A short story about flying and scrambled egg sandwiches

In my last post I mentioned that I had been sick on a plane before. Here is that story.

In 2002 I went to New Orleans for work and my husband – then boyfriend – decided to tag along and we made a trip of it.

It was a long flight and I was ok getting there. A little perturbed in Dallas/Fort Worth airport though when the Texas Rangers went through my bags dressed in their fatigues and their AK-47s strung on their backs.

We had a great time and the city is beautiful. I always recommend to everyone to go to New Orleans at least once in their lives.

The night before we left we went partying with some friends we met while there. Too much drinking, little sleep and having to catch our airport shuttle at 4:30am was not an ideal mix.

When we got to the airport at six am, we checked in and at our gate was a little food stand. I ordered a scrambled egg sandwich and gobbled it down as I was starving.

We got on our flight and I started to feel a little ill. As you know, when you are taking off you are supposed to stay in your seat with your “seat belt firmly fastened until the pilot turns the seat belt light off.” Well, I started to feel very ill, which then turned into panic as I did not want to be ill on a plane.

Well, too late for that! I looked at my husband, turned pale, broke into a cold sweat and quickly released the buckle of my seatbelt, bolted upright and literally ran down the aisle of the plane to the bathroom.

The flight attendant in the back started to tell me that I needed to be in my seat, but stopped short after realizing I did not look well and quickly pointed to the location of the bathroom.

I entered with a bang of the door and promptly fell to my knees and the entire scrambled egg sandwich was relieved from my stomach.

I actually do not remember how I got back to my seat, but I did and the flight attendant was kind enough to bring me some water.

We landed in Dallas and I was not well. We sat at our gate waiting for our next flight and I started to panic. Dallas airport is very busy, which didn’t help my state of mind. They called our flight and as we were waiting to board I burst into tears.  I was overtired, sick and panicky. Ugh! I can remember the feeling as if it happened this morning. My husband quickly dashed across the hallway to a little store, bought some Dramamine (aptly named –drama) and I chewed on two of the tablets which felt like a thick, awful tasting paste in my mouth with a hint of orange.

The last thing I remember was lying across two seats on the plane clutching a barf bag and the flight attendant asking my husband if I wanted something to drink. He said, “No thank you. I don’t think she’ll be having anything this flight.”