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August 25th, 2008

We finally made it home around 2 AM (GMT -05:00 EST) today (Monday morning) after leaving the hospital on Sunday morning around 10 to go to Shanghai Pudong airport (PVG).  Leaving the hospital wasn’t as bad/emotional as we thought it was going but honestly it didn’t really catch up with us until we got to the USA.  Drew got kisses from both his girlfriends Elanor and Andrea.  Andrea was still in bed when we came in and Drew figured he could hop in and hold hands with her.  When they finally said goodbye Andrea was crying that she didn’t want Drew to leave!  When we got downstairs the other drivers that carried us unscathed through traffic were there to see us off and we got in the van around 10 AM.  The drive to Shanghai was uneventful except that Kristin couldn’t get over how the public toilets are different than what we’re used to while at a rest stop.  I think Rebecca took 2 minutes explaining to the driver that Kristin was taking pictures of the toilets.

Upon arriving at the airport Rebecca helped us check in with our mountain of luggage and gave us some going away tattos in Chinese for good luck – wu di (strong and powerful), mei neu (beautiful woman) and ben dan (this person is an idiot).  Well the guy that got ben dan had his wallet fall out in the company van and luckily Rebecca was around to save the day.

Anyways, the airport is an amazing piece of architecture and the entire terminal area is enormous and quiet as a musem.  Everybody was helpful and most spoke some or very good English.  Check in was a breeze and security was pretty much the same thing as in the USA.  The flight was long but Drew, the onboard movies and food were good and we arrived 45 minutes early.  I was worried a bit about US customs going through our bags and confiscating Kristin’s counterfiet purses but when we got there the CBP guy spent about .25 seconds per passenger collecting their forms and waving them through like a meat processing plant.

Upon arriving in the main International concourse in Atlanta and seeing tons of other Americans and fast food/burger joints in all their glory is about when it hit the both of us that we weren’t in China any more and how much we really miss (in no particular order) the interpreters, doctors, nurses, cleaning people, drivers other patients and their families.  Drew still got all the attention but it wasn’t nearly as what it was in China.  We had a 3 hour layover that was extended to 4 but it was over before we knew it and we were in Rochester.  After a quick drive home we walked into our house without Drew (he’s keeping Grandma awake right now) and it felt really eerie after having spent 5 weeks with three people in a ~30′ x ~20′ room.

Anyways there’s lots of typical stuff to do around here after having been gone for awhile and I’m still on China time including not enjoying 95 degree heat with 85-90% humidity.  Kristin’s Mom hasn’t really gotten a chance to play with Drew yet but we will let everyone know what its like before and after from someone else’s persective.

-Mike

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