🚗 2/16/22

Our ride to the hospital via Uber driver was quite an adventure. I allowed 45 minutes for the 3 mile drive from NJ to the children’s hospital. Usually that is about how long it takes due to traffic. I can’t imagine that nightmare daily.

Our driver picked us up and couldn’t figure out how to work the Uber driver app. He used broken English to explain he couldn’t get our address to pop up of where we were going. He kept asking me to call Uber to let them know he had picked us up. The only number (which I explained to him) was his number. He told me to call it. His phone started ringing and he was surprised. It was me. Because he told me to call him. 😳

This is an older gentleman, mid 70’s. His arthritic fingers gripped the steering wheel as he drove. It was clear right off the bat that it wasn’t going to go well. For some reason, I couldn’t be mad at him because he was out there working. He did a lot of heavy sighing and kept blaming the app because the phone “signal wasn’t good”. However, all the other Uber drivers we have had seem to have a fine signal.

He got into a lane to turn onto the bridge but it was the wrong lane and it put us going into a big square to loop around back towards the bridge. That took an extra 20 minutes. He missed the bridge. He had a device telling him exactly where to go….and he missed it.

He then told some guy directing traffic he had to go to the children’s hospital like that guy was going to magically part the traffic so we could just drive there.

We inched closer and closer to the bridge. When I say inched, we literally rolled forward a teeny tiny amount, then stopped and sat there. It was a disaster. I sent an email to the team letting them know we would be late and that we were trying.

Once we crossed the bridge, our driver missed the turn for the expedited back way to the hospital. I know this because we have made this trip so many times. This meant we had to go through 13 lights and 13 stops from 178th street to 165 th street. Ugh! We took the longest way possible.

I looked up our driver on Uber. He had a 5 star review. What????? How????? I was not at all surprised to find out that today was his second day on the job. It was all making sense now. Of course we get the newbie. After an hour and 5 minutes, we arrived. Like we aren’t going to be in the car long enough today. At least we were patient and kind. But man!!!!!!! That sucked!!!!!

Ethan’s appointment went well. We were in the hospital, got lab work , finished his appointment and were back to the hotel to pack up the room in less time than our Uber ride into the city.

Our drive back was long, boring and event free (bright spot). I am glad we are done with that trip. It was our last trip without complicating it with a work schedule. We will get it done though. If I can work and do dialysis four times a week, I can pull that off no problem.