Today The Answer Was No

It's been a hard week.

Every time I take my mom to the hospital, I try to keep family informed about what's happening and pay attention to the insane amount of information being shared. My goal is keep my emotions out of it, (although I've certainly been known to make my displeasure known when my mom is not being treated properly); I feel like it's my responsibility to be as calm a presence as possible for my mom.

On the inside, however, all I'm thinking is, "Will this be the time my mom doesn't come home?"

Today, thankfully, the answer to my question was no.

She was discharged at dinner time today after being at the hospital since Monday (almost 26 hours in the ER before being admitted Tuesday evening). and I took her home and got her settled. So grateful for that ride together because one of my biggest fears is the day when I'll be driving home without her.

We have an appointment on Monday morning to officially start hospice care.

Watching someone you love with all your heart slowly deteriorate is torture. I don't care what the reason is...terminal illness, aging, mental decline...it is awful for them and it is awful for their family. What I wouldn't give to take away my mom's pain and suffering. To give her peace and comfort and restful sleep.

Hug your people and don't ever pass up a chance to tell them how much you love them.

Happy Tails to you...

A Lot Can Happen in a Week

One week ago today, we were driving to Canada to pick up Avalanche from summer camp.

Currently, I am writing this in the ER where my mom has been for almost 24 hours

A lot can happen in a week.

When we crossed the border into Canada last Tuesday, the border agent looked at us and said, "Didn't I have you guys a few weeks ago? I remember your license plate!" I found this both funny and charming. If you know C's license plate, you'll know why he remembered it, as we'd had a lengthy conversation with him about it the previous trip when we were dropping Avalanche off for summer camp. He'd been surprised not by what it said, but because it was a Virginia plate and he clearly has a good memory!

Avalanche had a great time with C's parents! They spoiled him with walks and treats and car rides and while he was certainly thrilled to see us, it was very clear how content he was at their house. We have a ten-day trip at the end of July into August and we've decided that we are taking him back to stay with them again! We've already changed our flights to fly in and out of Detroit instead of Washington to cut down on the driving we have to do to get him up to Canada and back home.

Speaking of logistics, I failed to give a shout out to my two best friends in my wrap-up post about our South America trip. When all of the insanity was happening with being stuck in Quito and trying to get home, both of them offered to pick us up at the airport even though we were scheduled to land after 1:00 am so that we wouldn't have to take an uber home. They're amazing and generous and we were so touched by their offers! Additionally, a week earlier when I posted that pic of Avalanche afraid of the storm, one of them offered to get in her car and drive to Canada to get him and then take care of him at our house so he'd be at home for the remaining duration of our trip (which at that point was scheduled to be two more weeks!). How incredible is that? I am constantly reminded of the wonderful, loving, supportive people in my life. So, so, so, so grateful.

The other big news is that I've accepted a job offer and will have a new title (Instructional Coach), new schools, and new responsibilities for the upcoming school year! I initially applied way back in March and the hiring process involved several stages, including video submissions which I recorded and submitted from our hotel zoom in Zurich! I cannot even express how much I am going to miss my friends and colleagues, as well as the students and families from my school. I'm not going to lie...it was NOT an easy decision in the least. I'm not just saying that. I was so looking forward to continuing in my same math specialist position at the school that I love and at every stage of the hiring process, I was sure I was going to turn it down if it was offered to me. However, opportunities like this don't come along very often and I kept coming back to the idea that at the end of the day, we often regret the things we didn't do more than the things we did do. So I took a leap of faith and said yes! Even my best friend, who has been with me every step of the way was shocked when I texted her that I'd accepted the job because she was sure I was going to turn it down!

Am I nervous and second guessing myself since saying yes? Absolutely.

Am I ready to learn and be challenged and grow as a professional? Absolutely.

Am I excited to work exclusively with teachers - my absolute passion? ABSOLUTELY!

As for my mom, they've been running tests but we don't really have any answers for her pain. I don't think she'll be admitted because the hospital is at capacity. Please send good vibes her way! One amusing story from our time in the ER...one of the nurses was chatting with my mom and she told him she was a nurse for 43 years. He looked over at me, noticed my "Rose Apothecary" shirt, and asked me if I was "in the medical field." LOL! When I told him it was from Schitt's Creek, he admitted he's never watched the show, so it was an honest mistake. At least it made my mom smile!

I love C's parents so much!
(I just noticed I was wearing the shirt in this pic, also!)

back in his favorite spot

we took Avalanche to meet his
great grandparents

a quick stop in PA on our drive home for
the best frozen custard ever

best friends

Happy Tails to you!

It's Like America, But South! Day 18

We finally made it home!

After 18 hours stuck at the Quito airport, we flew to Panama City, had a short layover, flew to Dulles, and took an uber from there!

It was a very long 30 hours from the time we left our hotel in Quito until we arrived at our house.

We flew on Copa Airlines and we were not impressed. From checking in, to checking bags, to boarding, to the actual flight...less than great. Obviously we were just so happy to finally be on our way, but it seemed like a bit of a bush league operation.

Our layover in Panama was a mixed bag. On the upside, the lounge had Diet Coke, which I hadn't had in 17 days because none of the places we went have it. After a long and stressful day, that was a major win!

However, after leaving the lounge, we bought a bottle of water to take on the plane and walked to our gate. What did we discover at our gate? A huge long line, an x-ray machine, and an enormous garbage can filled with full water/soda/juice bottles. That's right...when we were all in the SECURE area of the airport, we had to be screened again and everyone had to throw out their drinks THAT WERE PURCHASED IN THE SECURE AREA OF THE AIRPORT so no one was permitted to bring a drink on the plane. What on earth?!? On a day filled with ineptitude and stupidity, that takes the cake.

I slept the entire flight - from before takeoff until we landed - and C, who rarely sleeps on planes, also slept part of the flight, so that speaks to how exhausted we were. When we landed at Dulles, we were the first people at Global Entry, which literally took 30 seconds, and the first people at baggage claim, and the elation of being home cannot be overstated!

We got home at 2:00 am this morning, and left at 10:00 am this morning to drive to Maryland. We dropped my car off at B1 and S1's house and picked up C's car from there (my car is very old with 246,000+ miles on it and we don't want to drive it long distances if we can help it!).

I'm now writing this in the car on our way to Canada, counting the minutes until we see Avalanche!

Since this trip has drawn to a close, I thought I'd do a brief wrap-up!

Not-So-Fun Fact:

My least favorite thing about Quito is the stray dog problem they have. These poor creatures are everywhere. I don't presume to know how the country is addressing this issue, but I certainly hope someone is doing something. It's absolutely heartbreaking. It was not lost on me how we changed our plans and cancelled two countries of our trip just so we could get home sooner to Avalanche, while everywhere I looked in Quito, there were homeless dogs. I was constantly gutted and on the verge of tears.

Fun Facts:

Population of the cities we visited:

San Jose: 340,000

Cartagena: 920,000

Medellin: 4,000,000

Bogota: 11,500,000

Quito: 2,000,000

Elevation of the cities we visited:

San Jose: 3,800 feet

Cartagena: 7 feet

Medellin: 5,000 feet

Bogota: 8,660 feet

Quito: 9,350 feet

Over 17 days, we took seven flights on four different airlines: Southwest (we give it an A; we are big fans), Avianca (we give it a D; their "premium economy" was a joke), Latam (we give it an A; very impressed with their customer service), and Copa (we give it a D and that is generous; nothing about our flights was particularly pleasant and the rating is inflated just because we were relieved to finally be going home).

This trip added three new countries to our travel list - Ecuador was country #31 for us!

We've now been to four continents and all four hemispheres!

My current passport now has 39 stamps in it! (Some are the "exit" stamps when we left a country and one is the cancelled exit stamp courtesy of United cancelling our flight home!)

I am so grateful for technology - Google Translate, Google Maps, and Uber really make getting around places where you don't speak the language relatively easy!

A random observation I had about trying to communicate with people in all five cities (hotel/restaurant/shop employees, Uber drivers, etc.): no one used gestures to try to explain things to us! I found that incredibly strange. Some would just continue to speak to us in Spanish even though it was clear we could not understand what they were saying; others would just stand and stare at us. Maybe it's because I always talk with my hands (and pretty much every teacher I've ever known also does this!), but the idea that people wouldn't pantomime to help explain what they were saying just makes no sense to me! Thankful once again for Google Translate!

Thanks for following on our adventure to South America!

the cancelled exit stamp from when
the United employees collected everyone's passports
in the empty box after our flight was cancelled

why does Copa Airlines number the rows of its
plane like this...apparently rows 11 through 16 are imaginary

view of Panama City from the plane

Happy Tails to you!

It's Like America, But South! Day 17

This was how I intended to start this post: 

Surprise! We're home from South America!

Why? Because we were supposed to be home around dinner time today and I was going to write about our travel day.

We are nowhere close to home yet.

Last Monday morning, when we saw this picture of Avalanche, afraid of a thunderstorm, we were devastated. We immediately starting talking about shortening our trip to get home sooner. C's parents have been incredible, but the guilt we felt about being away for so long was weighing on us. It didn't help that not long after we saw the picture, I read something about only getting 11 or 12 summers with a dog and making the most of them...given that Avalanche was already 11 when we adopted him six months ago, I really wanted to come home.

C launched into travel planner extraordinaire mode, canceled flights to La Paz, Bogota and Santiago, Chile, canceled those hotels, and rebooked our flight home so we would leave from Quito instead of Santiago. That meant we were shortening our trip by a week, leaving on July 3 instead of July 10, and spending less time in Ecuador that we had originally planned.

The reality is that we booked this trip in November, before we had a dog and Bolivia and Chile aren't going anywhere. We've already discussed visiting them when we return to South America to go to Peru, since we had to cancel that portion of the trip anyway!

32 days is a long time for him to be away from home, even though he is in the very best hands, and 32 days is a long time for us to be away from him (we haven't seen him since June 11!). We are so fortunate to be able to travel and the 17 days we were gone were fantastic – but homesickness is a real thing! We adopted Avalanche in January, in the middle of the school year, so my time with him has been limited. I'm looking forward to spending some lazy summer days with him!

C made the best plans for us to get home, but United had other ideas.

We got a late check out from our Quito hotel yesterday, so we had our room until 6 pm, which was great because we did all of our sightseeing in the morning and afternoon, and then were able to go back to the hotel, shower, change, and pack, and then leave for the airport around 7 pm. Our flight home was Quito-Houston-Baltimore on United (not only do we try to avoid connecting flights at all cost, but we rarely fly United because we don't think particularly highly of them and this experience did nothing to change our opinion). C had been tracking flights for the past few days because United had been cancelling so many flights, and yesterday he was vigilant in tracking our plane throughout the day. All seemed promising until just before we had to check out of our hotel room when the inbound flight from Houston was listed as delayed. And then delayed again. And then delayed again. It was supposed to leave Houston at 6:15 pm. but didn't take off until 9:40 pm. So it didn't arrive in Quito until 2:40 am. We were scheduled to leave Quito at 3:00 am.

One big problem with that was it meant there was no way we were going to make our connection from Houston to Baltimore, which was scheduled for 9:30 am. Since the inbound flight was so delayed, the United agent was able to change our connection when we checked in for the Quito-Houston flight. So then instead of leaving Houston at 9:30, we left at noon, which would be an easy connection to make. Sounds great, right?

Well, our car is in Baltimore at B1's house. And he, S1, my niece, and my nephew just left for their own summer vacation yesterday. The plan was for us to take an uber from the airport to their house to pick up our car, but that was no longer possible because instead of flying from Houston to Baltimore, we got moved to a Houston to Washington-Reagan flight. We obviously just wanted to get home, so we figured we'd take an uber from DCA to our house, and take my car to drive to Baltimore to pick up C's car. A little inconvenient, but not a big deal.

It's now 9:00 am and we are currently still in Quito.

We've been at this airport for 13 hours.

Here's the timeline of events:

8:00 pm

arrived at airport

completed self check in

9:30 pm

dropped bags off at counter

gate agent changed the second leg of our flight to IAH to DCA

went through security and immigration

went to the airport lounge

2:30 am

went to our gate

2:40 am

inbound plane arrived

everyone in gate area was eager to board

3:15 am

announcement that there's a problem with the cockpit door and the plane can't fly until it's repaired

4:05 am

announcement that maintenance is working on the door

4:15 am

announcement that door should be fixed in 30-45 minutes

4:35 am

announcement that flight is cancelled; even though the door is fixed, the crew didn't want to fly (YES, YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY)

announcement that flights will be rebooked - C knew it would a numbers game because our flight only happened once a day and this could turn into a multi-day affair of waiting and hoping to be put on that flight

4:45 am

C got on his computer, found us flights home at 2:30 pm on Copa Airlines, connecting through Panama and then cancelled our United flights

5:40 am

a United employee walked around with an empty printer paper box and collected everyone's passport in an act of sheer lunacy - immigration had to cancel everyone's exit stamp and apparently they could think of no better system - absolutely ridiculous

6:40 am

United employees randomly started yelling out people's names to come and collect their passports, resulting in pushing and shoving, mass chaos, and very irritated travelers who were all exhausted and frustrated by how poorly things were being handled - no explanations, no directions, no information

7:00 am

we were escorted through immigration and to baggage claim

we collected our bags and returned to the main terminal, which is where I've been sitting and writing this post

As of right now, we should get to Dulles by 1:00 am (C made sure the final destination was Dulles because it's closest to our house). Let's hope things go smoothly today! We are so fortunate to be in a position where we can purchase last minute tickets and I am beyond grateful that C is so amazing!

Stayed tuned for the next post, which I will hopefully be writing from home!

Happy Tails to you!

It's Like America, But South! Day 16

We started the day with a crazy uber ride up into the mountains to take a cable car ride! The elevation at the top was 12,950 feet and the views overlooking Quito were spectacular! We spent quite a bit of time up there because no matter which direction we faced, we were in awe of Ecuador's beauty!

Here are a few videos of the views:

After riding the cable car back down, we took another uber to the historic center of Quito and spent some time wandering around, taking in the sights and sounds. As you can see, it is a pretty cool area!

Before I sign off, I just have to share a pet peeve. Why do people not only speak, but speak loudly in small enclosed spaces?!? Talk loudly on a phone call?!? Watch videos with the sound on?!? This has happened multiple times on this trip and I think it is so rude and obnoxious! How narcissistic do you have to be to not realize you are in a small shared space with other people?!?

I'd finally had enough today! On our cable car ride back down, we had two guys in the car with us and they were chatting in Spanish. Not a huge deal because it wasn't that long of a ride and I kept telling myself to just block them out. However, one of them got louder and louder and louder (he was seated beside me) and finally I could take it no longer. I turned to him and shushed him pretty aggressively. He seemed startled and sheepish and was fairly quiet the rest of the ride, but why did it take me shushing him for him to realize how loud he was being?!?

This type of rude behavior also happened in Medellin on the cable car ride and many times in elevators. I just cannot fathom being so self-absorbed!

And speaking of elevators, this is not a pet peeve, but rather just an observation...in all five cities we've repeatedly been in elevators where people get on and face the rear of the elevator. Like we are at the back of the elevator facing the door and other people get on a face us! I'm not going to lie - not only did it strike me as completely bizarre, but it made me very uncomfortable to have strangers standing close to me in a small space, facing me. Is this a cultural thing that I'm just not aware of? I don't recall this ever happening anywhere else we've ever traveled to!

Despite the rude guy on the cable car, it was an incredible day!

Happy Tails to you!