When I consider the long friendship, brotherhood really, and these latest developments, I am quite sure I will never be able to visit Russia again. I’m also very confident that my Russian friends, both of them, will never be able to visit the USA again either.
They came as most do with the Work and Travel program, and in their older adult lives have no real reason to come to the USA except for leisure. With the new world climate and moods toward Russia, before my friend blocked me we talked about where we could meet. It’s sad to know that Russians can’t travel to Europe anymore. In our 2nd to last conversation, we talked about the possibilities of exactly where to meet. My Godson is Russian and I’ve never met him.
There’s Mexico, Cuba, Turkey, North Korea, Vietnam (a good possibility, I have a job offer to teach there), Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and a couple of African countries where we would have to meet. Europe was basically open before, and he and I talked about his family coming to Kyiv to visit a famous church (in May I think) for a few days but that will NEVER happen now. It’s funny to me that any Slavic person should know that Ukraine was indeed settled first and that Russia came after that, and if you think about it, many Russians make this pilgrimage to Kyiv to visit… so they must know a little history otherwise they would not recognize this religious holiday at all. He still stands by the Russian version that Russia came first in history.
When my former partner and I were together she corrected him a few times but it didn’t really matter. I have found that talking to SOME Slavic people is often like talking to a brick wall. I have friendships with a couple of ex-girlfriends. They are married and we don’t live anywhere near each other it’s polite and mature to wish them a Happy Birthday on social media. But my former partner can’t manage this. It’s all or none. Now it’s this way with my best friends.
I thought this bond would never be severed but this war has strained relations. Perhaps in the future things will go back to the way they were. On a side note, why is it so seemingly difficult for a Slavic person to maintain an average friendship after the intimacy is gone? Is this something that is taught? Anyone that knows please comment. What about simply disagreement with solid evidence? It’s like they can’t accept not being right, so it’s easier to not talk at all.
Many bridges have been burned and can never be crossed again. For tens of millions of Russians that have never been to the USA or Europe, they will never know what they are missing, but for those that have been lucky enough to come to the USA… they may not say this out loud but the systems in place across Europe and the USA are something they know is better but will never admit is better. With all of these new laws on the books in Russia I am sure if they can’t call a war a war, they sure as hell would never admit that their system is flawed. I think just about every system is flawed, leaving many behind in the wake of progress, but in my opinion in most western countries if you work hard and save money just about anyone can make it BIG. I don’t see this possibility in Russia and many of the former Soviet states. It appears the old way is the way Putin wants it to be, but if we look at Moldova or Georgia, and yes, Ukraine, the old way led to no real way up and out. It has kept generations of people poor or barely able to survive. If this is what Putin really wants then maybe it’s time for me to wash my hands of the friendships I have had for 2 decades.
Either way, this situation has gotten out of hand, and people are dying. I pray for peace and pray for the victims of this war.
I live on an island in the USA but we do see lots of tourists from all over the world. We have just over 30,000 residents here, but in the summer months, we see about a half million tourists every week all summer long. It feels like we are a tiny chihuahua dog with a half million fleas crawling all over!
To supplement our workforce the Work and Travel program here is robust and diverse. In the early 2000’s we saw mostly students from Russia and Ukraine but also from Georgia, Lithuania, Armenia, and a couple of other former Soviet states. We all got along pretty well with the exception for some reason of the Lithuanians. They did not like the Russians here at all. We hire an average of 5,000 students every summer to make hotel beds, work in our restaurants, flip hamburgers, and help at the grocery store. In March of 2002, I moved back to North Carolina from the west coast. When I returned I immediately noticed, even in winter, that we already had quite a few Russian and Belarusian people that stayed on from the summer. If you live on a small island where you know everyone and have known them since you were a child, well, eventually you begin to see the bigger picture. The dating scene here is horrible, so I dated someone from Belarus… my now ex-wife.
She is super smart and attractive, and yet her cold side emerged more and more. Having met her mother when I invited her to the USA when my son was born, I can see where she gets the cold from! My roommate then were 2 Siberian guys from Novokuznetsk, Russia. We became close, close like brothers in fact. They were at my wedding. They were the first to the hospital the night my son was born, and they lived in the USA for 6 years after that. One of my friends had to move back to Russia because of his mother’s health and his own mental health. My friend we can call Brad (not a Russian name for sure) invited me to Siberia many times after he moved back. In the winter of 2012-13, I decided to take him up on his offer. The flight from New York to Moscow then Moscow to Novosibirsk, and the train north for 12 hours to Novokuznetsk was long and taxing. I don’t drink a lot of alcohol, but when I got to my friend’s apartment, I took a shower, ate a nice meal, and got drunk until I fell asleep. Brad loved the USA and yet is also a patriot. He’s a bit of a conspiracy quack, so when Crimea was taken by Russia he embraced it but stayed somewhat neutral. Fast forward to last year in Odessa… he was supposed to come to visit but could not take time away from work. He’s married now with a stepdaughter and his own son. He’s big into crypto and lives a good life there.
He was the first person I told about the pregnancy and then the loss of the pregnancy. He spoke to my then-partner about all of this pre-invasion hype, and then quickly covered his tracks with the standard line, “Ukraine is full of Nazis” and “look at what the USA did in Iraq and Syria!”. My answer was that I didn’t believe in the Iraq war but supported anti-terrorism efforts all over the world wherever and whoever carries them out. We tried not to talk about politics, but he would slip in that he needed some car parts or wanted some western goods sent to Turkey. My answer was sure, no problem, but then I would remind him that it was his government’s fault. He fully believes that Russia has never bombed or shot civilians, ever. He fully supports their president no matter how many times I point out that the opposition often ends up dead or in prison, or in exile.
This opinion of mine may upset some that read it, but I do think this angle has been forgotten. When spring of 2014 rolled around and the Maidan had started I was, of course, behind the people of Ukraine and understand their plight. In the USA we have the impeachment process to remove a political leader. The same system exists in Ukraine as well. It is the right of the nation’s citizens to choose their leaders. There are so many strong leaders in Ukraine, even with the corruption, that I thought and still believe in the impeachment process.
This makes me wonder if that process was ever explored to remove the Ukrainian president in 2014. It would have been less bloody, Crimea may have stayed Ukrainian, and the Donbas may have not been tossed into the war. This doesn’t mean I think what is happening now is right. The president in 2014 fled under the cover of darkness and his vast corruption was exposed. New leaders have been chosen and that is no justification for an invasion and all of this killing.
Back to my Russian friends. About 1 month ago, this brother of mine, my best friend really, sent me some links to YouTube channels that were pro-Russian. They came through easily and were not blocked. But when I sent him images or interrogation videos of Russians saying they thought they were going on a training mission or that they had to steal food to eat, the videos were BLOCKED. The easy answer is that his government is blocking the truth. After all, he can send me videos or links that I can access, but he can’t see mine. A month ago we had a fiery exchange where I told him that his captured soldiers were saying they had no food when they got sent into Ukraine or that they were dying by the thousands. He sent back a few voice messages saying it was not true and telling me it was the USA controlling NATO and Ukraine. He told me NATO was to blame and that people in the Donbas were being bombed every day and that was why Putin invaded Ukraine. When I told him Zelensky is Jewish, his answer, was that he’s a drug addict. He is certain that the USA is blocking all the news, not Russia.
What can I say? He is a grown man that, as we say, “is drinking the Kool-aid!” He absolutely believes in his president. He dismisses the rest as fake. He says that the opposition leaders that died or are in prison were… AGENTS OF THE USA! So he didn’t mind living here for years to make $100,000 to take back to Russia, but now he thinks we are all just blind sheep? He was getting kinda upset with me when I finally said “ok, but what about Crimea?” And, “if you’re so sure you won’t get in trouble if you call this war what it is… a war, and not a Special operation” he just got angrier. We had tried to stay off politics and the war and focus on the small things. Things like taking a vacation and who would allow a Russian visa? War crept in and the lies that his government, like all governments, kept coming back up. We all say “stand in the light of truth” but in reality, there are just some places where the truth is so bright and so loud that it makes the viewer blind and deaf. I get the impression that many Russians are just opportunists now. Take what you can, and settle for a boot on the neck rather than a bullet to the head.
That doesn’t mean the USA is free from flaws and huge mistakes. Iraq was a giant mistake that killed thousands of people from all walks of life. Afghanistan, until we left, was a mission I believed in. Terrorism should not be left to spread like a wildfire. Rich, arrogant men took us to war in Iraq and I just don’t know if it was the right thing to do. We can’t say that about this unjust invasion of Ukraine, or the militarization of the nuclear power station that is currently occupied by Russian troops now. The whole world, with the exception of Iran, North Korea, and some of China thinks that we need to all stay away from nuclear power plants. Russia is now firmly seemingly a military terrorist state. Its citizens, my friends, and millions of people in its republics live under a sad illusion. A new cold war has begun and I fear I will NEVER see my Russian brothers again. I fear it will take decades to undo all of this damage.
Ukraine, stand strong in your defiance and God be with you.
After evacuating Ukraine I headed to Moldova then on to Bucharest. It’s a sensible choice that is an established EU country. Overall, it is not super expensive, and the people are friendly. Yes, it’s true you can get scammed there pretty well but then that also happens in every major city in the USA and across the world. Romania is an EU country but its currency is still native and the Lei conversion is about 4.6 to 1 US Dollar. An apartment on Airbnb ranges from $22 to $35. I had a coupon on Airbnb and stayed a whole month for $460 with a monthly discount and some negotiating. Don’t pay more than you need to and remember that an apartment in Bucharest is no more than $500 a month for most residents.
With Ukrainian women leaving because of the Russian invasion, countries like Romania have become the new horizon for dating a single Ukrainian woman. Germany, Poland, and really all of the EU have opened their doors. With no other reason to stay in Bucharest, I flew to Copenhagen, Denmark. The airport was small but modern and the people are super friendly. Denmark is not quite an EU country but the standard of living is good there and the people are ranked among the happiest in the whole world. The municipalities in Denmark have really stepped up for refugees and offer excellent services for those in need. In my experience, Denmark was rather expensive, and unless you really plan on meeting a Ukrainian in Denmark, perhaps just stay for a day or 2, if the dating scene is not the best. I will write about COVID rules in the EU from my point of view in my next blog but let’s stick to dating.
I did fiddle with the idea of a dating agency for Ukrainian women that had become refugees in Europe but I just had too much going on at the time. On Slavic Girls, we are starting to see the EU blue logo on some of the female member pages. Guys, now is your chance to date a wonderful Ukrainian woman and also expose her to western standards on most things. English is widely spoken and if she is new to the EU and has not traveled outside of Ukraine a lot she will be rather impressed with how things are in the EU. From Denmark, I took a train to Naumburg, Germany where I stayed in a 700-year-old villa. My hosts made a habit of remodeling old homes and flipping them for a huge profit. I have some pictures to accompany this blog. I felt like I stepped back in time. The room was amazing and the backyard was like a scene from Lord of the Rings, Bilbo’s home to be precise! The prices in Germany were less than in Denmark but they were still very high.
Even in a small city like Naumburg, there were still easily 4,000 Ukrainian refugees there.
There were a few men but mostly there were women with children or their families, including their daughters or aunts or nieces. Guys, there are plenty of chances to work with Slavic Girl administrators to find a good woman in the EU. They can set up all you need and don’t worry, the EU is pretty easy to travel to. Most flights in and out of the EU are not super strict as far as COVID travel goes. I would avoid Lufthansa and Austrian airlines for now. They have huge staffing issues right now. My student and friend Kate are in Italy with her daughter. She tells me there are many Ukrainian women there, and this time of year is great in Italy. I am willing to bet that the agency has a database of women that are EU based now for you to chat with, write to and eventually go and meet. Men, get off your rear end and get motivated. Sure, it is great to get to know a woman online but at some point, you just have to pull the trigger and fly to meet her! I have been to Ukraine and Russia over 14 times, some trips for work, and others for leisure… and yes, for love. I would not change a thing when it comes to the money I spent traveling. It’s far better than endless letters to less-than-reputation dating agencies. If you get a chance, get off your bottom and take a trip to the EU. I do not work for the agency and being that I am a male member myself, I can tell you that nothing is better than meeting face to face the woman at the other end of months of chatting and letter writing. You will wish you had listened to me when winter comes around and you are sitting in your house or apartment all alone. Instead, you could have spent a week or two in the EU with a beautiful woman. You could have explored Europe with a really smart woman with the same goals you have. The EU is open to Ukrainian women to travel across all borders. Simply put, men, there is no excuse now to meet a Ukrainian woman that is waiting to start a home life, a future with endless possibilities waits for you. And men if you get scared or need advice, reach out to the administrator here and they will help you get in touch with me. I don’t have all of the answers but I do know the early warning signs of trouble, and I can show you the things to watch out for! How can I do this?
In November of 2013, I was on my 3rd trip to Ukraine that year. I had been to Lviv, and before that, I had visited Crimea at Evpatoria, before the annexation, and before Russia built a bridge connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula. I always bought travel insurance and until November of 2013 I had never used it. At a cost of around $100 per trip and just over 30 trips under my belt, my purchase from Travelguard seemed routine. No readers, this is not an advertisement for Travelguard (although they did ask to use my insurance story in their newsletter) but rather a story about the absolute necessity of travel insurance and just how valuable it can be.
Traveling around Ukraine
I had flown into Kyiv and taken the then-new high-speed Hyundai electric trains from Kyiv to Lviv. I had the privilege of sitting across from one of the engineers that went to Korea to inspect and buy the new trains. In 2013 the trains had free 3G Wi-Fi. The last trip I took which was in October of 2021 didn’t feature Wi-Fi but the train still seemed fast and new. My good friend Vlad had invited me to Lviv to stay for a few days.
It’s a beautiful city with a great old wall running right through downtown. I spent 4 days there before heading southeast to Kharkiv. Some students of mine that I was teaching English invited me out to visit them.
Olga and her husband had been students of mine for 9 months when I arrived in Kharkiv. It is a totally different experience than Lviv. In Lviv, I didn’t dare speak Russian, even back in 2013, but in Kharkiv, it came in handy. I stayed in a Booking.com rental for 5 nights. The housekeeper was the person the owner had assigned to give me the key and to meet me for payment. I didn’t have any trouble at all until my last night in Kharkiv…
The last night in Kharkiv
That night I decided to go to Mcdonald’s and when I walked back to the apartment, only 1 city block, I opened the door and immediately smelled cigarettes! I do not smoke.
Every hair on the back of my neck stood up. It is 100% true that the hair on your neck instinctively stands up in a high-stress environment. I have had a lot of time to think about my decision to walk into the apartment that night and I have listened to lots of criticism, but the truth is that it was my apartment, my passport was inside and my luggage was inside, and of course, I do not run or get scared easily. I practiced Korean Martial arts for 14 years and I had the highest confidence in my capabilities.
I entered the apartment and immediately entered the bathroom where I unscrewed the wooden handle from the toilet plunger. My instincts told me to keep it near! I exited the bathroom and went into the kitchen, passing the bedroom and I saw absolutely no one.
The kitchen was empty. The smell of cigarettes was still strong but it wasn’t like I could smell cigarette smoke. Instead, it smelled like someone was inside and was a smoker…
Like it was on their clothing or something.
So, I entered the bedroom, parting those little wooden beads that hang from the doorway. In the USA we had them when I was a little boy but I have seen them in Ukraine and Russia many times in my adult life. I parted those wooden strings of beads and immediately 2 men were on me, one high on my neck and one low on my hips. The man on my neck was tall and thin, and he was attempting to choke me to sleep but his grip was too high. The man on my waist was heavy and solid and had me pinned on the wall. He was strong, and looking back, if both men had been as strong as he was maybe I would not be writing this blog. The tall man was thin and inexperienced. His grip was easy to break, and I did so by reaching over his left arm with my right arm, and pulling his thumb until it broke, and at the same time I simply dropped my body weight so his grip would not hold. His thumb made a loud snapping sound and he ran out of the room. But, the big man had me pinned to the wall still. When he realized that he was alone he began pulling me away from the wall and banging me back into it. He did this over and over.
Finally, I gathered myself enough to remember my training. I pushed my thumbs deep into his ears, and in truth, I started to curse at him in Russian. I did all I could to distract him. This guy was so so so strong. The more I pushed my thumbs into his ears the harder he pushed me into the wall! I started to hit him on top of the head, landing elbow after elbow on top of his head. We are all born with a soft spot on the top of our skull and even as adults that spot is still not as strong as the rest of our skull. The elbows to the top of his head had some effect on him but really what did the most damage was me pulling on his earlobes. I pulled very hard, hard enough that he tilted his head one way long enough for me to land an elbow on the bridge of his nose. His nose kinda snapped into pieces and flattened out and he let go.
I am by no means a bada$$ but I have been shot by a rifle before and I do have a black belt. I have never had to use my martial arts training to seriously harm someone else. Yes, it’s true I have had to defend myself before but only with a punch or a quick kick and never against 2 people. The big man stumbled out of my apartment, so I stumbled next door to the old woman that lived there. I had been paying her to cook extra food for me for dinner. I had just started to ask her to call the police (yes, in Russian) when I was struck from behind with what doctors believe was a metal pipe. I went down on my hands and knees and the last thing I remember was seeing this old Babushka standing over me with a broom, swinging it from side to side attempting to protect me.
Awakening in the Kharkiv hospital
I woke up in the hospital in Kharkiv. The doctor (he spoke English well) told me I had part of someone’s ear in my closed fist. He told me my skull was fractured, that I had suffered a serious concussion, and that my neck had been crushed at levels C3 to C7.
One level higher and I would be paralyzed from the neck down. A fracture at level C2 is called a hangman injury because it completely incapacitates you. I am very lucky. In Kharkiv, the police were able to arrest the man whose ear was in my hand. He went to a different hospital for stitches 😉 GO ANDREW!
I was able to reach out to Travelguard immediately after I woke up. They were the absolute best at what they do! They called twice a day to check on me. They coordinated with the doctors in Kharkiv and had their own doctors in London also. I spent 7 nights and 8 days in Kharkiv. Travelguard had one specialist assigned to me and they called me often. On the 6th day, I got a steady headache that was bad enough to make me vomit. There was no relief and the hospital didn’t have much to help with the headaches.
On the 7th day around 16:00 (4 pm), they called to check on me. I told them my head felt like it was in a vice being squeezed ever tighter. I was put on hold for just 5 minutes when suddenly my specialist came back on the line with a doctor. He asked me a few questions about my headaches and my neurological issues. To end the call he basically told me that they would evacuate me to more advanced care very soon and to hang in there! The specialist came back on after another 5 minutes and told me that a team would be in Kharkiv to evacuate me the next day and to not tell anyone. When I asked why she told me that they had experienced issues with passports being taken and the bills being doubled when the hospital administration hears about a medical evacuation. This scared the hell out of me! But she was right.
I was in a room with 5 other men and 2 of them spoke just enough English to help me. I had the man next to me pass me my leather jacket. It had a secret pocket on the inside but someone had found the pocket and my passport inside. I FLIPPED OUT! I tossed the table next to me across the room and the nurse came running in. I yelled that I wanted to see the chief of the department. She told me he was not available, so I hopped into the wheelchair they had given me 2 days before and told her that if she didn’t find my passport in 5 minutes and have the chief doctor bring it to me that I would call my embassy and then call the police. She got pretty frightened and ran out of the room. I didn’t wait to call my embassy. I called them right away and also called the police.
Maybe 15 minutes passed before the nurse and chief doctor came into the room. The police were with them. The police told me I needed to pay my bill before my passport would be given back to me, and I basically yelled back at them that my passport had nothing to do with a bill and that the chief had stolen my passport. I told them I wanted to press criminal charges and that I wanted him arrested right then and there! They all looked at me like I was crazy, and honestly, I guess I was beginning to feel that way. My neck was broken, I had a concussion, and I was surviving on whatever food the man next to me was asking his wife to bring to me. You see, in Ukraine, most hospitals do not feed you, they make your family bring you food! I am so grateful to that man that was next to me and his wife for taking care of me, and I still keep in touch with them.
On the 8th day at exactly 16:00, the 4 people in red jumpsuits walked into my hospital room. The 1st man had a gun in his hands, and behind him were the nurse and my doctor followed by another man with a gun. The armed men were paid security and were there to make sure nothing happened to me or the doctor that was taking me out of there. I won’t lie or tell you that I was Superman. I CRIED LIKE A BABY when I saw those 4 red suits!!! The doctor did a fast neurological assessment and then they put me in a neck brace and a wheelchair. They wheeled me down to a private ambulance with a police car in front of us followed by a private security car for our guards, and 2 cars followed us, all with armed men for our safety. It felt like I was way more important than I really am, but I guess they thought I had pulled the ear off of someone important or some serious criminal so they didn’t take any chances. I have pictures and Facebook posts to back up every part of this story.
We left Kharkiv and flew towards Paris
When we made it to the airport we went to the back gate where customs officers opened the ambulance door, looked at me, stamped my passport, and let us through. A private jet waited for us. It was like a flying emergency room and again tears fell from my face like rain. I was so happy to be leaving. No, I didn’t fear Ukraine and of course, I have been back many times but this trip NEEDED to be over. I made a video in the jet with an IV connected to my arm, and a heart monitor beeping in the background. We left Kharkiv and flew towards Paris. Keep in mind, Americans reading this, I was attacked just before Thanksgiving, so I was headed for a hospital in Paris and would spend Thanksgiving there. Travelguard paid for the air ambulance, they paid for the armed guards and the ambulance, they paid my hospital bill in Ukraine, and they paid for the hospital in Paris.
I stayed at the American Hospital of Paris for 7 days. I took pictures of the menu with stuff like a braised rabbit, filet mignon, fresh bread, eggs, bacon flan, and so much more. The food was so good that I had to ask my friends back in the USA that is chefs what I should order!
Flying back to the USA
I was treated for a traumatic brain injury, and I also had an MRI of my neck. The decision was made to risk flying me back to the USA for surgery. A nurse medical escort was flown in to pick me up all the way from Canada. She took me by ambulance to the airport. Air France took 4 seats out of 1st class and put in my hospital bed. I will never forget this flight for 2 reasons. The first reason is pretty cool. Because the seats were taken out and my bed was put in, I got to keep the airline bonus sky miles!!! Guys, 4 first-class seats purchased at the last minute cost a pretty penny!
Spoiler alert… I got over 100k sky miles for this flight back to the USA!
The second reason I will never forget this flight is because of the amount of pain I was in. I forget the name of this law/theory for this specific circumstance I experienced but I’m sure someone reading this will tell me. So, a pressurized airplane cabin is different than the pressure on our bodies here on earth. It’s like the pressure is more intense.
Remember that our ears pop and we have to regulate the pressure in our ears. Anyway,
the pressure was so intense that I was in intense pain!!! The nurse had been given 8 vials of 10s of morphine. That is 80s of morphine. Right away the pain was so bad that I was basically screaming in pain. The nurse gave me 10s of morphine to calm the pain. It worked for about 45 minutes. They served a fine 1st class dinner and
offered champagne. My nurse told me I could drink some because she wanted me to go to sleep. After dinner, the pain came back even worse. We were at 36,000 feet and the cabin was fully pressurized now. Again, she gave me 10s of morphine only this time it barely put a dent in the pain. She made me wait 30 minutes and gave me more. I drank more champagne and she gave me more morphine. 4 hours into the flight and my nurse had given me 50cc's of morphine already. She only had the 30s left. I drank more champagne and finally passed out from pain (and champagne).
The pain woke me up with just 2 hours left on the flight. I ate a 1st class breakfast and again I had a dose of morphine. Again, I asked for champagne as well. I had it with orange juice. No, I don’t drink that often but in this case, I need to. An hour late and I needed more morphine and then more. With 30 minutes left in our flight, there was no morphine left and the nurse was a nervous wreck. She told me she had never felt so bad for someone and that she had never been given so much morphine in such a short amount of time. We landed in Atlanta and got onto another small air ambulance and flew to Chesapeake Virginia where I was rushed into the hospital for more tests. My neck was indeed crushed and I was scheduled for surgery the next morning. The doctors switched me to Dilaudid (10 to 1 stronger than morphine) and the travel nurse left me to fly back to Canada.
I paid $86 for travel insurance and Travelguard paid so much more. They waited when I called and needed help. They answered the phones when I was scared, they called me back when they found out a plan of care from my Ukrainian doctors, and they pushed for better care. I am grateful they arranged for armed guards, an ambulance, a private jet, the hospital in Paris, the flight back to the USA, the nurse escort, and all of the medication and treatment along the way. I asked them for an itemized bill and in response, they sent me a check for the unused return airplane ticket to the USA. They had reimbursed me for the flight I missed when I was in the hospital!
My $86 investment along with all the travel insurance policies
They did finally let me know the total… a shocking $112,000 was spent to keep me healthy and safe. The private jet from Kharkiv to Paris alone was $56,000. The American Hospital of Paris was another $24,000 and the rest was spent on the nurse escort and the airline tickets.
My $86 investment along with all the travel insurance policies I had before don’t even come close to the $112,000 Travelguard spent on me. My neck is now basically titanium from C3 to C7 and the scar is barely visible. If I didn’t show most people, they would not know that my neck is held together with metal. I have a limited range of motion but not enough to really make things tough. Yes, it’s painful but it could be worse. I suffer from post-traumatic brain injury seizure disorder, and I take medication every day to keep the epileptic episodes to a minimum. I still have 3 or 4 seizures a year but I am alive. I have been back to Ukraine 7 times since 2013. I love the country and its people. I can’t really say I have been back to Kharkiv and I spend most of my time in Odesa now. I fell in love with Mama Odessa and its people. Now it’s my turn to find my forever partner.
Sorry for the long story. The moral of this blog is ALWAYS BUY TRAVEL INSURANCE AND ALWAYS ENROLL IN YOUR COUNTRIES EMERGENCY LOCATION AND NOTIFICATION PROGRAM. For Americans, it’s the S.T.E.P. program. Use it, buy travel insurance, and always have a backup plan.
