Our bag was weighing 53 lbs at home, so i took a lactated ringer out and put it in my back pack. Still overweight but only by a bit. I have always had gracious check in people so i decided we would deal with it when we got there. We waited a bit to check in and we weighed it on the scales next to ours. 51 lbs. When it came time to put it on our scales, God had taken it down to 50.5 lbs. The check-in lady said "well you can't get closer than that!" :) Shew! Thank you God! I knew it'd be OK! :) We checked our bag and sped through security. After all, not many security lines are miles long at 4:30 AM. Found our gate and settled in to read, sleep, listen to music, etc.
It was at this point that i realized i forgot my phone charger. Completely. It was a slight sinking feeling. But, what was done, was done. Nellie had her phone (and charger) so we'd be ok. I texted a few key family members and a friend telling them what was up so if they tried to reach me and couldn't they'd know what was up.
Our 5:50AM flight left on time and all was good.
Landed in IAD (Washington Dulles) around 7 something and were surprised to be dumped on the tarmac! Well Nellie can't do stairs very well so the stewardess said they could take us to another gate. Great, fine, lovely. But it didn't happen. So Nellie tried scooting down the stairs on her butt, as she does most stairs, however the stairs are coated with sandpaper grippy stuff, so you couldn't really slide. Epic fail. :(
We had nearly a 2 hour layover so we went in search of food. Even endeavored to walk the whole length of concourse B in search of our favorite food. But half way through the 2 mile walk, realized we wouldn't have time. To get from concourse A to B you had to take 2 elevators up, cross an 'overpass' and take an elevator down. weird and only slightly confusing.
We got to our gate early and told the gate agent that she couldn't do stairs, or walk the ramp, so they put her in a straight back (isle chair) and pushed her up the ramp. It was kinda funny. :)
the beginning of a 20 ft ramp up into the plane.
When we boarded the last leg of our flight we were ready to be there! Landed in CHO (Charlottsville, Va) around 9:45AM. Once in CHO, we once more had to wait for a ramp and straight back. It was just slightly inconveniencing us, but still a bit annoying. As we we're waiting we were talking with the stewardess and she explained why we weren't getting jet ways. Basically United Express (who we were flying) doesn't feel like paying to get jet ways engineered for their tiny planes. So the morale of that story is, if you are disabled, don't fly United Express. Not only does United break guitars, they don't have jet ways for their Express planes.
In CHO we waited for about 25 min for my aunt to come pick us up. She'd had in her head that we got in at 11, so she planned to be there a bit early. Well we got in before 10. :) But the wait wasn't bad, we had some interesting people to watch that made the time go by.
Got to my grandparents around 11? I really don't remember now. Sat and talked with them and had lunch. Bliss! Eating with my lovely grandparents again. There is just no one like them.
After lunch they rested, Nellie dripped a bag of fluids and slept, and i went swimming for several hours with my cousins. I know lucky and dumb me! I had been up for 12 hrs already on basically no sleep. But i wanted to swim again. It was fun, but i did more floating than swimming.
After Nellie woke up, she was able to visit with one of her Bible School friends, Carolyn Rhodes, she hadn't seen in a while. That was really nice. I even got in on some of the visit.
After supper Uncle Darrell's and the girls came over. We sat and visited for about 30-45 min. After they left, we sat around and talked some, but we were all pretty worn out. Into bed for the night, Nellie and i had fun laying there talking for a bit before we feel asleep. It was so good to do that again. Kind of like old times when we'd stay up til wee hours of the morning talking. :) <3
We left Grandpas by 10AM and drove about 75 min to meet Joel's and have brunch. From there grandpas went home and we continued on to DC with Joel's. I slept most of the way so it went by fast. :)
We got to Dr. Jemseks office a bit early so Nellie could meet Kate, one of her Lymie friends. The office was really full! We finally were called back and the office cleared out some. :)
The visit was good. No huge news to tell. They have added a second IV drug Clindamycin to her already existing Merrem. They added some other drugs to the regime also. Mepron, is commonly referred to as 'yellow paint'. Its yellow and about the constistancy of paint. With that she is supposed to eat a fatty snack with it to coat her mouth so not so much gets stuck in her mouth. Any ideas?! She hates peanut butter, can't have Nutella because the chocolate makes her sick. We really do need ideas. Keep in mind this is twice a day, 3 times a week, for who knows how many weeks.
We spent 2 hours getting out of downtown DC. It was 5 til we were leaving and traffic was crazy, but Joel is a good driver! He's used to Guatemala driving after all!
We checked into our hotel and then went to go get some food. We hadn't really had anything but a couple of snacks Gwen managed to pack in her bag. Sugar snacks that the Lymies among us shouldn't be eating. Dark chocolate peanut m&m's-oohh lala! Filled Twizzlers in cherry and citrus flavors. meh. Could live my whole life without them.
We decided on Bob Evans. we got a table in the back as far from the noise and commotion as we could. Had a lovely dinner of fish, and open roast beef sandwich. Lila had fun running around after she got done eating. The poor child had been cooped up all day! Most of the time in her car seat.
Joel's came back to the motel with us. He repacked the carry on, Gwen took care of Lila and Nellie got ready to drip a ringer. They left quick before Joel fell asleep. Gwen knew she'd be driving home, poor dear. :)
Finally was ready to crawl into bed. Got a wake up call to ensure we woke in time and settled down for a 2 hour night of sleep. I was really sick that night so i only got an hour of sleep. I totally missed hearing the wake up call, thank goodness Nellie was awake and woke me.
Got ready and left. The shuttle ride went fine, smoothly at 4AM. Checked in, sped through security once more and were on our way. They never even batted an eye lash at our bag of IV meds. Joel had packed it well and put some tubing on top to cushion it a bit. Mom said they saw that on the x-ray and knew what was up, so they didn't question. Whatever the case, it was nice not to have the whole bag dug through.
Our flight to Chicago went well. We were so insanely tired we fell asleep right away. We missed most of the boarding, the pre-flight instructions, take off, drinks, everything! The stewardess woke me when it was time to sit our seats up for landing. And even then, i had to shake Nellie to get her awake. Zombies would have accurately described us.
We were starved and looking forward to getting food on our nearly 2 hr layover but we had no time! We rode to our next gate and were there none too early. (The pilot on our last flight had been an hour late due to being called last minute to do another flight. I do vaguely remember them announcing that.)
And this is where a lot of the problems begin. We went up to our gate agent at C3 to tell her we need a ramp and straight back, and that we have a bag of meds that has to go with US on the plane. Long story short we argued against her and another worker. We told them we had a Dr.s note and they didn't even care to see it. It was so strange how mad they got at us. They refused our flight saying it was physically impossible to fit that bag on the plane. Either they gate check it, (illegal according to airline regulations) or we go to customer service and find a different flight.
the 'offending' carry on bag of meds.
Off to customer service we went. It was about a fifth of a mile. Not terrible when you're talking Chicago O'Hare, but when you're pushing a wheelchair with one hand and pulling a 30 lbs carry on with the other, all on about 2 hrs of sleep, its a long way! We got in line, Nellie called Joel while i quick ran and got some Auntie Ann's pretzels. At least we can eat that while waiting in line. HA! We waited in line for 30 minutes and Joel was on the phone in Pennsylvania trying to figure things out. Then Joel said i was supposed to go back down to our old gate and get the ladies name. Ugh. Do you not get how tired i am? and that's another 1/4mile of walking? But i didn't have any choice.
We finally got to the front of the line, yay. And Joel said, "OK, go back to your old gate, they'll print your boarding passes for your next flight. It leaves at 2:18 and gets to Dayton at 4:20. (it was currently 9am) and they should give you food vouchers too!" off we head to our old gate. And then he tells us... "if they won't give you food vouchers, go to customer service and request them." At which point i nearly broke into tears. The day was proving to be way too long already. At this point we were supposed to be landed in DAY already, and we were just securing our next flight.
At our old gate they printed our boarding passes and said we had to go back to customer service for the food vouchers. Ugh. Back we went. Waited in line for another 30 min and it was finally our turn. I explained to the lady how we were denied our flight due to a bag of meds, and our next flight isn't for 5 hours. Can we have some food vouchers. She was upset that we were denied our flight, because she knew it was illegal to do that. She made some calls and finally gave us 2 $10 vouchers.
We set off in search of food. Not very easy. We wanted a quiet place and Nellie wanted a booth for her aching butt. Well ORD has 5 different terminals. And the little food maps only give you the food options for the terminal you're in. The options were scant! I couldn't believe they had nothing more than that! We finally settled upon a little Bistro Cafe place. Got an omelet to share. Perfect. It was a cool shnuppy place. We were so tired, and needed ice water, so we took the ice water off of the table and filled our water bottles. Nellie's bottle had a very small mouth so she made a royal mess. Mine went in just fine. :) We were able to laugh about it and hope the waiter wasn't too upset at having to clean up a soggy wet table.
Then off to Eli's Cheesecakes to spend the other voucher. :) We had nothing better to buy with the remaining $10. And $6/slice cheesecake isn't something we'd buy any day of the week, that's for sure. I got the Totally Turtle and Nellie got White Chocolate Raspberry.
The turtle one is looking a bit sad by now, since it's been carried a mile in a purse. The top slid off but it was still amazing! :)
Off we went in search of F11A, our new gate. We followed signs until they stopped saying which way F was. So we asked some dudes and they said it was in Terminal 2, around the corner in the next building. Oh great. But by then i was used to this whole idea of walking miles, i was feeling better with a lot of water and some food in my system.
We walked about a mile to our gate. It was a crowded concourse, so we picked a nearby corner and settled in to sleep. It was a corner so Nellie could prop her feet up on chairs in front of her, lean her head against the wall and sleep. I, on the other hand, had a small feather pillow (yes better than nothing!) but had the wheel chair in front of me, and was also responsible for a suit case of meds costing $9,000+! I slept some, but not that great. We set an alarm to wake us up so we didn't miss this flight.
Nellie was out cold and i had to work to wake her up. I was really glad though that she was able to get some sleep. Its not always easy for her to sleep. Went down to our gate and proceeded to argue yet again with the gate agent. Yes this bag of meds is going with us on the plane! They finally decided to let me try to fit it, but they knew it wouldn't fit. We told them we were not skipping this flight, we would be going on, with this bag. We showed them the Dr.s letter, they didn't even look at it, they didn't care. Its like they were out to prove a point. They also said the crew didn't want to put this bag up where they put their luggage, otherwise that'd be an option.
Once boarding opened, we were first to go through. While Nellie got strapped on to a straight back, i went on up ahead, determined to make this bag fit. I didn't get past the first row of seats, when the stewardess said "you'll need to put that up here!" She opened the crew hull and we stuck it in there. There was oodles of space and it was no big deal. Not sure where the gate agent got the idea that they didn't want to put it in there.
They'd also put Nellie in the middle of the plane and the stewardess said "i want her in 1A! I don't know why they put her way back there!" We'd already tried to switch seats and the gate agents wouldn't let us. Thankfully, God placed us on a flight with a very kind stewardess!
After i was seated, i looked under the seat, trying to decide if our bag would have fit securely. And indeed it would have!
It's times like these that you consider to be learning moments. Next time we have trouble, we try to convince them to let us try to fit the bag and under the seat is an option. If not, then you ask the crew member if they can place it up front. I feel much more prepared to take the next trip after this last flight. I never felt unprepared, but i feel like saying "watch our airports! here come the Hoovers with some experience and ability to fight for the law".
I think Nellie crashed once we got in the car at Dayton, and i would have too, but i had to drive an hour and a half home yet. It wasn't a bad drive, i was really dreading it though. I was so tired, i didn't want to have to think any more. Finally got home and the car unloaded and i totally crashed. I couldn't even think anymore. It was the craziest thing! We both slept for about 2.5 days straight.
I feel like even now, 2 weeks later, I am still catching up on sleep. It was a very hard trip due to the extremely early flights, and the day spent in Chicago fighting. If you know me, you know i HATE confrontation. I avoid it at all costs. It is especially hard when in a crowded busy airport and you feel like everyone is watching you to begin with. Then you start arguing to no end. That is really hard, but had to be done.
Our next trip is scheduled for August 21-23. Our flights are late afternoon ones, so hopefully the trip won't be so sleep deprived. We also found our favorite nonstop flights, so that's exciting also!
