Gilbert Grape's Mom

The last few weeks/months/year-and-a-half have been an unbelievable roller coaster of ups and downs. There have been times I have been able to lighten up enough to laugh at myself, and there have been times when others have laughed at me and I have been surprised at how terribly deeply it hurt.

Last week a co-worker and I traveled for a client. We were headed to an event I had been organizing and coordinating for close to a year. After not traveling for so long because of my foot, it was time I got back in the game, took one for the team, and stopped letting my colleagues pick up my slack.

Aside from the work events, from a personal perspective, I planned and prepared for weeks. I didn't have any concerns about the job part, it was traveling that worried me - traveling as a person with limited abilities.

I got a copy of my prescription for my bone stimulator - because really, who wants to let the girl with the ticking box on her hip through security? I packed my x-rays in my carry-on bag, in case they needed proof of all the metal in my foot. I made sure I had every form of i.d. I own in my purse just in case someone needed something more. For several days before the trip I agonized over the details, imaging every possible scenario that could throw an obstacle in my path. I was terrified of something happening that would make me look stupid, make me appear dependent, or make me admit there was something I just couldn't do. My two biggest fears were these - that they'd gate check my scooter then I'd have no way to get down the aisle on the plane if I had to pee, and that we'd land at a gate without a jetway and I'd have to get down the steps... somehow.

Shelley and I made it to our destination without much trouble - more than someone walking would have, but it wasn't awful. Trip goes... well, it goes... and we head back. I finally make it through security (I'll save those details for another story) and we get to the gate in plenty of time. When it's time to leave, the gate agent calls for general boarding. No offer for people who need extra time to get on first. One would think, what with the wheeled scooter and all, it might be obvious that I needed extra time, but clearly not to this completely unobservant woman. So Shelley marched up to the ticket counter, said something - I still don't know what - then came and got me and we worked our way in line behind 50 other people. Then the same gate agent, in a huff, pulled back the rope and yelled at us across the crowd demanding we come through right then. Then she muttered something about holding people back to give us more time to get settled, which she didn't really do. When we got to the plane, I had to lift the scooter to get onboard, kind of like jumping a curb. Then of course the first thing the flight attendant says to us was that my scooter wouldn't fit in the aisle. Having done this 3 times already in 2 days, we told her we could handle it and I rolled through, plopped in my bulkhead seat - 1B - and Shelley promptly took the scooter and gate-checked it. We had this down to a science.

An hour and a half later I'm thinking we made it through the whole trip pretty well, considering all my fears ahead of time. And then... we landed in Birmingham.

The landing plan was always this: I stayed in my seat while the rest of the passengers de-planed, then Shelley would go wait for the gate-checked scooter, bring it back, get me, and help me get my carry-on items. So I waited while everyone else passed by and walked off the plane. Then I realized something was different this time. I looked out the window. I gasped. I may have thrown up in my mouth a little bit. There was no jetway. There were only steps down to get off the plane. And then steps up to get into the airport terminal. One of my biggest fears was coming true, just minutes before Gary was to pick me up to head home.

I looked at the flight attendant then, who said, as if she'd never done this before, "We're still trying to figure out how to get you off of the plane." I think that's when Gilbert Grape's mom first popped into my head. And then when I saw the lift, her image burned into my brain. I felt like that poor woman, stuck in her house and stuck in her morbidly obese body. Remember how everyone made fun of her and stared at her and gawked at her, simply because she looked different and she needed people to help her??? They were going to have to use machinery - something like a cargo lift - to get me off that plane - and people were going to see them do it.

I wanted to just will myself to walk on my broken foot, on my $5270 bone stimulator, but I was too afraid I'd fall. I told the flight attendant I'd scoot down on my butt, like I do on the steps at home, but she wouldn't let me. And so Shelley, the flight attendant, two pilots, two luggage guys, one skycap and I all watched while another skycap drove that big cargo lift to the door of the plane. Then he wheeled out the skinniest wheelchair I've ever seen, over an even skinnier ramp. He backed it onto the aircraft, pulled it up next to my seat, and held my arm while I hopped onto it. Then he strapped me down, straight-jacket style. I was terrified that people were watching. I felt more and more like Gilbert Grape's mom with every pounding heartbeat. I peered past my hips that were spilling over the wheelchair's seat and looked straight down at the asphalt while the skycap rolled me over the teeny tiny ramp and onto the lift. In my mind he shouted "look out below!" when we started heading down, but he really didn't. In fact he tried to reassure me that I shouldn't be embarrassed, this is what he did all day every day at work. Even so, at that moment, I felt about 50% horrifying humiliation, and about 50% of me thought the whole thing would have been hilarious to watch - from afar.

Once on the ground, I got on my scooter and they led us through the bowels of BHM. We rode on the elevator with the skycap and the pilots and the flight attendant. Humiliated as I was, I thanked everyone for their help, and for sticking around late while I was hoisted off the plane. I half-joked that had this been at RDU, someone would have just said thank you for flying Delta and left me there to fend for myself. And if I wasn't already embarrassed enough, one of the pilots replied, "She's right. I was the one flying their flight from Raleigh." I thought about trying to get my foot out of my mouth, but instead decided to be grateful that someone else had noticed how insensitive that woman at the boarding gate had been hundreds of miles before.

Knowing I was being forced to face one of my fears head-on that night, I asked Shelley to take pictures, just in case I wanted them later - or wanted proof the whole nightmare actually happened. I still don't really find the whole thing very funny, but I'm getting there...
Enjoy the pics!



http://www.flickr.com/photos/46306625@N08/sets/72157623514939890/