2013-04-23 The Arrival

Entry posted by DV8 April 28, 2013

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Since I live in Seattle, WA, I drove up on Tuesday evening after work. It's about 130 miles and takes roughly 3 hours. Despite handing the border monkey THREE forms of ID in my Passport booklet, WA driver's license & USA/Canada Passport Card AND the letter that H&W sends you, the guy was still sweating me! I hate customs. It's so stupid. So pointless. Anyways, once that nonsense was over I arrived at the hotel around 9pm.

If you have 2000 or more grafts, Hasson & Wong will put you up in the Sheraton Wall Center Hotel. This place is VERY nice. It's near Davie Street (so that was another sign in and of itself), and clearly the staff is used to seeing H&W patients and our tell-tale black baseball caps (more on that later). They had put me on the 21st floor with an amazing view.

The hotel charges for parking an astronomical $38 .12 PER NIGHT (with tax) so the two nights ended up costing me $76.24 all together.

The taxi ride to and from the H&W office will set you back another $10+tip each way, so figure another $30 there total. I met a guy who had finished bhis proceedure at the same time as me and so we split the cab back. It was also nice to talk to someone who had just gone through the same thing as me. We were both very impressed with the whole experience.

The morning of the surgery, I got up and had breakfast as H&W suggest, and once again, the hotel is extraordinarily expensive. Photo of menu attached. You can see $23 for egg breakfast! WTF? Anyways, I opted for 3 eggs, some toast and orange juice which set me back about $17.

Overall though the hotel is a 4-star and I'd much rather be there than at some budget motel or something, so despite the higher prices, it's hard to complain too much when H&W cover the bill for the room AND since I didn't fly, but drove up, they even credited me $400 (that they would have reimbursed someone for a flight).

Also of note is that as of April 1st, 2013 the Canadian tax rate went from a flat 12% to a flat 5% and SOME things are an additional 7%. THIS surgery falls under the 5% taxes. BOOYEAH!