Traveling with special needs - TSA Pre✓®

I am going to try tackling the "traveling with special needs" topic in these next posts. One reason for my reluctance last week is that I am not sure that I have anything helpful to say. I know what problems came up, but I am not sure that I have any solutions. We largely just endured.

One thing happened that I still don't understand; somehow we ended up as TSA PreCheck:

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/tsa-precheck

I know you can pay for this. While I object on the grounds that the last thing we need is more cash-based inequality, I can totally see why you might decide that the shorter line and less invasive security check is worth the investment. Regardless, as my account is running dry, I would not have been able to and did not pay for it.

The only possible explanation I can give for how we got it is that maybe because we had just been through the system at the end of January, somehow that was a recent enough check that we could do the short process.

The first time-saver was that the line was much shorter, with fewer people in it. Fatigue ended up being a big part of our problems, so any expedition is good.

We also did not have to remove shoes and things, and there were not as many things that we needed to take out specially out of our carry on items.

Also, we did not have to go through the full body scanner, just a regular metal detector.

This worked well for me. The body scanner always seems to show something by my right knee. My only guess is that when that piece of rebar recoiled and slashed me, leaving me susceptible to an opportunistic infection that hits me any time my immune system gets too stressed, it may also have left a tiny scrap of metal in my body that migrated up a few inches and then got stuck. Or maybe it's a fat thing; I don't know.

For my mother, titanium joint replacements still set off the metal detector, subjecting her to the increasingly intimate pat-down.

I had been looking up different tips for traveling with dementia patients, and they all said to keep the person in front of you, with that as a better vantage point for guiding them and hearing the instructions they are getting.

That seems to be mainly true, but it is still not everything you would hope for. Part of me has come away thinking that really you need two people so you can tag team. One in front, one in back. Never one person in the bathroom while you have to hope your charge will not move or have anyone ask them any confusing questions as they stand outside the bathroom.

Of course, that would involve one more airline ticket, a bigger hotel room, more spending on food, more room in cars, more time off work... there are a lot of things that make it prohibitive.

I guess it is still more affordable than my other idea: traveling by private jet.