August 9, 2006
Today’s sessions started out with the group weight training again. Shortly after it began, our supplier came to put the hard shell back on Gary's chair and to tighten his brakes, so Gary transferred out of his chair onto a mat and did the exercises from there while the supplier worked on the chair. The exercises were two-handed ones, however, so I acted as his back support and wrapped my arms around him from behind to help him keep his balance. That was rather nice, actually, but a PT saw me doing that and brought Gary over a wooden adjustable wedge to use as a back support; I told her she just wanted me to do the exercises too. I did end up doing part of them (I am so happy I seem to be tolerating a little exercise these days), although we had another interruption when Gary needed to transfer back into the chair and see how he liked the new back. He thought it comfortable, but later decided maybe he was angled back too far -- he was popping wheelies when he didn't mean to.
After that was an OT session, during which he had to go through the ASIA test again even though he just did it two weeks ago; evidently it is a requirement at admittance to and discharge from Day Program, though since he came straight from being an inpatient, at least they let him skip the admittance one (since it would have been just four days since his last one). This time the OT's results were that he was a T3 on the left and a T4 on the right, so obviously there is some subjectivity involved in these tests. What is clear is that he has no feeling or function from T4 down, and that he begins to lose feeling a ittle higher than that on his left side.
His flap was checked out again, and the consensus is it is slowly improving. Not fast enough for me!
Next Gary had a session in the gym without a therapist. He used the Bowflex for about ten minutes, but then the Easystand Glider (I think that's it's official name)became free, so we transferred him onto that. He said it tired him out fast but that every time he stopped pulling on the handles he got dizzy. I got the idea of pulling on the handles for him during the times he needed a break, and this worked quite well -- it kept his legs moving, which evidently circumvented any dizziness (and I got a bit of a workout too this way).
After lunch, an OT took Gary down to the seating clinic and showed him a couple other backs for wheelchairs; Gary liked best the one she recommended, and so now that is the one on order for his own chair. It is hardback, with a gap at the bottom, more padded than the one he has been using, and more contoured, molding more around his sides – we hope this will keep him straighter in the chair, as he tends to slump to one side.
In order for him to try out the other backs, he had to make a transfer to a mat to get out of his chair and into another one; he and I did this transfer when the OT stepped out of the room to get the other backs. I crouched in front of him at ready but not touching him, which is what we’ve been doing the last two days. He made his best transfer yet this way, getting good lift. I told him he must be getting more confidence in doing them on his own. He told me that actually he’d been thinking, “Oh, no! She’s not holding onto me!”
Well, better that than overconfidence. (I don’t think there’s any worry of that happening soon though – on his next transfer he lost his balance, I closed the gap between us, and he used my shoulder to catch himself. But I’ll bet it’s only a matter of at most weeks before he is doing level transfers completely on his own.)
On the way out of the seating clinic, Gary had trouble getting the door open. Naturally, I didn't rush to open it ;-). After several attempts at trying to get the door open, he complained that a pair of crutches that were standing to one side of the door were in his way. I asked if that meant he wanted me to move the crutches or open the door for him. "Just open the damn door!" he told me, then we laughed. There are limits to this independence thing ;-).
The OT rejoined us, and on the way back to the gym she told Gary she thought he should get a van with a lift rather than a mini-van with a ramp, because she was concerned about the long-term affects on his shoulders of frequently wheeeling up a ramp; in the gym, we happened to run into a person who holds the driving classes and she too recommended the van with lift on account of his shoulders. I asked Gary after they left if he had now changed his mind; if so we needed to let the garage people know. Joe had just called us a couple days ago saying the garage people needed a decision on the height of the garage; we had told him to tell them we wanted the garage to be of standard height, but a van would require the garage to be higher.
But Gary said he was still thinking of the mini-van with the ramp. He'd be mostly using the ramp when at our house in the garage (which would be level ground) or at the university (where he was sure he could find a level enough area), so he was not concerned with having to use the ramp while the van was parked on a steep slope, which would obviously make getting up the ramp that much harder. He said if he later changed his mind, we'd just pay to have the garage modified.
The session ended with the OT having Gary practice some wheelies while traveling. Still needs work ;-)
Next on the schedule was “proning with caretaker.” During this time we returned Krystyna Kuperberg’s call about when to come to our apartment to help us pack up (thank you, thank you, thank you).
Last on the schedule for the day was a meeting with a paraplegic who has traveled all over the world (Gary had told me the guy does this out of his love of fishing around the world, but apparently the guy also travels with some of Shepherd’s sports teams). The guy wrote an article on accessible traveling for Shepherd’s magazine, “The Spinal Column,” and he gave Gary a copy of that. Then he talked about his travels. I think the main value of it for Gary was making him feel it was possible, and as well we picked up some tips.
The guy’s main point was to prepare oneself as much as possible, then persevere and have a sense of humor, because things will likely not all go as planned. If Gary wanted to “test the waters” of foreign travel, the guy said, Gary could start by going with a tour group for those with disabilities. Gary said that he was mostly interested in the foreign travel to go to math conferences, and he was sure that the mathematicians who lived near where the conferences would be held would be willing to help him out on accessibility issues.
In terms of finding an accessible hotel, the guy recommended the foreign versions of American chains, like Marriott Residence Inns, when those could be found, but cautioned that Gary would still need to call and ask about his specific needs, since just because a place advertises itself as accessible doesn’t mean that it is. Bathroom doors may need to be taken off their hinges, for example, so that Gary can get into the bathroom. And most places won’t have shower benches, so it is advisable to bring one’s own – he then told us there are plastic shower benches that fold up very small for travel (we did not know this). Such things count as medical necessities and airlines shouldn’t charge for them if bringing them causes one to go over the baggage limit, but the guy cautioned that he himself had had to argue that point with such airlines like Air France, British Airways, and Lufthansa. (And speaking of baggage, he said to be sure to bring double of everything like the parts for your wheelchair and your medical supplies; and he recommended using a “vacuum packer” that would compress your clothes down to a small size to help you save space.)
For transportation in foreign cities, the guy recommended cabs. He suggested calling the city’s disabilities office (he claims every city has one) and finding out if the city had any “London cabs,” meaning cabs that a wheelchair can be wheeled right into from either the rear or the side. If they don’t – and maybe even if they do – it is best to have an able-bodied person hail a cab for you, he said, because a handicapped person is not likely to flag one down – a cabbie is not likely to stop for a person in a wheelchair because such a person slows them up, cutting into the fares they can make; also, when the cabbie sees you wheel from out of the shadows, he is likely to say he can’t fit your chair in his cab, so you or your able-bodied companion will have to insist that it can be done (and of course, the cabbie won’t do it for you). Another way to get a cab if you have the option is to have your hotel call for one for you.
The guy said to, in general, forget subways in foreign travel, because most stops are not accessible and you have to get off at the stops very quickly. He also thought most train systems were pretty cruddy for the same reason. He said that if you were going to use a train, to call ahead at least 24 hours to let them know you are coming. He said to go first class, because second class was generally the equivalent of a human cattle car, with no air conditioning and likely no accessible bathrooms.
And speaking of bathrooms, his advice was to “know your bathrooms,” so you can get to an accessible one when you need to. He said museums and hotels would likely have accessible ones.
He thought the hardest places to get around in in Europe were in the former Soviet bloc countries. Cities where recent Olympics had been held also held Paralympics and so tended to be more accessible. He claimed Seoul was good, Sydney was fantastic, but Barcelona was still a bit tough to get around in. He hadn’t been to many places in Canada, but he thought they’d be pretty good on accessibility, except for Montreal because it was such an old city and very hilly. One gripe he had about Toronto was that at the airport there was only one working wheelchair lift for all the smaller planes where one had to enter them from on the tarmac rather than from inside the airport.
He didn’t know about Japan, but he said Hong Kong was remarkably accessible, including their rail transit and subway trains. He hadn’t been to London much, but he thought it was good except for the tube (comments, David Fremlin? :-)).
He’s been to Warsaw and Budapest, but of all the former “Eastern bloc” cities (that’s what he called them – not sure if that’s politically correct these days), he thought Prague was the most accessible (here, Gary noted regretfully that he was supposed to have gone to Prague next week), despite the challenges of its cobblestones (which brought up the point that Gary could get larger pneumatic front castor wheels to make his travel over cobblestones and other rough surfaces far easier, because they could get over more obstructions and they were more shock-absorbing – the guy noted that traveling over cobblestones caused him spasms). About Prague, he said that, for example, the main castle and cathedral had accessible bathrooms and the castle was about 85% accessible.
In terms of the U.S., he mentioned that San Francisco was probably the least accessible city because of all of the hills, but it did have its accessible areas. He thought the National Parks were very accessible.
Gary had brought up that he goes to conferences in Mexico, and the guy thought that Mexico would probably be a tough way to start one’s experience with getting around in a foreign place as a paraplegic and thought Gary might not want to start with that; Gary tended to agree.
The guy emphasized again that one should be as prepared as possible. Ways to do this would be to contact the disabilities office of the cities one is going to, and ask for the information in English as to what is accessible in their city. Another recommended way was to search on the web for “wheelchair travel + __” where you fill in the blank with your city of interest. He also said blogs were a good way to find out about accessibility – that people would write of their experiences (in terms of accessibility) in traveling to various places. He made the point that no matter how prepared you thought you were, you should always have a plan B. And a plan C, D, and E.
He said he’d been scared the first time he went off on a foreign travel experience – it was to Budapest – wondering how he was ever going to do it. But he did, and that gave him more confidence. He said his attitude was that where there’s a will, there’s a way; it may be rough, but once you do it, you’ll have a real sense of accomplishement.
This was the end of the therapy day. I got Gary’s dinner, then ran off to my last session with the personal trainer. I am sorry for that part to end, and I will also miss the chiropractor and massage therapists (though I am eager to get back to my own massage therapist – you’ve got your work cut out for you, Connie ;-)). And I will miss no longer following the progress of the person who got bucked off a horse, the one who while riding his bike got hit by a drunk driver, the one who got hit by someone running a stop sign, the one who got very angry and to let off steam jumped into his truck and drove it at over 100 miles per hour until it flipped over, the one who dove into a lake and broke his neck when he hit the bottom – and all the others.
But I think I’m ready to return home now – I wasn’t sure of that at all a week ago; I didn’t feel prepared enough. The only thing that still makes me wary of returning home now is Gary’s flap still having problems with healing up.
All for now.
Today’s sessions started out with the group weight training again. Shortly after it began, our supplier came to put the hard shell back on Gary's chair and to tighten his brakes, so Gary transferred out of his chair onto a mat and did the exercises from there while the supplier worked on the chair. The exercises were two-handed ones, however, so I acted as his back support and wrapped my arms around him from behind to help him keep his balance. That was rather nice, actually, but a PT saw me doing that and brought Gary over a wooden adjustable wedge to use as a back support; I told her she just wanted me to do the exercises too. I did end up doing part of them (I am so happy I seem to be tolerating a little exercise these days), although we had another interruption when Gary needed to transfer back into the chair and see how he liked the new back. He thought it comfortable, but later decided maybe he was angled back too far -- he was popping wheelies when he didn't mean to.
After that was an OT session, during which he had to go through the ASIA test again even though he just did it two weeks ago; evidently it is a requirement at admittance to and discharge from Day Program, though since he came straight from being an inpatient, at least they let him skip the admittance one (since it would have been just four days since his last one). This time the OT's results were that he was a T3 on the left and a T4 on the right, so obviously there is some subjectivity involved in these tests. What is clear is that he has no feeling or function from T4 down, and that he begins to lose feeling a ittle higher than that on his left side.
His flap was checked out again, and the consensus is it is slowly improving. Not fast enough for me!
Next Gary had a session in the gym without a therapist. He used the Bowflex for about ten minutes, but then the Easystand Glider (I think that's it's official name)became free, so we transferred him onto that. He said it tired him out fast but that every time he stopped pulling on the handles he got dizzy. I got the idea of pulling on the handles for him during the times he needed a break, and this worked quite well -- it kept his legs moving, which evidently circumvented any dizziness (and I got a bit of a workout too this way).
After lunch, an OT took Gary down to the seating clinic and showed him a couple other backs for wheelchairs; Gary liked best the one she recommended, and so now that is the one on order for his own chair. It is hardback, with a gap at the bottom, more padded than the one he has been using, and more contoured, molding more around his sides – we hope this will keep him straighter in the chair, as he tends to slump to one side.
In order for him to try out the other backs, he had to make a transfer to a mat to get out of his chair and into another one; he and I did this transfer when the OT stepped out of the room to get the other backs. I crouched in front of him at ready but not touching him, which is what we’ve been doing the last two days. He made his best transfer yet this way, getting good lift. I told him he must be getting more confidence in doing them on his own. He told me that actually he’d been thinking, “Oh, no! She’s not holding onto me!”
Well, better that than overconfidence. (I don’t think there’s any worry of that happening soon though – on his next transfer he lost his balance, I closed the gap between us, and he used my shoulder to catch himself. But I’ll bet it’s only a matter of at most weeks before he is doing level transfers completely on his own.)
On the way out of the seating clinic, Gary had trouble getting the door open. Naturally, I didn't rush to open it ;-). After several attempts at trying to get the door open, he complained that a pair of crutches that were standing to one side of the door were in his way. I asked if that meant he wanted me to move the crutches or open the door for him. "Just open the damn door!" he told me, then we laughed. There are limits to this independence thing ;-).
The OT rejoined us, and on the way back to the gym she told Gary she thought he should get a van with a lift rather than a mini-van with a ramp, because she was concerned about the long-term affects on his shoulders of frequently wheeeling up a ramp; in the gym, we happened to run into a person who holds the driving classes and she too recommended the van with lift on account of his shoulders. I asked Gary after they left if he had now changed his mind; if so we needed to let the garage people know. Joe had just called us a couple days ago saying the garage people needed a decision on the height of the garage; we had told him to tell them we wanted the garage to be of standard height, but a van would require the garage to be higher.
But Gary said he was still thinking of the mini-van with the ramp. He'd be mostly using the ramp when at our house in the garage (which would be level ground) or at the university (where he was sure he could find a level enough area), so he was not concerned with having to use the ramp while the van was parked on a steep slope, which would obviously make getting up the ramp that much harder. He said if he later changed his mind, we'd just pay to have the garage modified.
The session ended with the OT having Gary practice some wheelies while traveling. Still needs work ;-)
Next on the schedule was “proning with caretaker.” During this time we returned Krystyna Kuperberg’s call about when to come to our apartment to help us pack up (thank you, thank you, thank you).
Last on the schedule for the day was a meeting with a paraplegic who has traveled all over the world (Gary had told me the guy does this out of his love of fishing around the world, but apparently the guy also travels with some of Shepherd’s sports teams). The guy wrote an article on accessible traveling for Shepherd’s magazine, “The Spinal Column,” and he gave Gary a copy of that. Then he talked about his travels. I think the main value of it for Gary was making him feel it was possible, and as well we picked up some tips.
The guy’s main point was to prepare oneself as much as possible, then persevere and have a sense of humor, because things will likely not all go as planned. If Gary wanted to “test the waters” of foreign travel, the guy said, Gary could start by going with a tour group for those with disabilities. Gary said that he was mostly interested in the foreign travel to go to math conferences, and he was sure that the mathematicians who lived near where the conferences would be held would be willing to help him out on accessibility issues.
In terms of finding an accessible hotel, the guy recommended the foreign versions of American chains, like Marriott Residence Inns, when those could be found, but cautioned that Gary would still need to call and ask about his specific needs, since just because a place advertises itself as accessible doesn’t mean that it is. Bathroom doors may need to be taken off their hinges, for example, so that Gary can get into the bathroom. And most places won’t have shower benches, so it is advisable to bring one’s own – he then told us there are plastic shower benches that fold up very small for travel (we did not know this). Such things count as medical necessities and airlines shouldn’t charge for them if bringing them causes one to go over the baggage limit, but the guy cautioned that he himself had had to argue that point with such airlines like Air France, British Airways, and Lufthansa. (And speaking of baggage, he said to be sure to bring double of everything like the parts for your wheelchair and your medical supplies; and he recommended using a “vacuum packer” that would compress your clothes down to a small size to help you save space.)
For transportation in foreign cities, the guy recommended cabs. He suggested calling the city’s disabilities office (he claims every city has one) and finding out if the city had any “London cabs,” meaning cabs that a wheelchair can be wheeled right into from either the rear or the side. If they don’t – and maybe even if they do – it is best to have an able-bodied person hail a cab for you, he said, because a handicapped person is not likely to flag one down – a cabbie is not likely to stop for a person in a wheelchair because such a person slows them up, cutting into the fares they can make; also, when the cabbie sees you wheel from out of the shadows, he is likely to say he can’t fit your chair in his cab, so you or your able-bodied companion will have to insist that it can be done (and of course, the cabbie won’t do it for you). Another way to get a cab if you have the option is to have your hotel call for one for you.
The guy said to, in general, forget subways in foreign travel, because most stops are not accessible and you have to get off at the stops very quickly. He also thought most train systems were pretty cruddy for the same reason. He said that if you were going to use a train, to call ahead at least 24 hours to let them know you are coming. He said to go first class, because second class was generally the equivalent of a human cattle car, with no air conditioning and likely no accessible bathrooms.
And speaking of bathrooms, his advice was to “know your bathrooms,” so you can get to an accessible one when you need to. He said museums and hotels would likely have accessible ones.
He thought the hardest places to get around in in Europe were in the former Soviet bloc countries. Cities where recent Olympics had been held also held Paralympics and so tended to be more accessible. He claimed Seoul was good, Sydney was fantastic, but Barcelona was still a bit tough to get around in. He hadn’t been to many places in Canada, but he thought they’d be pretty good on accessibility, except for Montreal because it was such an old city and very hilly. One gripe he had about Toronto was that at the airport there was only one working wheelchair lift for all the smaller planes where one had to enter them from on the tarmac rather than from inside the airport.
He didn’t know about Japan, but he said Hong Kong was remarkably accessible, including their rail transit and subway trains. He hadn’t been to London much, but he thought it was good except for the tube (comments, David Fremlin? :-)).
He’s been to Warsaw and Budapest, but of all the former “Eastern bloc” cities (that’s what he called them – not sure if that’s politically correct these days), he thought Prague was the most accessible (here, Gary noted regretfully that he was supposed to have gone to Prague next week), despite the challenges of its cobblestones (which brought up the point that Gary could get larger pneumatic front castor wheels to make his travel over cobblestones and other rough surfaces far easier, because they could get over more obstructions and they were more shock-absorbing – the guy noted that traveling over cobblestones caused him spasms). About Prague, he said that, for example, the main castle and cathedral had accessible bathrooms and the castle was about 85% accessible.
In terms of the U.S., he mentioned that San Francisco was probably the least accessible city because of all of the hills, but it did have its accessible areas. He thought the National Parks were very accessible.
Gary had brought up that he goes to conferences in Mexico, and the guy thought that Mexico would probably be a tough way to start one’s experience with getting around in a foreign place as a paraplegic and thought Gary might not want to start with that; Gary tended to agree.
The guy emphasized again that one should be as prepared as possible. Ways to do this would be to contact the disabilities office of the cities one is going to, and ask for the information in English as to what is accessible in their city. Another recommended way was to search on the web for “wheelchair travel + __” where you fill in the blank with your city of interest. He also said blogs were a good way to find out about accessibility – that people would write of their experiences (in terms of accessibility) in traveling to various places. He made the point that no matter how prepared you thought you were, you should always have a plan B. And a plan C, D, and E.
He said he’d been scared the first time he went off on a foreign travel experience – it was to Budapest – wondering how he was ever going to do it. But he did, and that gave him more confidence. He said his attitude was that where there’s a will, there’s a way; it may be rough, but once you do it, you’ll have a real sense of accomplishement.
This was the end of the therapy day. I got Gary’s dinner, then ran off to my last session with the personal trainer. I am sorry for that part to end, and I will also miss the chiropractor and massage therapists (though I am eager to get back to my own massage therapist – you’ve got your work cut out for you, Connie ;-)). And I will miss no longer following the progress of the person who got bucked off a horse, the one who while riding his bike got hit by a drunk driver, the one who got hit by someone running a stop sign, the one who got very angry and to let off steam jumped into his truck and drove it at over 100 miles per hour until it flipped over, the one who dove into a lake and broke his neck when he hit the bottom – and all the others.
But I think I’m ready to return home now – I wasn’t sure of that at all a week ago; I didn’t feel prepared enough. The only thing that still makes me wary of returning home now is Gary’s flap still having problems with healing up.
All for now.
posted by Peg Daniels at 9:11 AM
2 Comments:
About airport accessibility--
Atlanta is one of the most user-friendly airports I have ever seen. It's all connected on the inside, so you never need to exit to get from one concourse to the other. Between 6am and midnight you have the option of the train, which is frequent, and the moving sidewalk, which I think operates all the time, to get from one concourse to another. Also, with the possible exception of international flights, you only have to go through security once, and if you are connecting you don't have to go through security at all (again, international outgoing may be an exception).
On the other hand, New York's JFK airport is the absolute pits. Able-bodied as I currently am, I wouldn't want to go through there again unless they allowed at least two hours for connections (allowing inter alia for half an hour delay getting there), and two and a half if you have to go through customs.
Delta, with which I flew domestic during my Prague trip, is in terminal 3, adjacent to terminal 4, which is for international flights. To make connections, you have to exit the bulding, which means going through security a second time. But that's just the beginning. I could see no safe way of walking from one termial to the adjacent one, and was even instructed to take the train that now seems to be the only connection between terminals. But that's still just the beginning...
To get to my connection to Prague, I had to cross a busy street just to get to the three not-so-big elevators that get you to the train. [Imagine two hundred people having to make connections in short order! Bedlam!] Fortunately there were only about twenty of us waiting, but the first elevator to arrive at street level had a jerk on it who decided he wanted to go back up, so before any of us could get on, he punched the button to go back up and we couldn't get the door to stop closing.
The second elevator went OK, and somehow I managed to figure out which direction Terminal 4 was in, but once I arrived there, I had to work my way through a maze of passages and up and down escalators to get to security. I had been issued boarding passes in Columbia, and the one for Cincinnati-JFK had worked fine, but I was told that the one for JFK-Prague had to be replaced way back at the Czech Airlines ticket counter. So I ran back up the escalator, into the huge jammed hall, with lots of parallel counters. Fortunately the first airport employee I asked knew where the Czech Airlines counter was, and there was no waiting line, and they got me a new boarding pass in under a minute, and I was able to dash back to security soon enough to make my flight with a few minutes to spare--after having arrived at JFK over an hour earlier!
But the return from Prague was even worse--I'll make a separate blog comment for that!!
And now, on to my return trip from Prague, which took me through JFK once more.
Customs took over half an hour, because it seems at least two flights had arrived very close to each other. For a while everything seemed to go OK after that. Exiting customs, I saw a prominent place for "Connecting flights" and there they told me
where to find the escalator/elevator to the train that would connect me to Terminal 3, right adjacent to Terminal 4 where I was, and I was even told to wait for the train on the left side of the platform.
When I got on the train, just as the doors were about to close, the red letters showed up on the monitor saying "Next Stop: Terminal 7." There wasn't a prayer of getting to the doors before they closed, so momentarily I had visions of getting off at the next stop and getting on a train going in the opposite direction. But fortunately there were some helpful passangers who told me the sign was stuck, it had been showing that even before the train had arrived at Terminal 4 where I had got on. So I stayed on, and sure enough the next stop was for Terminals 2 and 3.
Before I go on, an aside about Delta's airline magazine, "Sky". It shows the layout of most airports frequently served by Delta, or at least of the terminal(s) served by Delta. Surprisingly, all of LAX (Los Angeles airport) is shown, but JFK airport belongs to the second category. One vital item missing on all maps is the location of security check-in--perhaps for security reasons! Anyway, I cannot tell from it whether I would have been better off to go directly to Terminal 2, where the gate for my flight turned out to be, thereby saving myself close to an hour and an awful lot of walking and aggravation (as will be detailed below) or whether I would have had to go through security at Terminal 3.
Anyway, Terminal 3 was what my boarding pass said, and so I went down the one-of-three elevators I had gone up a week earlier on the trip to Prague. I crossed that familiar busy street at the bottom of the elevator, and started following the signs for "Departures Terminal 3" like just about everyone else was doing. [I could have gone into the terminal building directly, but the signs there only indicated baggage claim, and it wasn't clear whether I could get to departures directly from there.]
The signs directed us along a narrow sidewalk bordering a busy street in a kind of semi-tunnel. The sidewalk wound around the terminal building, past one "No entry" door after another. After breathing a lot of exhaust fumes a bunch of us finally got to a dead end to the sidewalk, but there was a pedestrian island on the other side of a street that ran into the one we had been moving parallel to, and some of the group crossed to it. I on the other hand could see a "Terminal departures 3" sign way ahead of us on the opposite side of the street we had been following, with no official pedestrian crossing in sight. So I turned back, and after about fifty yards I saw an inconspicuous pedestrian crossing that had been completely obscured on the way up by a big bus that was waiting for the cars in front of it to get a move on. Crossing this, I finally was able to walk uphill to the actual terminal 3 entrance to Departures.
Once inside, I saw a huge line at the Delta ticket counter. It took me a while to learn that this time I would NOT have to change my boarding pass before entering security. The TV monitors did not include my flight, so another thing I decided to find out before entering security was whether it had been canceled and if so, what my new flight would be. The first Delta employee I asked told me to wait in line to ask a ticket agent, but that would have been a disastrous loss of time, so I boldly circumvented the whole long line and told a ticket agent my problem, showing my boarding pass, and she graciously looked up the information and told me it would be at gate 22. They just had neglected to put the information up on the monitors, and with less than an hour to go it got put up there in short order, perhaps because of my bold action.
Once through security, I started down the long corridor past gates 10, 11, 12, ... I didn't have a copy of "Sky" with me, otherwise I might have tried to go in the opposite direction, because as it was I circumnavigated most of Terminal 3 before getting to the corridor to Terminal 2, and after passing down this I went almost to the end of Terminal 2 where Gate 22 was located.
It was too late to buy any food, what with the long lines at the places where it was sold. Also, I had been in too much of a hurry to get a drink of water since deplaning on the way to customs about an hour and a half earlier,
and the water fountains weren't working! I went into the men's room hoping to drink out of the faucets, but the water that came out was hot! So I bought a bottle of water at the one kiosk that did not have a long line in front of it. It was the most expensive bottle of water I have ever bought--a half liter of Fiji water costing over 3 dollars, but it tasted great and put me in good spirits for the plane ride.
A good thing too--we had to wait three hours in the plane at the gate, waiting for permission to leave the gate because Atlanta airport was closed due to thunderstorms and they didn't want us to be airborne until they were sure the plane could land in Atlanta. Then it took over an hour of waiting on the runway while all the planes ahead of us were taking off. By the time we arrived in Atlanta the last plane to Columbia that evening had taken off...
But that's another story.
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