Damage control
Jan. 1st, 2005 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynSo, as I've mentioned at least 500 times, I hate to fly. My hatred developed after a long love affair with flight; I'm also the daughter of an engineer who worked for many years at Boeing and who spent formative years around planes of various kinds. But after a couple of bad flights -- including a near-miss at LAX once where the brakes nearly failed, and international flights that amped up my claustrophobia to epic levels -- I slowly started to develop these fears and extreme discomfort that worsened as seats grew smaller and planes grew more crowded, and I started flying more often to places I'd never been that often had severe turbulence and other fun things like lightning storms. And I try to talk myself out of my fear, but it never works, and at the end of our flight last night to San Diego, I had quite a job. We flew through clouds for like 10 minutes, and it seemed as if it was never going to end. I was like, I'm from Seattle, I know from cloud clover! But after 10 minutes I started thinking, oh god! It's the Miracles episode where the plane disappears! Weird shit is going to start happening to us! And then I thought maybe it was the Twilight Zone episode. We were never going to get out of the clouds. Finally we saw the city light. There's this precipitous drop when you come into SD airport and you're also banking, which often scares the crap out of people who've never been here before. But I'm used to it, so once we got out of the clouds, I was okay, till we landed. Whereupon we hit ground, and I thought, gosh, that's the smoothest landing ever, and then suddenly kapow! We bounced back up into the air, and then bam! bounced back down hard. Everyone in the plane starts screaming and then laughing and the pilots hit the brakes hard, and then harder. People started looking around like, hah hah, wasn't that silly of us to act like WE WERE ALL GONNA DIE!
At least I had the whole row to myself. The plane was almost full, but for some reason I had my whole row on my own, which made dealing with the annoying family behind me better (as did the iPod). I'm really dreading coming home, because the plane was booked solid when I made the reservation and I could only get a window seat, not a lot of fun for someone who's six feet tall and has a bladder the size of a peanut. I had to take a cab because Sis_r's hands and feet are too numb to drive, and I got this cab driver from Bulgaria who wanted to chat and I wouldn't have minded, because, dude, he was from Bulgaria, and I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions because it's such a mysterious and strange country, but he was so freaking quiet I couldn't hear him, and then he started talking about how the moral center of a country is what determines its success, and I was cool with that until he started talking about how gay marriage will destroy the country... and that was where he lost me. I was thinking, guy, you survived communism of the worst sort, how can you be going around talking about gay marriage like it's the most dangerous thing in the world?
Anways, Sis_r is doing quite well from the transfusion. I was... shocked, scared, the whole bit when I saw her. She came out to try to pay the cabdriver so I didn't have the time to really react, which was good, because she has no eyebrows and eyelashes, nor of course any hair except these little wisps. She's even more skeletal than before. It's like she's an entirely different person. I saw this picture of my mom's the other day when I was visiting dad; she was this shrunken skeletal version of herself, with this tiny parchment orb on her shoulders, bald, her eyes like hollows. One of the eyes was half closed from damage from chemo. Her giant old-lady glasses took up her entire head. But it was the last picture we took of her, and my sister reminded me way too much of that photograph. She says she has color in her face for the first time in months from the transfusion. It was a terrible day, I guess, because the blood was too thick to go through her pic line, but after a long struggle, she got her two pints and it's made her feel better. And they took the pic line out after five months, and she's ecstatic to have it gone.
Her tailbone is making her miserable, I guess -- extreme pain and she can't get comfy. We watched King Arthur last night, though, and Clive made her happy. I gave her a massage today to see if it would help; it's so odd, she and I just never really touch (mostly my fault, I'm so non-touchy) but I'm more than happy to do whatever I can to help. This also apparently extends to flood control -- her neighbor's sprinkler system flooded his yard and then hers, and so I spent the morning pushing water into the side troughs and trying to get the standing water out of the way. Maybe I should hire myself out to Sri Lanka; I've got quite good at it. When she gets some energy back, we're going to the store and maybe get some videos. I doubt, though, that she'll want to let me rent Fast and the Furious.
It was freezing in San Diego last night and in the room I was sleeping in; I was so cold at one point it was worse than in Seattle. And her one cat keeps chewing my head -- it's very cute. I give him scritches and he started gnawing on my hair (Sis_r says he misses her hair) and then he opens his jaws as wide as possible and bites my head or neck. Hard, but not hard enough to break skin. We here at Casa R know how to have a good time!
Hope all my friends have had a happy new year so far, and that it brings good things in 2005.
At least I had the whole row to myself. The plane was almost full, but for some reason I had my whole row on my own, which made dealing with the annoying family behind me better (as did the iPod). I'm really dreading coming home, because the plane was booked solid when I made the reservation and I could only get a window seat, not a lot of fun for someone who's six feet tall and has a bladder the size of a peanut. I had to take a cab because Sis_r's hands and feet are too numb to drive, and I got this cab driver from Bulgaria who wanted to chat and I wouldn't have minded, because, dude, he was from Bulgaria, and I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions because it's such a mysterious and strange country, but he was so freaking quiet I couldn't hear him, and then he started talking about how the moral center of a country is what determines its success, and I was cool with that until he started talking about how gay marriage will destroy the country... and that was where he lost me. I was thinking, guy, you survived communism of the worst sort, how can you be going around talking about gay marriage like it's the most dangerous thing in the world?
Anways, Sis_r is doing quite well from the transfusion. I was... shocked, scared, the whole bit when I saw her. She came out to try to pay the cabdriver so I didn't have the time to really react, which was good, because she has no eyebrows and eyelashes, nor of course any hair except these little wisps. She's even more skeletal than before. It's like she's an entirely different person. I saw this picture of my mom's the other day when I was visiting dad; she was this shrunken skeletal version of herself, with this tiny parchment orb on her shoulders, bald, her eyes like hollows. One of the eyes was half closed from damage from chemo. Her giant old-lady glasses took up her entire head. But it was the last picture we took of her, and my sister reminded me way too much of that photograph. She says she has color in her face for the first time in months from the transfusion. It was a terrible day, I guess, because the blood was too thick to go through her pic line, but after a long struggle, she got her two pints and it's made her feel better. And they took the pic line out after five months, and she's ecstatic to have it gone.
Her tailbone is making her miserable, I guess -- extreme pain and she can't get comfy. We watched King Arthur last night, though, and Clive made her happy. I gave her a massage today to see if it would help; it's so odd, she and I just never really touch (mostly my fault, I'm so non-touchy) but I'm more than happy to do whatever I can to help. This also apparently extends to flood control -- her neighbor's sprinkler system flooded his yard and then hers, and so I spent the morning pushing water into the side troughs and trying to get the standing water out of the way. Maybe I should hire myself out to Sri Lanka; I've got quite good at it. When she gets some energy back, we're going to the store and maybe get some videos. I doubt, though, that she'll want to let me rent Fast and the Furious.
It was freezing in San Diego last night and in the room I was sleeping in; I was so cold at one point it was worse than in Seattle. And her one cat keeps chewing my head -- it's very cute. I give him scritches and he started gnawing on my hair (Sis_r says he misses her hair) and then he opens his jaws as wide as possible and bites my head or neck. Hard, but not hard enough to break skin. We here at Casa R know how to have a good time!
Hope all my friends have had a happy new year so far, and that it brings good things in 2005.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-01 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 12:20 am (UTC)The first time was when I was very young. It was just my dad, my brother and myself. We were flying back from Granny's and the oil line busted. That one wasn't too bad, we actually landed at an airport.
The second time I was in my early teens. Different plane. We were flying from Kansas City to South Carolina. Dad decided not to land in Nashville to refuel, said we had plenty to spare. Descending, landing, taxi-ing, refueling, taxi-ing, taking off, attaining flight altitude all would have added 2-3 hours on the flight time. In retrospect it would have saved a lot of time. A big storm front kept pushing us farther and farther south until we ran out of gas and had to find a place to land. That's hill country. Tons of tobacco barns that look like short runways. We wound up landing safely in a field full of tree stumps outside of Cordelia, GA. My mom was with us that time.
The last time was when I was 18. Same plane Cessna 195. It has a tail wheel and a huge radial engine. On the ground you need to turn the plane sideways to be able to see what's in front of you. This time we were flying to Hobbs, NM (no Mom). We were descending to land in Hobart, OK to refuel when the engine began to shake and shimmy then then there was a huge shudder and the plane jerked upwards and everything went dreadfully silent and the windshield was sprayed with oil. Our propeller flew off. It just missed coming back into the cockpit. When managed to land on a small strip of paved road, bouncing over two road signs and swerving around a third, out in the middle of nowhere. There was a guy plowing the small field next to the road and I remember seeing his mouth form a perfect 'O' as he watched us go by. We pushed the plane off the road into someone's driveway. I never did hear what they thought when they came home and found it. The guy on the tractor gave us a ride into town to the sheriff's office. One of the hardest things I've ever done in my life is to get into the plane that my father rented to fly us the rest of the way to New Mexico and then back home.
I've always wanted to fly in a helicopter but I figure, given my luck and the fact that helicopter's have the glide path of a rock, that I probably wouldn't survive it.
Hmmm, maybe I should have saved these tales until you'd returned home. But as I said, I've never had any trouble on commercial flights :-)
::shutting up now::
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 08:38 pm (UTC)The weird thing is that I like flying in small planes still quite a lot. I find them much more comforting, and if things go wrong, at least you know about it.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 04:20 am (UTC)Ask to see if there are any aisle seats available when you check in--often people have either not shown up, cancelled, or moved to first class, and you can get a different seat.
I'm glad you and your sister are with each other--sounds like you're really helping her, and managing to have a bit of a good time, too.
*more hugs*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 08:41 pm (UTC)I don't know how much I'm helping in that she keeps apologizing for not being able to get up and do anything. Just going to rent movies wiped her out yesterday. So I feel pretty useless, but at least I can take her Christmas tree down!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 06:46 am (UTC)Just think of the karma points you're racking up!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-03 02:56 am (UTC)Eww, dead rat...