Anatomy is finally over.
Actually, it’s
been over for about a month now. We finished the week before Christmas, and
then went on a two-week break. Glorious break.
My wife and
I flew home for Christmas to the West Coast (the best coast, in my humble opinion…) to spend it with our
families. The flight there and the time we spent with them was pleasantly
uneventful and relaxing. Then the effects of a so-called polar vortex hit the Midwest, wreaking havoc with our travel plans.
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| Image politely stolen from here |
We were supposed
to return home on an early-morning Friday flight. We pre-packed our stuff the
night before, woke up at the rather ungodly hour of around 3 am, made our way
to the airport, got our bags inside, made it half-way through the line to check
our bags in… and then one of the airline employees made her way towards the
line and started calling out, “If you are flying to Chicago, Denver, or New
York, your flight has been cancelled due to weather. Please call the 1-800
number to reschedule.”
Well, darn.
I dialed the
number while we were standing in line – the first of many times we would call
this number over the next few days, as we would soon find out. I was answered
by a machine and quickly put into an ever-growing queue. My wife tried calling as well, and actually
ended up getting through first. We were able to reschedule, but due to the
treacherous weather our destination was experiencing, the earliest flight we
could get on wasn’t till Sunday.
So we hung
out for a few more days – sort of a forced vacation. At least we were able to
be with family, but we were both ready to get home. On Sunday morning, we repeated
our get-up-way-too-early-get-to-the-airport-get-in-line-check-to-see-if-the-flight-is-canceled-for-the-upteenth-time
routine. We checked in, checked the flight status board on the way to security,
made it through security, and were walking to our gate when we checked one of
the flight status boards again, just to be sure.
Cancelled. Again.
We walked
down to the gate just to see what was going on – the flight had literally been
cancelled in the time it took for us to walk through security. This time we had
to somehow get our baggage back, and apparently the airline didn’t have any
standard procedure for this – one of the airline employees literally took a
vote among the would-be passengers that were present at the gate about how they
wanted their baggage returned (they ended up carting it to some office
somewhere in the airport where we could go pick it up).
We again
tried calling the 1-800 number, and when we finally got through, the earliest
we could be rescheduled for was Wednesday afternoon – three days away. Argh.
Also, it turns out the airline we were flying on was the one airline that wasn’t
able to put their passengers on the flights of other airlines in case of
situations like this.
By this
point, we just wanted to get home. We found a place with WiFi access, took out
one of our laptops, and searched for the soonest flight heading back home on
another airline. We would have pay a bit more to switch our tickets, but
whatever. We wanted to get back. We made the switch, but now we had to figure
out how to get our baggage. It turns out that, normally, if you made a
last-minute switch between airlines like this when you were already past
security, the airlines will just switch your baggage for you as well. But the
airline we were flying originally was, of course, the one airline that didn’t
do this. So, we walked back out, tracked down our baggage, got back in line to
check in our bags, went through security – again – and finally arrived at our
new gate, tired and slightly ruffled but happy to be finally heading home.
Of course,
this is all still at around 6 or 7 am in the morning. Our new flight didn't
leave till around 10 am, so we had a few hours to kill. We hung out, got some
food, read, and waited. Around 9:30, we were told that our flight would be
delayed for another hour. Ok, fine. We just wanted to get home at some point.
We waited
around some more, and as the promised time drew near, another announcement was
made: we were delayed again. We ended up being delayed four times, but after
spending about nine hours in the airport we finally were able to board the
plane and make it home. Just in time for record-breaking subzero temperatures. At
least school was cancelled that Monday, which was nice.
Our first
day back, it was around -15 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of around -30
to -40 degrees. We, of course, didn't get the memo and decided that we should
go shopping before the week started. That was fun – particularly the part where
I almost lost a couple of fingers (ok,
not really, but I definitely reached the early stages of frostbite…) trying
to uncover our buried cars, one of which didn't even start up for a couple of
days (till it warmed up – relatively
speaking – to around 25 degrees, anyway…). We had a pipe freeze, too, which
thankfully didn't burst. That would have been a bummer.
School
started up again that Tuesday. We started our physiology class, which will run
for the rest of the semester. Now (a little over two weeks later), we've just
finished our cardiac physiology section, which was really quite interesting. It’s
quite the organ. We also learned how to interpret EKGs, and it’s amazing how
much information can be derived from all of those bumps and squiggles. We also
took our own EKGs, and apparently my heart is actually pointing almost straight
down in my chest – most people’s hearts point down, left, and towards the
front. The things we learn in medical school.
