Healthvues

Maybe it was a sign of things to come, but we were greeted at the airport by a skycap who promptly told us our flight had been cancelled. No courtesy call, no planned rebooking. Then we find out we have too much baggage (what, we can’t take 4 bags each? With baby stuff, it adds up) and it was going to cost us another $75 per bag! The part of Spike’s brain that wanted to spew obscenities was quickly taken over by the emotions of the event. Through teary eyes, she mutters to the agent, “Can you cut us a break, we’re on our way to adopt our first child?” Surprisingly, this argumentative tactic works splendidly (we’ll have to use that in the future) and we get on the next Delta flight - which will theoretically get us into Little Rock 3 hours earlier, AND we don’t have to pay any extra baggage fees. Theoretically, because the next flight has cabin pressure problems (the optimists in us say it was better they found that out at 300 feet above sea level than at 30,000 feet up!). They find us another plane and we arrive in Little Rock at pretty much the same time we would have on United. All in all, we were still pretty chipper. Despite the fact that Thrifty Rent-a-Concept did not have our pre-arranged vehicle (apparently the notion of “reservation” is more of a guideline than company policy - anyone remember the Seinfeld episode?), we got a car, loaded our luggage and headed off to Siloam Springs - a mere 4 hours’ drive away down I-40. I remember driving this exact same highway nearly 20 years ago on a cross-country (and back) journey right after college graduation. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that I’d be back on this same highway for a journey of an entirely different sort, though just as life altering.

There are times in a person’s life when the hand of Fate gently guides us to our destination. There are other times when we get slapped in the back of the head as if to say, “Whassamatter wit you? Whaddya thinking!?” It was such a time in a restaurant called El Chico, which loosely translates into “stay away from the burrito.” On a serious note, the CPR course we took (thanks, Sarah!) came in handy as Andy had to use the Heimlich on Spike several times in the middle of the restaurant. After all we have been through to get here, to come so close to losing it all because of choking on a Mexican meal complete with not being able to breathe was certainly absurd. After several heimlichs, Andy was able to restore breath and everything ended up fine….Be prepared for future lectures to all of you who are not CPR certified… Truly a very scary episode… we grossed out the entire restaurant and the busboy earned his pay. Oh, in case you’re wondering, Andy boxed all the food and ate it later. EDITOR’S NOTE!!! Let’s not forget one very important travel tip…With the exception of almost losing his wife in a Mexican Restaurant (without the benefit of a margarita, I might add), Andy is in a great mood ALL DAY…As any of you who have had the pleasure of traveling w/Andy will appreciate, this in and of itself is a miracle… Andy is never in a good mood on a travel day, he worries about everything, but go figure, he’s downright chipper…very weird….

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 7:18 am and is filed under Our Open Adoption Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.