I offer this little side story as it occurred while I was trying to get to Italy and get the protocol started because it is a very weird story worth mentioning just because of the layers of weirdness to it. I would also offer it as a precautionary message for anyone traveling during covid. After I share this as a separate little story I will get back talking about what is going on specifically with the protocol. 

On Wednesday I had some tests done that were “ordered” by Diana. As I was getting the tests done I thought “I may as well ask for a covid test while I’m here” even though I was told that all I would need for traveling was to show my immunization record. That night I went to visit with my friend Loila and spend the night on her spare bed which was all delightful. The next morning I got a sense that I should be doing something more regarding my flight and called the airline, Air Canada where I was offered the call back option only for the automated system to get my phone number wrong, but the same wrong number maybe 8 times before I gave up and choose the option of staying on hold. Personally I have never had an automated system get my number wrong, much less the same wrong number repeatedly. That probably should have been a harbinger of the multitude of disasters to follow. So I went with the option to hold and he recording said that my wait time was going to be 7 hour and 11 minutes. WHAT!? Okay, so then the only option that I had left was to register on line. When I tried to do that my passenger information was not recognized. Great! Now time was running out to get to the airport from my standard and preferred “There will be plenty of time to spare” standpoint. “Coincidentally” the night before Loila and I had a conversation about how we are both very focused on our travel plans including being early for our flights. I also happened to ask her how close she has ever come to missing a flight and how well she handled it. I only mention this because as far as I can recall I’ve never asked anyone that specific question before, nor have I ever actually missed a flight and I must have been on approximately a hundred. 

On the way to the airport I told her that I felt very anxious that something was wrong and we both agreed that it would be better to stay positive and expect the best outcome. Instead of the best outcome I got to the counter and I was told that if I were traveling straight to Europe that I wouldn’t need a covid test but since the second leg of my trip was from Toronto to Montreal that I would actually be traveling within Canada. Plus they didn’t see on my itinerary that I was going to Europe anyway. There was a covid testing station at the airport but it didn’t open for an hour and that didn’t give me enough time to get the test done and get the results back and get on the flight. Frustrated I asked the attendant how I was supposed to know these things and she said something like “you should have checked the website”. Never mind that I had no idea what website I was automatically supposed to know to check, but this was her initial attempt to blow me off. Then I asked her what my options were and she said that they were to “move aside and let her get the passengers on the flight and that she would be able to help me in about an hour and a half” which was about as certain a blow off statement as there can be. Meanwhile she said I could go get a covid test but since they cost around 300 dollars and I was unsure if I would have to wait until tomorrow for the next flight and time to get to my clinic for one that wouldn’t cost anything I figured I’d wait to see what she said about getting a flight first. 

Meanwhile I had these tickets set up with flexible dates and since this was happening prior to the flight with a better chance of getting a refund because of that fact I tried to call the ticket website, e-dreamtickets, or something like that, to make sure that I got ahold of them before the flight left. I was on hold for a half hour before texting D to see if there was anything she could do from her end. She reached them for a text chat but then they dropped the chat. Unfortunatley they dropped the chat after she told me that I shouldn’t bother staying on hold because she was chatting with them. By then I had probably been on hold for 45 minutes and I was not doing well on all levels with the accumulation of shit piling up. Keep in mind that my pile of shit on this day would be dwarfed by tomorrow’s nightmare. 

When I went back to the Air Canada employee after the hour and a half she told me that her supervisor was there to help us figure it out but that they still had to get passengers on the flight. They said that I would need a particular type of rapid test that I should probably just get at the airport. I asked her specifically if someone would be there to help me when I got back and she assured me that there would be. Meanwhile through this I was dragging around two full suitcases and a full backpack, which normally would be “just” a pain in the ass but because of my recent decline in health and corresponding energy it was extra taxing. When I finally got back to the Air Canada desk I saw from a distance what you are thinking about now, which is that there was nobody there. 

The united desk was next to Air Canada and a woman told me that she would help me but she was off soon. Earlier I had asked Diana to send me some information about other flights and that was very helpful because this woman started out by telling me about a round trip flight for over 7000 dollars. I pointed to the text D had sent me and we worked from there finally deciding on a one way tickets for 1700 dollars based on the assumption that I could still use the ticket that I had for the return flight. Still I was out 2000 dollars altogether when factoring in the no unnecessary covid test . Still to say that she “found” the ticket does not justice to the stressful hour of searching altogether because the woman helping me told me for maybe the last half hour that she was now technically off and would need to leave. But she hung in there and I got my ticket set up for me to fly the next day with united.com. 

By the time I got to a cab at 10 30 A.M. I was so exhausted that I had a hard enough time getting my backpack into the cab and I completely surrendered the other baggage to the cabbie. When I got back to Loila’s house there was roofing going on next-door and that house was so close that it could be literally hit with spit. So it sounded like all of the power tools, hammering, hollering and whatever else goes into roofing was coming from the next room. I say that as a just to emphasize how tired I was because I slept as sound as could be for the next couple of hours. 

When I awakened I started working on getting a refund from the other ticket which was it’s own little ordeal that lasted for several hours as I went through multiple Indian call center guys who I didn’t understand. By the time it was all settled it was around 2 P.M. and omitting the time I spent napping I had been at this project of missing my flight since around 5 A.M. I get that in a vacuum this isn’t the worse missing a plane story ever. But factoring in that Diana is saying that every day matters for the success of the treatment, plus the taxed energy and related depletion of frustration tolerance it starts to raise to the level of sharing. But then add to it the FRAKING NIGHTMARE that happened the next day. 

So that night I called United just to make sure that I had everything I needed to board the plane This all started on Thursday evening when I called United just to make sure that I had everything I needed to board the plane. First I experienced some minor frustration that I got because the employee was on the line reading things, assumingly off of her computer screen for maybe 5 minutes. I mean, I know we live in unusual times, but am I wrong that I think part of their job is to know what passengers need in order to travel? Anyway, after she did her reading she told me that I had everything that I needed and I can just show up on time to do the normal boarding stuff and hop on the plane. The flight was due to leave at 3 25 and I was at the airport around 1. I went to the boarding Kiosk and got stuck when it said something about a self-declaration form. Now then, over the course of the next grueling hour and a half no less than 7 United Airline employees get involved in this story. Normally one might say they were “helping me” but it was far more accurate to say that they were mostly not helping me and that they were blatantly uninterested in helping me. I think that the best way to navigate this narration is to number them. I want to detail this because I feel that I need to let United know this happened as well, if for no other reason than to help the next unfortunate soul who has to encounter this nightmare. So number one didn’t know anything about the document I had to fil out but he gave me the web address that I needed and told me to go fill it out. Then helped me with something at the beginning of this document that asked what my first seat assignment was and he said that I should just put anything. Well if I could just make shit up why where they asking? I didn’t know if I would get to the end of the document and have to sign an affidavit about all of the information being valid or else the whole thing is invalid because I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I WAS DOING!!! The next question was what my destination was and I didn’t know if it was asking for my next destination, or my final destination. Again, I didn’t know how important this document was and what it was trying to establish. The time was clicking away for my flight to leave. I didn’t know how much of the document there was to complete and it turned out that there was a LOT! And I was under as much stress as I have ever felt at any time in my life for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that my wife has been waiting for weeks already to get this cancer treatment started and it might be a bit dramatic to say that every day might be the difference between life and death, but it might also be completely accurate and legitimate to say that. Certainly I didn’t want to impose on Loila another night and pay a couple thousand dollars at minimum for another flight. When employee 1 told me that he’ll help me in a minute and then went off to help someone else leaving me standing there with my computer I pulled from every bit of anger management I’ve ever known to not go ballistic. While all of this was playing out I had my 3 bags of luggage and my phone sitting some 30 feet away and we all know that in an airport that isn’t what you want happening with your bags and phone. He got done with that woman and I addressed him again and he told me that I needed to put in each leg of my trip. This was to bring with it a new array of absurd challenged. 

He seemed all the way done with me so I flagged down United employee number 2 who took all of a half minute with me and the document to tell me that she needs to get me someone who can help. She walked over to this other woman a few feet away from me and they talk for a minute and then both of them walk off in separate directions while I’m shouting now “Hey! Is someone going to help me?” Employee 3 comes over to ask me what the problem is and I tell her how and why I’m stuck and she tells me that she doesn’t know anything about this document. Getting plenty animated at this point I asked her how I’m supposed to know what to do if she doesn’t know? What she told me was “You should ask the destination country.” A bit louder now and a bit more animated I said something like “How the hell am I supposed to do that!?” At which point she turned around without a word and walked back behind the ticket counter. I thought to myself that she might be going to get security so I better take a step back and reassess this. I went back to my bags and tried what I could to figure out what was what as the clocked ticked along. 

Speaking of clocks one big problem that I encountered was that on the self-declaration form they asked the departure and arrival time of each leg of the trip. When I didn’t get a time exactly correct the clock icon that they used was unable to be changed. I was completely stuck. So I went back to the counter and literally pleaded with employee 4 to help me. Her response was to point across her abdomen towards the other people working behind the counter. I asked her “what is that supposed to mean?” and she did it again. They have gone mute on me! If it wasn’t all so simultaneously important and horrific it would have been laughable. So, half out of my mind with anger, frustration and anxiety I saw no alternative than to go back and restart the process from the very first flight, and try to make no mistakes with the clocks in the program, but since it’s a computer I did make mistakes along the way, until I finally made it through….that part. 

Meanwhile I had called United to see if someone there would help me and when they came on the line it was at the exact time that employee 3 decided to come to try and help me. She must have found some sympathy in her when I explained what my needs where regarding getting cancer treatment started. I had lost track of my phone, which is in itself a pretty strong indicator of how scattered I was, but now, since it was paired to Bluetooth, but located way over with my luggage employee number 4 on the phone couldn’t hear me. So while employee number 3 was talking to me finally trying to be helpful I had to hold up my finger and run over to my stuff hoping that neither employees 3 or 4 would decide to bail out of the effort. Both of them stayed with me and while employee number 3 took my handful of paperwork, which included my passport, covid test and my proof of vaccination, employee 4 told me that she needed to transfer me. Having already been on hold waiting for her for at least 20 minutes that isn’t what I wanted to hear, but not a surprise! 

I was at a page in the self-declaration document that required details about where I was saying so I was communicating with Diana at the same time that I was on hold, while employee 3 had my documents and was working at the kiosk and while I was trying to get information from Diana transferred into the computer. Then it asked for a secondary location. But I didn’t even put that I had one and I didn’t have one anyway! Jeez-us Kee-rist! So as I was dealing with that employee 3 walked away giving me my passport, which was now only residual to my attention. Then employee 6 came on the phone and was talking to me just as I was completing the document while employee 2 made a reappearance to help fill out the boarding pass information on the kiosk that started the whole mess. She asked me for my immunization record which was nowhere to be found. I mean I tore everything up but I knew that it was supposed to be there with all my other information but I allowed that maybe in my running back and forth to my phone and as scattered as I was it feel out unnoticed and then who knows what. My heart and spirit was already so crushed that I really barely had it in me to go beyond the same thought that I had been having for the last hour and a half which was “this is the worst!” when employee 3 came along having taken my vaccination record for some reason without telling me. 

Having completed what I needed to get my boarding pass and drop off my bags at the desk it was now around 2:45, with the flight leaving at 3:25. I grabbed everything I had and went to get into line, and then focused on the line and with no exaggeration at all the line just to get to security was longer than I have ever seen before. There were no less than a couple hundred people in line before it got to the big sign that reads “30 minutes from this point”, which meant that getting to the plane on time was simply impossible if I didn’t do something. Fortunately I was able to access a wheel chair and get on the flight on time. The rest of the trip was great since I was “officially” listed as needing a wheelchair so I zipped right to my connecting flight, right through customs and then after a 6 hour holdover it was to Italy, Diana, and the Gerson protocol.