It seems like you can't do the "family travel" thing without a little drama. The girls and I flew to Utah together. We left earlier in the month so we could get a cheaper flight. Dave couldn't quite take that many days off, so he came a few days later.
Now, despite what you are about to read, we actually had a wonderful visit in Utah. The "travel" part was the big challenge.
So let's begin with Dave dropping us off at O'Hare airport. We were not checking bags so the girls and I each had a carry-on as well as backpack/purse. That's a lot of stuff to navigate with two kids through an airport, but I told Dave not to worry about coming in with us, we were fine.
Well, the fun started as we got in line to go through security. Paige, Ashley and I are all just standing there, when all of a sudden Paige tells me she is hot. Then she says in a panicked voice, "I feel sick." Then she basically collapses in my arms all hot, sweaty and green in the face.
Now I know I am in trouble. We are in the security line, no water, no nearby bathrooms, no where to go. Then Paige starts throwing up. She had a skirt on, so I lifted it up to form a basket for her to throw up in. Fortunately, another passenger grabs an empty bin that you put your stuff in to go through the conveyor belt and she throws up in that. I just want you to know that this was not discreet. Paige is retching and crying loudly. It was bad. On top of it all, she had a green smoothie for breakfast so her vomit was pretty much "Exorcist" green, but even after that was all up, she just kept dry heaving, it was sad.
She was so weak after throwing up she could hardly stand. And of course, we can't leave our luggage unattended and of course, the nearest restroom is across the terminal. Fortunately, I had Ashley with me. She stayed with our luggage by security while I took Paige to the bathroom and cleaned her up.
Now I had a decision to make, do we go back home and miss our flight or do I keep going with Paige? I sort of felt like she may have been hot (with her coat on) and a little car sick from the drive so we decided to go ahead and go through security. (I'm sure they were happy to get rid of me!) Then once through security I could buy some water, sit Paige down and figure out if she was well enough to travel.
We had an hour before our flight was supposed to leave and pretty much from that point on, Paige seemed okay. So I decided to go for it. We boarded our flight to Denver where we would then change planes for SLC. We were almost in Denver when, Paige turned to me again and said, "Mom, I feel sick." Again, she threw up and again there was no place to go and no way to be discreet. So in the middle of a packed airplane, Paige threw up into a barf bag and all the passengers got to enjoy the sounds and smells.
This occurred right as we were descending to land, so Paige was still pretty sick when we touched down. Unfortunately, we had no time to lose because we had to make a connection very quickly. Basically, we only had enough time to get off our plane, dash across the terminal and get on the next plane. Again, Ashley was the lifesaver, because Paige was too weak to roll her bags, heck she could barely even walk. I'm sure we were a sad sight. Ashley and I struggling with roller bags and backpacks with Paige stumbling between us holding a giant barf bag and green as could be. We barely made our connection and the new flight attendants took one look at Paige and said, "uh, oh have we been airsick?"
At this point, Paige is starting to feel a little better and it finally hit me that she might have motion sickness. It's not like I haven't seen it a million times before with Ashley. This is when I decided to give Paige some Dramamine and pray that we could get to Utah without any more throwing up. AND....it worked! She was fine the rest of the way.
Now I'm going to skip forward to our return flight. I was prepared this time and my kids were medicated with Dramamine. We had an evening flight, again with a connection in Denver. Dave left a few hours earlier on a different flight, but Dave's parents dropped the girls and I off and we wait for our flight. Then it happens, our flight is delayed. I realize that if we are late to Denver we will miss our connection and our flight from Denver is the last of the night, which means we will be stuck overnight. So, I tell the gate agent that if there is any chance I might miss the connection, I'm not going. Fortunately, she agrees with me and rebooks us for a flight the next day. Unfortunately, I have to call Dave's parents to come back and pick us up. I feel bad about this because I know that Dave's mom who is sick has probably already stripped and washed the sheets on our beds (and she had.) So, once again the girls and I are dragging our stuff all over the airport, but we did go back to Grandpa and Grandma's for a good's night sleep. And, I luckily we got out no problems the next morning, but whew what an adventure!
