Ground Zeroed??

With the hope that going to US may help us to understand Yatish’s condition better, we started exploring the options at US. My brother happens to be in Boston and without thinking twice he and his wife told us to come to US and made all arrangements for our visit. Sometimes when you feel you have reached the end of the road, God shows you some way. My brother and his wife were our saviours. They checked out the hospitals and we decided to visit Boston Children’s Hospital, which is attached to the Harvard Medical College.

http://www.childrenshospital.org/



http://www.childrenshospital.org/international/Site1396/mainpageS1396P1sublevel4.html

If you are an International patient, firstly you need to send the entire past medical records, scans, pathology reports etc. to the hospital. Then they will send you a rough estimate of the costs and you will have to make advance payments for the primary appointments and so they also check if you have enough financial resources.

We started the visa process. This was the aftermath of 9/11 attack and getting US visa was not very easy. We went to Chennai for our visa interview. If somebody had visited Chennai US Consulate in 2002, they would know that, the premise was getting renovated (courtesy the 9/11 attacks) and you had to wait in the queue for at least a couple of hours to get into the building, even if you had an appointment. Standing in a queue in hot Chennai sun is no joke and that too with a baby. After finally making it to the interview and for all this effort our visas got rejected promptly. They thought that my husband and I were potential immigrants.

Now we were stuck, while our travel plans and hospital appointments were all fixed, we had no visa. So we again contacted the Hospital, got payment receipts, a letter from the hospital, my brother had already given all the support documents and we re-applied, and we were rejected again. The Immigration official told us to take Yatish to Singapore as it was cheaper there, instead of spending so much money in taking him to US. Now he was the last person we wanted to hear from, thank God he was on the other side of the window and there was a bullet proof glass between us.

We were in a limbo, we had never expected that this would be a major hurdle, but here we were almost on the verge of cancelling our trip. Will we be lucky the third time??

I am not sure how it is now, but then there was no cafeteria in the consulate premises, you were not allowed to carry food and there was only a coke dispenser and few snacks, which you could get and was quite badly managed. I sometimes wonder, after travelling so much in other countries, that whether we are at the receiving end of such bad service, only because we are in India. I think it is high time we learnt to demand good service because nothing is free.

Finally after showing substantial bank balance, assets and also the appointment list and advance payment for the appointments and my hubby told the immigration officer to give us visa for 10 days, so we can consult and come back. we were finally granted visa in our third attempt. What would have been a 10 minute interview took us half a day. The other applicants, who were with us in this ordeal, gave us a standing ovation after our visas were granted. I had only one week to pack and move.