It is 2 A.M. on Tuesday morning and someone is shaking me, telling me to wake up. It’s the bag lady sitting next to me in Los Angeles’ Union Station. I’ve been here since 10 P.M. and I must have dozed off, waiting for my bus that is supposed to arrive at 2:30. I’ve had about 4 hours sleep in the last 48 hours trying to get to Mexico…..
…..It was last week when Master Lee’s medicine started to get Lennie’s diarrhea under control. Once he knew he could travel he wanted to come back to Mexico. This time our destination was a hospital/clinic, still in Tijuana, where Lennie could receive round the clock care. We chose the International Bio Care Hospital in Tijuana. If you remember from our first trip to Tijuana, I had taken a tour of some of the cancer clinics in Tijuana, provided by the Alternative Cancer Convention out of LA. The Bio Care Hospital had been my alternate choice to Stella Maris Clinic at about this time last year. Lennie had conversed back and forth with the doctors here and this was our new destination. So now we are ready to leave. Just a few hours and we will be in Mexico. Oh sure!
Remember the classic Steve Martin movie, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”?
Del: You’re in a pretty lousy mood, huh?
Neal: To say the least.
Del: You ever travel by bus before?
[Neal shakes his head]
Del: Hmm. Your mood’s probably not going to improve much.
We left Sunday afternoon for Pearson International Airport in Toronto. When we got to Toronto there was thunder and lightening. Flight cancelled. We were given a ‘distress’ pass for a hotel so that it only cost us $69 for the night. Next morning (had to be at airport at 4 A.M,) got flight to Detroit. On arrival in Detroit, which is the forth largest airport in the US, there was only 1 seat left to San Diego, so I sent Len on ahead and I would take the next flight….. I thought. Next flight after the 8 A.M. one was at 3:30. Hung around for 7 1/2 hours only to be told that the flight was full. They rolled me over to the 7:30 one, but said that my chances were not good as it was overbooked.
Decided to look for help. A nice lady told me to try to get to Indianapolis and then get to LA. Got on the Indianapolis flight and then they had to check my carry-on because all the hogs with two carry-ons that stored them overhead had filled the compartments. Instead of giving it back to me when I got off, they sent it to baggage claim – this was our computer. Had to go to baggage and get it. Now I am not in a secure place any more, so I had to go back through screening and get to the LA flight. I got on the LA flight to find that it was the same plane and crew that I just got off. Too bad that I had grabbed a sandwich at Detroit as the stewardesses offered me free wine and food because they felt sorry for my hassle with luggage. Finally I was in LA and only had to get to the train station and on to San Diego where a driver from the hospital would pick me up and drive me to Mexico. When I got to LA I was told that there were no more trains ’till morning to San Diego. All the while I had to keep phoning the clinic to tell them not to send the driver and the new arrival time would be blah, blah, blah. Had to cancel the driver 4 times. I finally found a bus to take me from the airport to downtown Los Angeles. So, now here I was at the train/bus station in downtown LA and let me tell you, you have not truly experienced an awful trip until you have spent a night alone in the LA bus terminal. Every microcosm of mankind can be found there. I had bought a bus ticket to San Diego that would be leaving at 2:30 A.M. The bag lady said that she would wake me at 2 if I fell asleep. I in turn had said that I would wake the 2 German girls earlier if they fell asleep. The bus was late and did not leave until 4. So here was this motley group of us: black, white, homeless and foreigners all chatting and promising to wake each other should we fall asleep. I must have slept for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours and when I was woken there were still my bags beside me intact. I arrived at the clinic at about 8:30 Tuesday morning. Whew!
We spent the entire day yesterday (Wednesday) having tests and were given the diagnosis late in the day.
In my next blog – hopefully tomorrow – I will fill you in with the details of what was found.
Kathryn
www.kathrynsmith.com