A wedding in Argentina...no problem! You buy a ticket, pack a suitcase, show up at the airport passport in hand and then endure 15 hours on a plane and you are there, ready to enjoy the happy occasion! Right?
That is what we thought! Our first problem started Friday night before our Wednesday departure. George had a kidney stone. The CT scan showed that it was small enough to pass on its own so he was sent home from the ER with good pain meds. Monday morning he woke up with a 103.6 temp that sent us back to the ER. This time they admitted him since he now had an infection on top of the kidney stone (which hadn't moved at all). He was dangerously close to a serious problem - septicemia, a life threatening infection that can get worse very quickly. The doctor said that it is a good thing we didn't wait a day or two to bring him in. Thank goodness for antibiotics! George spent two nights in the hospital and the doctor would not let him travel on Wednesday. Delta was very nice and changed his reservation to the same flights on Thursday.
After much discussion we decided that I would go ahead and go on Wednesday. I got to the airport in plenty of time, or so I thought. There was no line and I handed the agent my ticket and passport. He looked at it and said, "Do you have your Argentina Reciprocity agreement?". I didn't know I needed one. To make a long and not very nice story short, I missed my flight because of that little piece of paper and was rescheduled on Thursday with George. When his doctor saw me at the hospital that afternoon he said that maybe we weren't supposed to go on this trip! I prefer to think that I was supposed to travel with George.
George was a trooper! Since he was moving pretty slowly and was still very tired, we used the airport wheelchair service. Loved it so much that we may take turns 'needing' a wheelchair on all our trips! You get right to the front of the lines. 5 hours to Atlanta and then 10 hours to Buenos Aires while recuperating from a serious illness is quite an amazing act of love! I am not sure I could have done it.
We arrived in Buenos Aires just in time to go first to the civil ceremony
and then to the Buenos Aires Temple!
We wouldn't have missed sharing this day with John and Mónica for anything! Not kidney stones, infections or reciprocity agreements!
We even got to be there for their first dinner in their apartment! Mónica is a very good cook. John is a lucky guy!
And we are all lucky to have this wonderful addition to our family! A lady from her ward told me, "John got the best girl in San Miguel". I'm inclined to agree!
