Becky’s MS Blog

we’ve arrived!!

December 12th, 2007

Well, we have arrived!! It was not the smoothest of journeys. Flight from Vancouver to Beijing was delayed for 2 hours, but that was completely painless because such nice peeps came to visit!! LeeAnn (Pat’s sister) and family friends Ron Fichtemann and his daughter Tania came and hung out at the airport. It was great to have some well wishers to send us off. And Tania – thanks so much for hanging in there til the bitter end, and thanks for the gifts for the flight.
Finally arrived in Beijing – collected Becky’s wheelchair and our mountain o’ luggage and onto our flight to Shenyang. None of us had slept much on the 12 hours from Vancouver to Beijing so we were a little tired to say the least. I was dozing away and heard that we would land in Shenyang in 20 minutes, but nope, wasn’t to be – the next announcement was that we were going back to Beijing!! Too foggy in Shenyang to land!! Not too happy about that and the waiting game again – collect the luggage and Bex’s chair again and found out that we would be bussed to a hotel and returned to the airport for our flight in the morning. It was 2:00 am by the time we got to the hotel and wake up call was at 5:30. But it was so nice to just stretch out in a bed, even though the mattresses were, well, a little like plywood. So big rush in the morning to get to the airport for an 8:00 am departure to Shenyang. Unfortunately weather was still bad in Shenyang, lots of fog and we didn’t actually leave until 11:00 am. Hurry up and wait much?
Kevin, a friend from Estevan who is from Beijing, met us at the airport in Shenyang. Tony from the hospital was also there! It was a very nice welcome for us! Kevin had also done some detective work from Shenyang and had called the hotel where we were for those re staying for those few precious hours of sleep.
The airline crews were pretty awesome all the way around. Traveling with a wheelchair really opens up some doors and allows a lot of queue jumping, tee hee!! We usually had our own dedicated attendant who stayed with us from check-in through to boarding. For the flight(s) to Shenyang, we were shuttled way out to the boonies and boarded the plane out on the tarmac. Not being able to climb the stairs, Bex and chair were put on a platform on a truck and elevated up level with the door of the plane wheeled straight on. She even did a little QE2 wave when she was up there. The only real snafu, was on our arrival in Shenyang when they told us that they were not able to bring the wheelchair from the terminal out to the plane or maybe that they weren’t able to bring the platform truck, something may have been lost in translation…. anyway, Pat the superhero, hoisted Becky up and piggy backed her down the stairs – in a better story that would be ‘to the cheers of all the other passengers’, but in truth the other passengers were all long gone. We actually had the shuttle all to ourselves.
K, back to the present – Bex and Pat are napping or trying to nap. We have met the head nurse Jane and Jillian, the manager. Dr Dung has been here for an initial assessment of Bex about 10 minutes ago and she is going for the MRI he ordered in a half hour! Pretty efficient! I’m feeling a little tired, but too late for naps for me now. Gotta save this and post as soon as I get the password for the internet!
Miss you all, please write comments back to us…

Entry Filed under: ms,Uncategorized