Broken teeth, bad packing, expensive luggage, & other adventures on the way to Portugal

Kevin and I flew to Portugal on Sunday January 4th.

On Friday January 2nd, we had a spectacular day. We went to Toronto to run some errands, and had the best sushi lunch of our lives with my pseudo-sister Zoya and her friend Ship. On the way back to Grimsby, we stopped in at my dad’s work, where we hung out in his office and got a sneak peek into how he does all the things that he does.

I had plans to make fish tacos for dinner, so we stopped at the grocery store before heading home. As we pulled into the driveway at home, Tyler was on his way to play “shinny” hockey at the outdoor arena in Grimsby with some friends.

Knowing it was his last opportunity to do so, Kevin quickly changed and met him there.

I made some delicious fish tacos (pro-tip, for those who can’t do spice, blended apples with cinnamon make a nice taco dressing), my aunt and uncle came over, and we had a big fish taco dinner in the dining room.

Then, the phone rang.

It was Tyler.

“Kevin got hit in the mouth at hockey. We’re at the emergency room. Can you bring us his health card?”

In that instant, a good day turned into a series of not-so-good days.

Here’s what happened:

Kevin was playing “shinny”, the most low key, danger-free version of hockey. A friend lost his balance and threw his stick up in the air in an attempt to re-balance himself. Unfortunately, Kevin’s face was at the other end of the stick.

A pure freak accident due to an unfortunate series of events.

So, what happened? The first thing that was clear was that he’d bit through his lip and was missing a tooth. It also seemed he’d broken some. The emergency room wait was going to be “a few hours”. So, I called an emergency dentist that my dad recommended, booked an appointment for the next afternoon, and took Kevin home.

Again, this was Friday January 2nd. In 48 hours we were due to be on a plane to Lisbon (and my friend Julie was flying to Lisbon specifically to meet us there!).

We gave him pain killers and ice and put him to bed, though I’m not sure how he slept while in so much pain.

The next day we saw a dentist in Stoney Creek. Have you ever had a dentist look into your mouth and go “ugh. ahh, I don’t know. jeez, this is… ugh, I don’t know”.

Not exactly reassuring. However, this guy fixed Kevin up well enough so that he could travel. Root canals (an emergency pulpectomy, to be exact), temporary retainers, stitches etc.

More importantly, he prescribed antibiotics and pain killers.

The next 36 hours were a blur of stress and tears and goodbyes and packing.

Oh, and I realized that I’d booked us tickets that didn’t allow for luggage. While I cried on the phone to the airline, my dad reminded me that this was a relatively small problem, with an easy fix (we ended up paying an additional $400 to get our luggage on the plane, BUT Kevin got $200 of that refunded. So ya, my dad was right. But I’ll be careful the next time that I’m booking budget tickets with SATA).

It honestly seemed like it wasn’t going to be possible, but somehow I managed to pack both of our suitcases. I’d really failed to prepare myself for that packing extravaganza; a lot of our stuff was all over the place, making my useful packing routine completely useless. Still, in the end we had everything – or so I thought.

What I didn’t realize is the immense amount of stuff that I’d forgotten. Here’s a shortlist: ALL Of Kevin’s ties, my face wash, a cell phone, 3 cell phone chargers, and all of my scarves.

Still, we didn’t miss our flight. In fact, we were several hours early for our flight, because it was delayed 5 hours! To say that this was the most stressful travelling we’d ever done would be a serious understatement. Still, we were again spoiled when Kevin’s best friend Mark picked us up to have drinks (beer for me, milk with a straw for Kevin) at a bar around the corner from the airport.

We eventually got onto our flight, which was a fairly comical experience. We almost didn’t get blankets, and when I asked for a blanket for Kevin, I was sternly told “the children first, ma’am”. Several hours and some terrifying turbulence later, we landed in Lisbon.

The road to full recovery for Kevin will be long, but we’re okay. We made it to Portugal, had an amazing time in Lisbon, and my truly wonderful brother Tyler mailed us all of the stuff that we’d forgotten.

There are no pictures to share here. Just gratitude for my amazing family (and friends) for helping us get through that weekend.