Thursday, November 30, 2006

Hell is being stuck in Denver Airport

It all started fine......boarded my plane in NJ, due to stop in Denver where I had about an hour to board the second plane that would take me to Phoenix. Ah, but the forces of the Universe had other plans for me..........in fact I think they tried to kill me this week, let me count the ways:

1. The plane from NJ arrived late leaving me with 10 minutes to run from gate 54 to gate 15 - both at opposite ends of the airport. Let me pause here to wonder why the heck they do this? Why would the airline give you connecting flights with such short time in between knowing full well there's a possibility that the first flight will be late thus leaving you very little time to board the connecting flight which may be in a gate located a mile away. Jesus H. Christ!

2. So, of course, I had to run through the airport only to have the door closed in my face thus missing my connecting flight. Ah, but this is just the beginning of my ordeal, because all that running triggered an asthma attack - mind you, I haven't had an asthma attack in about two or three years, and my doctors cannot decide if I have asthma or not. But this time I didn't need the doctor to tell me, I was sure I had asthma - the coughing, the wheezing, yep........asthma.......and I had no medication for it.........while stuck in freaking Denver airport. So I found a Hudson News store and bought some Benadryl, which took effect about an hour later, calming me down a bit.

Allow me to take this opportunity to give thanks to both Doctor Moon, the specialist, and Doctor Meisel, the general doctor, for not diagnosing this two years ago when I went to them with a chronic cough and a couple of bruised ribs after coughing non-stop for about six months and all they could do is keep changing medication every two weeks. The doctors in Phoenix took a second to come up with a diagnosis, confirmed by my own research on WebMD - my bible. Thank you Doctors, very much!

3. Now I'm on stand-by for the next flight to Phoenix, leaving at 7:45pm - about the time I would have been home had I made the first flight as planned. Well, we didn't start boarding until 7:50pm, which should have been my first clue that things were not going to be fine.........but I was busy worrying about Asthma to think too much. Well, luckily for me Benadryl makes you drowsy, because over three hours later I was still stuck inside the flying coffin on a runway in the middle of Denver airport. Yes, thanks to the snow and freezing temperatures the plane didn't take off until 11:20pm that night. I was supposed to be sleeping at home at that time. Now, let me be fair to the airline - United for Ted (more on the name later) - this particular plane was quite comfortable, seats with plenty of leg room and to make things sweeter, I was sitting on the aisle with an empty seat between me and the other passenger......sweet!

4. Get to Phoenix a little pass 1:00am, get a cab and head to the office to pick up my car, only to get there and find out that the elevator to the underground parking lot is locked. Thank God they had a guard who came over to open the door to..........the stairs!! So I had to drag my heavy luggage three stories down to the 3rd level - I was ready to ditch the damned thing at that point.

Finally made it to my car and got home at 2:00am - only to wake up at 6:00am to get ready for a doctor's appointment at 7:45am (same doctor who diagnosed my Asthma). What an ordeal!!

No comments: