The "making it home" phase of this story was still ongoing last night, and maybe won't end until Dodie sees her own doctor today at noon. How could "making it home" drag on beyond our flight from Cancun, two days ago?  Government of Canada, I'm afraid.

When the PCR tests were done at the airport, as I wrote before, we were not informed directly as to what they were, how to get the results, and what to do before and after those results.  We saw some info that seemed to imply we had to quarantine for 14 days, report to the government when we had arrived at our place of quarantine, and report daily our symptoms (or not).  But another search of canada.ca revealed that we did not need to quarantine, unless of course there was a positive test.

Getting the test result was pretty critical, because for instance Dodie's doctor's office refused to make her an appointment while it was still possible that she was a "plague carrier".  So while I had initially decided to ignore the bureaucrats one and all, it seemed prudent to get those test results.

Jacquie Gaudet shared a link to an article in the New York Times, describing the trials of a journalist trying to return to Canada after a visit to South Africa, hours after the announcement of the Omicron Variant. Her description of police at her door in Halifax at 11 p.m. definitely got my attention.

That was the door to again entering the frustrating world of screwed up software and multi hours of being put on hold. The government had subcontracted the airport testing to the private company Lifelabs, which is big in medical testing generally in these parts. Lifelabs began, as companies are wont to do, by "branding" their service. They have brands or services with cutsy names like MyCareCompass, Myehealth, and Flyclear. Each of these is related, in terms of logging in, but they are also subtly and mysteriously different. So what? So they are not about to just send you your results. No, you have to log in to ... something --- and use a logon id and a password that you presumably set while in a fog at the airport, or should set now, using the email address you gave at the airport, or something.

But the thing is Dodie and I and even Joni all are known to use the same email address, and in the past at least Joni and Dodie have used Myehealth to receive blood test results. Long story short, their system(s) hated our email address and any and all past or newly reset passwords. Result - no way to get the PCR results. 

That leads, as it usually does, to a phone call. And that leads, as now seems to be the norm, to hours of "Your call is important to us". As if!

Through Sunday I called repeatedly. My phone, or the phone line, or their system seemed to have stamina for only one or two hours on hold, after which the call would drop. 

Finally I set my alarm for 4 a.m. to try another call. How many desperate travelers could be flooding the lines at that hour? In fact, tension woke us up at just 2 a.m. Still prime time?  Well, Lifelabs did answer the phone before the line quit! No problem, they said, just register here, set a password there, and so forth. But of course nothing worked for them either! Still they refused to just tell us the result. Procedures  must be followed! 

In the end they more or less conceded, and sent an encrypted email, and then a code to unlock the encryption, and blah, blah, blah. Like having a leg cramp in the night, when you are half asleep, it's easier to take. In this case I was also half asleep, and was just glad when it stopped, and I could read (and print!) negative!

Now when Dodie's doctor phoned in the morning (his office would not allow a face to face after they heard the trigger word "Mexico") I could assure him that Dodie was no more dangerous than any other patient. He was horrified at our tale, and we are heading out in 10 minutes to his office. I'll update when we see what he says...

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The doctor was not 100% sure that there is no displacement in the fracture, and he ordered more x-rays.  Also, he wants to be on guard for subdural hematoma, and has ordered more CAT scans. Importantly, he was able to use his credibility with Dodie to get her to take more/stronger pain killer. We hope this will allow her to rest easier.

That kind of closes the  travel aspect of this blog, though I will post some medical updates as time goes by.  And I mentioned a new blog to Dodie, one that might only happen in a year, "Dodie's Uxmal Odyssey". She needs to return to the scene of the accident, and pick up the route, I think. We'll see. Before that, you might see us in Portugal and Spain or Germany and Austria. Here's hoping.

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