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Kathianne
10-09-2012, 06:33 PM
in this election cycle:

http://news.yahoo.com/cancer-patient-asked-lift-bandages-airport-164232602.html


Cancer patient asked to lift bandages at airport<cite id="yui_3_5_1_23_1349825306788_390" class="byline vcard">By DOUG ESSER | Associated Press – <abbr id="yui_3_5_1_23_1349825306788_389" class="updated" title="2012-10-09T22:00:16Z">1 hr 27 mins ago</abbr></cite>


SEATTLE (AP) — A Michigan woman dying of leukemia hopes her embarrassing experience at a Seattle airport changes the way the Transportation Security Administration treats travelers with medical conditions.
Michelle Dunaj, 34, was making what she expects will be the last trip of her life on Oct. 2 as she departed for Hawaii.


The Roseville, Mich., woman thought she had prepared by calling the airline ahead of time, asking for a wheelchair, carrying documentation for her feeding tubes and making sure she had prescriptions for all her medications, including five bags of saline solution. But Dunaj said she received a full pat-down in the security line at Sea-Tac Airport and had to lift her shirt and pull back bandages so agents could get a good look. She said everyone else in line got a look, too.


"My issue is: It was in front of everyone, and everyone was looking at me like I was a criminal or like I was doing something wrong," Dunaj told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It shouldn't have been in front of everyone."...


Dunaj had no problems flying out of Detroit or returning to Seattle from Hawaii. She stayed with a friend at suburban Bonney Lake in western Washington, and returns to Michigan on Wednesday. She wasn't looking forward to departing from Sea-Tac, although the TSA contacted her through KOMO and offered to have a manager help her through security.


She'll enter hospice on Oct. 17 back home.


Dunaj decided to make the trip after she was told she had three to four months to live. She doesn't regret it, despite the hassles.


"Hawaii was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen," she said. "Number 1 on my bucket list."


She hopes her experience might change the TSA's practices or at least embolden others like her to keep trying.
"I figure if nothing else, it might help someone in the future and encourage people facing the same challenges I have faced to do what they want to do and see things before it's too late."