Ron has been planning this for a year. Ok, not really, but yesterday, one year ago, was his first flight lesson and since then he has been dying to get his wife (me) in the plane with him. Joseph was his first and second passenger because our schedules just didn’t jive.
Well tonight, it was all planned. Catherine and Aaron came to babysit and we headed out to fly.
We arrived at Sanford-Lee County Regional Airport about 5:45pm. Ron noted that the plane had been in use prior to our arrival and would be filled with gas “courtesy” of the previous pilot. It was. So, no waiting for fuel.
However, the key was missing. Go figure. 😀 So, off to get a spare. Then, the pre-flight check and oops … forgot a headset for me. Back to get that and back out to the plane to fly.
I brought my camera, my “big” lens, Ron had his bookback, maps, charts, documentation … all sorts of stuff.
The plane is TINY. It’s like two people sitting on a lawn-mower-tractor… together… side by side. Luckily, we’re married, so that was ok. 😉
He explained how the headsets work, went through the start-your-engine-procedures and turned the key.
And that’s when it hit me.
Motion sickness. 🙁
I am amazingly suceptible to swaying motions. I CANNOT read or do anything in a car except drive. I CAN, however, read in an airplane as long as it’s in flight … that is … a BIG airplane.
When Ron turned on the propeller, it started shaking the airplane and the motion immediately hit me as if I were reading in a car. It was bad. I figured, however, since I KNOW I can read in an airplane, that once we got off the ground it would get better.
Nope. 🙁
Ron told me to look out the right side to see “something” and after one look my head started spinning wildly. Then as he turned, it got worse and after a touchdown I thought my head was going to explode. But, I REALLY thought it would get better. 🙄
So, he landed (VERY VERY smoothly) and taxi’d back and took off again. This time instead of sticking to the oval pattern, he went out “into the world” so we could see stuff. Unfortunately, there was thick haze and visiblity essentially sucked. Of course every time I tried to look outside, my eyes would do their weird thing, my head would spin (no not literally, but figuratively) and I’d have to stare really hard at the HOBBS number on the dash to make it stop.
Ron could tell it wasn’t feeling well, so he made his way back to the airport and then did the unthinkable … “can I go around a just a one more time?” Ah! Ah! Ah! So, I sucked it up and around “a just a one more time” we went… with my eyes literally closed most of the time to stop the spinning in my head.
We touched down for the third time, again very smoothly and he taxi’d back in to airport to park. I got out, went to sit on a bench and rubbed hard on my temples to try and stem to worsening headache that was quickly bringing my stomach into the mix.
This, of course, is exactly what happened on the cruiseship 4 years ago. The motion REALLY gets to me. There are two ways to stop it … one … throw up. Two … STOP the motion. Luckily for me, we stopped tonight. But it took me WAY too long to recover. My head was absolutely throbbing and when it’s a head-stomach combo, it’s like having a migraine and being in the bright sunlight. Ouch!
After about an hour of “rest” … meaning NOT being in the airplane, I started to get better and we had dinner and came home to relieve our babysitters.
Honestly … I was NOT expecting the motion sickness. I was expecting a fear of heights (which I have) or anxiety like phobias — fear of falling out, fear of crashing, not wanting to look out. I WANTED to look out. Take off and landings were without any problem. Being in the air was kind of neat … if only I could have actually participated.
Any time I even remotely felt better, I tried to look out, only to be brought back immediately to the “stare at the numbers” phenomenon that helps me get through those feelings of sickness. 🙁
I felt horrible for Ron who, I know, WANTED me to love flying. But I certainly can’t say that I did as my body just doesn’t deal well with that level of motion. And to those naysayers who said the cruise illness was due to my pregnancy … WRONG! It’s motion. I can feel the slightest motion and if it’s “off” my body gets “off” and I end up sick as a dog.
Now, many months ago, Ron and I (and Joseph) watched a Myth Busters. This particular episode had one of the two key guys, Jamie I think, who suffers from extreme motion sickness, try different remedies. He tried the prescriptions … Dramamine and Mecklizine … then the copper wrist bands … and ginger. Well …. guess what worked best? Ginger pills.
So, I do plan to try again, but not before we try some motion sickness remedies in the car first. We’ll start with Ginger pills and hope, beyond hope, that that does the trick. 🙂
In airplane-flying world, our trip today was a success because 1) we didn’t die and 2) we didn’t crash the plane. 😉 In my world, it was a disaster and I’m glad others will fly with Ron because I won’t be able to stomach it (ha ha!) for a little while. 😉