Getting to UCLA

(I'm going to be going into more detail on this blog compared to Sara's. Just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into if you choose to continue to read... ;)

So we got the call just before 9 pm last night, and didn't really make it to UCLA until almost 3 am - so it took us almost six hours to make the trip - quite different from last time. It wasn't as quite a smooth journey this time, and so it made it a bit more stressful.

We called Medflight and the dispatch handled it fine - they estimated that it would take an hour for the flight team to get activated and about an hour more for them to make the flight to Phoenix. A 1.5 hour flight to LA would add up to a roughly 3.5 to 4 hour total time, getting us in by 1 am. Since the tx coordinator said we needed to be there by 3 am at the latest, this was all good.

However, 1.5 hours later, we still hadn't received the word that the plane was in the air and on the way. I called them back, and there had been issues with the flight plans - something about them not being received and having to re-enter them. But you can't fly without 'em, so it delayed the initial takeoff. They still arrived in Phoenix by midnight, so we thought that we'd at least be in Santa Monica by 1:30, and at the hospital by 2.

However, we found that the flight plan for this leg also had issues, and had to be re-filed. So we didn't leave Phoenix until 12:30 and learned that Santa Monica had been fogged in. Sooo... heading to Van Nuys instead. So we did land right at 2 am, and the ambulance hauled ass and went Code 3 (lights and sirens) to get us there as fast as possible (which was pretty cool)! The driver was really good and the medics took good care of us.

So we're at the hospital by 2:30 and Sara goes straight to Radiology for a chest xray while a medic and I go back and get all our bags. We are in the brand-spanking-still-has-the-bubble-wrap-new hospital at UCLA - so no one knows where all the rooms are nor how to get us to where we need to go. So, after a couple wrong turns, we do end up at the right floor. Where we learn they expected us at 1 am, and have already missed the OR that was scheduled at 3 am for her.

(continued...)