All set!

I am at the airport waiting for my British Airways flight to London en route to Chicago!

The last 24 hours have been quite something! I switched between various shades of nervousness, exhilaration, anticipation, frustration, anger and unbridled joy!

Since I had to catch the 6:40 a.m. flight to London, I would need to reach the airport by 4:40 a.m. which means I would need to leave by about 3:40 a.m. which means I would need to stop my dialysis by 1:40 a.m. which means I would need to start my dialysis by 6:40 p.m. to be able to get in at least seven hours! Phew! Some planning there!

The good news came about 2 hours into my session. I started making calls to the dialysis centers where I had scheduled my sessions in the US. The Chicago center agreed to move my session on the 26th to 6:30 a.m. which was a real relief since that would give me enough time to reach the airport to catch my evening flight to Los Angeles!

Then my brother brought his family including my sweet little nephew and niece to say goodbye. I love them so much! Little niece Nidhi made my heart melt when she gave me a piece of paper in which was scrawled "I love you, my best kaka"! Wait till I show this to Karan!

The frustration came when I tried to activate international roaming on my Airtel sim. I first called, went through the various menu options (oh, how I hate these!) and then finally the call got dropped. I called again, went through the torture again, got through to an exec who kept mouthing shit like, "I would like to take a few minutes of your valuable time!" and then put the call on hold to check on this. Finally he got back to me and said, "Our systems are undergoing upgrades currently. Can you call back after some time?" I yelled at him, "Why don't you call me back since it is your systems getting upgrades?" He seemed throughly confused. He was probably not trained to answer that. I hung up and called after a while. Torture again. Made the request. The lady asked me to wait till she registered the request. The music started playing. Like. Forever. I hung up again!

A few minutes back I called them again. Looks like the request has finally been made!

Anyways, I am all excited about this trip. Looks like things are falling in place, one by one! Like my brother commented on a FB post I made, "It's going to be yet another memorable trip! Just focus on the fun stuff.....". I am going to strictly follow what my friend Subhash advised me on the same FB post, "Stop thinking and enjoy the trip :-)"

Comments

Chaitali said…
Good luck Kamal..what an enormous opportunity!!!
Anonymous said…
Hi Kamal,
Hope you reach Chicago by now.
I have not been following the internet for a week or so, so I had no clue about all this your trip. I really missed to meet you & wish you.
Here I wish you all the very best and hope you will get a good chance to meet great doctors and tech's and learn many new things about home dialysis in this forum. Also enjoy the Enjoy the US.

regards,

Murali
Sandeep said…
If and when time permits, do post about your experiences in the US - in the dialysis centers as well as otherwise. Would love to read your keen observations about the similarity / differences / peculiarities of life in the US. And yes, I agree - dont think - enjoy one hundred per cent the moments that you can. Or in other words, live in the present as much as is possible. Not easy for us mortals I guess ;))