First Post-Trip Blog: Flying Sick

I didn't get to make a final update before taking off on my trip because a truly ugly case of food poisoning reared its head at 5:00 AM on the 24th. I woke up and I thought I was having some acid reflux problems (which is an occasional issue with me), so I took some medicine and laid back down. It wasn't long before I realized that there was a bigger problem than acid reflux, and I began a 12-hour puke-a-fest. As it dragged into the morning hours, I became increasingly concerned that we wouldn't be able to make the plane flight, because once I start throwing up I have a very hard time stopping (my friends have all heard the story about my half-price sushi experience, which is why I haven't been able to eat sushi in a couple of years).

So Liz, trooper that she is, did all of the packing and clean-up, and tried as best she could to nurse me to a state of health. That involved pumping me full of motion sickness medicine and Pepto, which pretty much put me flat on my ass and having some goddamned strange hallucinations - kind of half-dreams, but awake. By noon (our flight was at 3:15) I felt OK enough to take a shower, but when the lights went out and Liz lit an oil lamp and some candles so I could see, the smell from the burning fumes made me puke all over again. We checked to see how much it would cost to change the tickets ($500 - $700, almost three times the cost of the original tickets!) and decided to gut it out.

I don't like plane flights anyway, especially long plane flights, but doing it when you think you might lose your cookies at any minute is nothing short of hell on Earth. Luckily, I slept most of the way to Dallas, and by the time we arrived I was feeling OK. I sat and nibbled some saltines in the Dallas airport, and I knew I was going to be OK because I felt hungry again. But, I was still a wreck the day after on Christmas, sleeping through a couple hours with my family, and not really "with it" like I should have been. It took a couple of days before I felt human again.

So that's the first part of my Trip to Tulsa experience. Coming up: Family Times, HeroClix and Horses, Christmas, and Books and Movies While I Was Away. Stay tuned...