Random Thoughts: Changing Places

Back in the day as we say in Boston, I flew a lot for work. In and out of tiny airports on planes that were so small when the plane lurched, you did too. Flying to Boulder at night, trying to read the directions I’d printed (no GPS in those days) while driving through a snowstorm to a client meeting the next morning, then flying to San Francisco for another client meeting and taking the red eye home. And so on. Once I was so tired when I got home, the grass looked so refreshing I had to sit down for a minute. I woke up an hour later when the mailman said good morning and handed me the mail.

One day I flew to Scottsdale for a conference that was held in a huge tent, where many people including me got sick – fever, lost my voice (which some people would not have minded too much), too weak to stand up. I fainted in the airport terminal waiting for a connecting flight home and woke up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital where I spent the night in the emergency room. You’d think it couldn’t get worse until you had to come up with a story for your mother.  

The next day – and to this day I don’t remember how I got to Denver, which was the only way to get to Boston that day – I boarded a flight back home. While everyone was getting settled a dad asked my seatmate if he would change seats so his young family could sit together. The seatmate said no. I offered to change my seat. Once the dad’s family was settled, I started feeling uh-oh, and fainted and fell out of my seat into the aisle.

I was out of it, but I could feel a hand on my head and heard someone telling me he was going to check my heartbeat. The dad was a doctor. I was semi-awake for most of the flight, after the flight crew gave me oxygen and the dad/doctor kept checking my pulse and talking to me.

When the captain said to prepare for landing and everyone was strapped in, suddenly I began to feel hands holding me down – hands on my head, my body, arms, legs, ankles – and they stayed there until we were at the terminal. The dad/doctor stayed with me as the crew wheeled me out, where he greeted my parents who had aged about 15 years in 24 hours and told them I had the flu and would be okay. Which I was, eventually.

We didn’t know each other’s names, the dad/doctor, and all the people who made sure I didn’t go flying into the ceiling. And I’m sure there was a person or two who grumbled about waiting for me to get wheeled off the plane (probably the guy who wouldn’t switch seats). But it all restored some of my faith in humanity and reminded me that we are all humans, even grumpy people.

That was nearly 20 years ago. This is the first time I’ve talked about it outside my family and my former workmates, who were amazed that I would lie down in the aisle of a plane in dry-clean-only fabrics.

XO Brenda