Our Flight

Oh how I've been trying to get a moment to write about this trip. But there has been THE HEAD COLD FROM HELL and also THE VERY BAD INTERNET CONNECTION.

First things first. I totally puked three times on an international flight. But let's back up.

I woke up on Tuesday morning with the still nagging sore throat and decided I should take myself to urgent care to make sure I didn't have strep because I did not want to find an Israeli doctor and I also did not want to infect an entire batch of international travelers. Turns out the strep test was negative. Approximately twenty minutes later, we were on our way to the airport.

By that night, as we ate dinner at JFK, my throat was no good very bad awful. I was glad I had visited the doctor for my 120 dollar peace of mind. We boarded the international leg of our flight. It took off. We watched movies. They served a meal. Because everyone needs second dinner.

I ate some pasta and a few crackers and cheese. When we'd finished eating, I situated Garrett on the floor with blankets and Matthew and I curled up on three seats. Troy was across the aisle. Garrett and Matthew quickly fell asleep. I did not so much. I thought about how my throat hurt like I was attempting to be a champion sword swallower. I thought about how my ears hurt and my head hurt and my body hurt and I was freezing. Or I was burning. And I was probably running a fever.

Then I thought about how my stomach was feeling upset. A little.

A lot.

I couldn't do the two things I always do when my stomach starts to hurt which are...
1. Lay on it
2. Guzzle Pepto Bismal.

So instead, I found myself, hours in to an international flight, kneeling on the floor of the restroom, clutching the sides of the toilet, hurling the contents of my guts. DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FLOOR OF A BATHROOM DURING AN INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT? It gets covered with pee that does not belong to me. Not that I would want to kneel in my own, because I would not but it is exponentially better than someone else's. AND DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TOILET ON AN INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT? It gets covered with other people's pee. And the trash can overflows with paper towels and all manner of guck. Yet, there I was, practically curled up on the floor like it was my bed. WHICH IT WAS NOT BECAUSE EW!

And I threw up.

Not a half hour later, I threw up again.

Then again.

Until I stopped throwing up and I just wished I could and I wanted to die right there suspended halfway between the United States and Israel. But I didn't.

I just kept on living.

It is important to note that my children were rockstars during our travel. I kind of knew they would be because they're really awesome like that. They're good travelers. I'd packed toys and candy and all manner of fun things to bribe them with along the way and I never used any of it. They were that good.

We finally landed. We made it off the plane, through baggage, and to the passport line with me darting into bathrooms along the way to try to throw up more because I wanted to. I needed to. But I could not.

In the passport line I curled into a tiny ball on the ground. No joke. I'm kind of surprised they let me in to their country given that I might very well have been bringing the BLACK PLAGUE right in. We made it through the line and through customs and all the way outside the airport and into Israel which Garrett declared, "Looks just like our country." And in all reality, he's mostly right.

We waited for a train.

I fell asleep on the ground. In a ball.

I thought I would never feel well again.

But then a crazy thing happened, my stomach just stopped hurting.

All was good.

Except that the ear, throat, head thing turned into the WORST HEAD COLD OF MAYBE EVER IN MY LIFE and I am still suffering through that. But I will take suffering through a head cold any day over hurling the contents of my guts into an international toilet.