by Dodie Cross

I was flying from Thailand, back to the States, after a bladder repair went south. It was supposed to be a “quickie” type of surgery. “Sree day and you casseta come out,” my sweet Thai surgeon told me. “When you can pee-pee on you own, you go home.”

That was reassuring. It was close to Christmas and I didn’t want to fly back to the States for the “simple” surgery, missing all the fun at the Christmas party that some of the expats were throwing. No, why waste time and money. I’d find a good doctor and be up and running in sree days.

Well, it wasn’t sree days. It was more like sirteen, and when I couldn’t “pee-pee” after days of giving it the ole keigel muscle push.

I knew there was a problem.

The problem was, not only could I not pee-pee, I couldn’t sit. I could feel the tip of the catheter up there somewhere, somewhere it should not have been, and I was most concerned. You should not feel the tip of a catheter! It felt like I was sitting on a #9 knitting needle.

It was time to take my recalcitrant bladder and inflamed urethra back to the States for some help.

If ever you take an international flight and want to get through airport glitches quickly, do it in a wheelchair.

Feeling terribly sorry for myself and my lower quadrant, I opted for a wheelchair. I was still feeling rather puny and had a fever, along with some niggling thoughts of rushing into the john and pulling the rip-cord.

I restrained myself.

But, oh, what wonderful service I received in the Bangkok airport. I felt a tad guilty as we glided through never-ending lines of tired, disheveled travelers. The airline employee who pushed my wheelchair careened wildly around the lines of people while I hung on to the armrests. He zigzagged up to security, ending with an abrupt stop and a wheelie. I pictured him in the Indy 500.

The officer asked me to raise my right hand and swear I was not hiding any jewelry, guns, dynamite or drugs somewhere on my person. I think he would have been more horrified to see the little pee-pee bag under my clothes.

The flight from Bangkok to Tokyo would be eight hours. How could I do this? How was I going to sit for eight hours with this knitting needle invading my private places?

The First Class section was full when I boarded. As I limped down the aisle I managed a disinterested look at the cozy First Class passengers, sipping their Perrier and Merlot as the rest of us poor steerage passengers filed by. Shame on them!

I had asked for a bulkhead row to have a little more room to spread out and was ecstatic when the adjoining seat remained vacant. I stretched out across both seats, trying to elevate my torso and take some weight off my ailing nether regions.

I did manage to grab a few Zs, half sitting and half arching out of both seats. I’m sure I looked like I had a huge hemorrhoid problem to those passing by. Visions of Tony Roma’s famous ribs invaded my dreams with heaping stacks of ribs and greasy onion rings piled high on my plate. I had just put a shovel-full of the onion rings in my mouth when an unwelcome noise awakened memid bite. The flight attendant had placed a bowl of soup and salad on my tray-table. Hey wait. Where’s my ribs?

I did my best to ingest most of the strange looking things floating haphazardly in my soup. I knew some were eggs, but they were a kind of baby-doo-doo mustard colora color one doesn’t like to associate with eggs, and they were rather rubbery. When my fork touched them they recoiled. Scary! My salad gave me cause to worry as well. I definitely saw something move in there, half hidden between the arugula and the snow peas. I probed it with my fork and it scooted under a bamboo shoot.

After eating I slipped a Valium into my hot tea and woke up in Tokyo. I couldn’t believe I’d slept for four hours without the usual ten quarts of water I was supposed to drink and the thirty trips to the bathroom to empty my catheter.

Customer service at the Narita Airport in Tokyo was courteous and efficient. A female airport employee greeted me as I limped onto the jet-way and helped me into the ever-faithful wheelchair. She was all smiles and bows as I said my domoh arigatos. This girl was so tiny I felt I should be pushing her. I guessed her weight at about seventy pounds and just a tad over four and a half feet tall. At my best weight I had her doubled, but the smile never left her sweet, strained face. She helped me get comfortable and off we went to my next gate.

It had to be an Asian thing. They all seemed to drive the samecars, shopping carts and wheelchairs. We zoomed in and out of queues of travelers where she found an elevator amid the crowd and down we went to a special exit. She pushed me through a tunnel that was so long I thought she might be wheeling me all the way to LAX. It finally ended in an underground parking structure. She rolled me up to a group of four Asian ladies, all in wheelchairs, seemingly on their last voyage, and looking like they might be pushing the backside of eighty. Two large vans with lift ramps were awaiting us. The attendants wheeled us aboard and we were off and running to our waiting jet.

Parked next to our plane was a monstrous truck with a ten-foot wide lift ramp. The ramp was lowered and two-by-two we were loaded like cargo onto the truck then lifted up like freight into a container and pushed onto the plane for the last leg of the journey.

I felt like a malingerer sitting among these frail, sickly ladies. I smiled apologetically at the octogenarian beside me. In her best attempt at English she whispered: “It tellible to get ohd, neh?”

Maybe I was sicker than I thought.

The last leg of my trip again brought back thoughts of pulling the rip-cord.

Sitting for a thirteen-hour flight from Tokyo to LAX with a needle tip poking my inflamed urethra made me very cranky. Each time I stood up, sat down, or walked, I could feel the needle inching around. And with each inch I’d have a little more pain and a little more burning, I was not able to get a seat in the bulkhead row this time, and the window seat was occupied. Sleep was impossible.

Soon after take-off, I detected the sound of fluid joggling about when I moved, and knew it was time to empty my catheter. The First Class lavatory looked very appealing to me from my second-row seat in coach. Just a short walk and I’d be inside their fancy-wancy john. I knew it was a no-no for us steerage passengers, but I didn’t have the strength for the long walk to the back of the plane to use the coach lavatory. Besides, I rather liked the idea of the nice hand lotion they offered to their privileged passengers.

When I walked into First Class, I noticed an empty row. No newspapers or purses tucked into small places. I took a peek in the lavatories and they were both empty. I knew this was my lucky day. I could see myself stretched out on both seats, feet up and weight off my irritated tu-tu. I decided to ask the First Class attendant to admit me to her wonderful world of lean-back seats.

I knew she’d seen me limping into her powder room when a slight frown marred her otherwise flawless face. I prayed she might be sympathetic. As I walked toward my seat I approached her. She seemed lost in the vagaries of adjusting magazines in the bulkhead rack.

“Ah, hi. I’m sitting in the second row in coach…” I waited for some sign of recognitionor pity.

She looked at me as though contemplating her next Botox treatment. “Yes?” She answered, bored beyond endurance.

“Well, ah, I’m really hurting and I’ve got this, ah…” She looked past me, scanning the aisle for someone more interesting to talk to. “Um, I know this sounds terrible but I’ve got this, uh, this catheter tip in and it’s trying to, you know, ah, come out, and I’m…”

She snapped around to face me. Her eyebrows were now touching her hairline. “You’ve got what?”

Well! That’s a little better, I thought, let’s show some sympathy here. I knew I’d better lay it on fast or I’d lose her again. “Umm, a catheter tip that’s half in and half out.”

A distasteful look crossed her face. She immediately pulled herself together and served up a sympathetic smile. “Well now, we can’t let that happen, can we?”

Oh, oh. Now what? She doesn’t like meor my catheter.

“Where did you say you were seated?”

“Right there,” I pointed. “Coach. Second row. Aisle seat.”

“Yes, and what can I do for you?”

“Well I noticed you had an empty row in First Class and wondered if I could move up here so I can stretch out and take some weight off my sore urethra.”

Her face morphed into a scowl as she busied herself wiping imaginary dust specks from the magazines in the rack.

“Ma’am?” I said, trying to bring her back to my problem.

“Oh, yes. Well, um, how about an extra pillow to sit on? It would be impossible to move you to First Class, as, um, that’s completely against company policy. Sorry.” She turned and walked into First Class, untying the curtain and letting it fall behind her like a black velvet door in my face.

I limped back to my seat with thoughts of placing that extra pillow over her uncaring facethe extra pillow she never returned with.

Health experts will tell you it’s important to keep hydrated on long flights. However those same experts have probably never flown a thirteen-hour stint with a pint-sized catheter bag that needs empting every thirty minutes. I knew I should be drinking gallons of water, but the effort of getting up and down to empty the catheter was arduous and painful.

It took me five minutes to produce the oomph needed to stand up, then another five minutes to do it without the catheter tip stabbing me. This entailed some butt wriggling. I noticed a few eyebrows heading scalp-ward as I struggled. I then had to gingerly walk down the mile-long aisle to the coach lavatory.

Once inside the tiny lav, I had to undress, unhook, unwind and empty; then hook up, wind up and dress up. While going through this draining routineboth literally and figurativelyI pictured the pilot announcing, “Ladies and Gentamen, please take your seats immediately. We are going into a steep dive to get under this weather front…”

When I was at the point of pulling my own plug, the pilot announced our descent into LAX. As the mass of travelers prepared to disembark I decided to let Ms. I’d Rather Eat Dirt Than Help You know she’d caused me a great deal of pain. Limping my way towards the gangway door, I followed closely behind the First Class passengers. When I got to her I stopped.

“Thank you so much for all your help on this painful trip.”

She was taken aback for just a flash then I saw the realization in her eyes. She knew I was being sarcastic but ignored the inference. “Oh, well, yes, ah, you’re welcome. Please fly with us again.” She proceeded to address the next departing passenger over my shoulder.

I held my ground. No one was going around me just yet. “By the way,” I added, “Flo? Or is it Ms. Nightingale? I wonder if you’d be so kind as to jot down your badge number on this cocktail napkin.”

She faltered.

“I believe I need your badge number when I write to Customer Relations.”

People were stacked in the aisles behind me. I could hear the rumble of disgruntled passengers. I’m sure I heard chanting and tom-toms.

“I, ah, could you please step to the side, Ma’am, and let the other passengers disembark?”

“Well I suppose I could but there’s really no place to stand up here. Could you ask them to back up for me?” Now the natives were really pressing in on me. I stared at her, all smiles and expectancy.

“It’s 12530,” she blurted out. “Now please disembark or I’ll have to call the captain.”

And, disembark I did, with a smart snap to my limp. Funny how pain abates when you feel good has triumphed over evil.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Bad Trip, Great Stories, Third Annual Solas Awards Winners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.