I'll Get There Eventually...

My trip to visit with my youngest and his wife was a week ago, and I'm just now writing about it. It's been a crazy week.

The trip west went well. The flight out of XNA in NWA to DFW was good; I actually arrived early. I had Chick-fil-A for lunch! Great news since we don't have one in the small town I now live in. After that, the flight to Houston was uneventful (as we like for flights to be). I arrived there on time; around 5 pm last Wednesday.

We had a great visit. We went to museums, took walks in the neighborhood, and visited quaint little bookshops. They took me to a great little shop called British Isles where everything in the store was from the UK. What a treat it was to go there! Everyone knows that I am completely enamored with the UK and it's at the top of my bucket list.

I got to see their Houston: the places they like to go. It was wonderful! We had lunch in a couple of places, but my fave was Picnic. Great soups and sandwiches, and the atmosphere was so relaxing. I didn't get a picture of everything, but I got a few.

I got to see the play that Jeff was in TWICE! It was so good! I hadn't seen him acting in over a decade. On Saturday night, while he was in the final show, Alli and I went to a play in a different section of the city. We saw The Play that Goes Wrong, and it was hilarious!

They kept me entertained and fed, and they even got me the cutest and most delicious cookie cake for Mother's Day. We had lots of time to just talk and be together. We always have a great time when we get to be together. We even got to play a couple of board games.

Then sadly, it was time for me to embark on the trip home. Last Sunday morning, I woke up to stormy skies and a message from my airline that my flight was delayed...

This went on all day. I had my son and daughter-in-law to take me to the airport when we thought my flight was leaving at 2:30 (instead of 10:53). By the time I was walking into the airport to print my boarding pass, it had changed to 3:15. 

I finally got to fly out of Houston at 6:36pm, almost 8 hours behind schedule. Then in Dallas I was on 2 standby lists for flights to XNA at 8:30 and 10:30pm, because I had missed my connecting flight and had been put on an 8:45am flight on MONDAY!!! The airline does not pay for lodging in the case of weather delays, so I was faced with having to possibly get a hotel in Dallas for the night and come back to the airport by 6:30am to check in. I did NOT want to do that.

I was starting to feel abandoned, forsaken, and alone. So I did what I always do in these cases: I prayed. I texted friends and family to pray with me that I would get on one of the standby flights. I remembered a scripture as I prayed:

"I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread." Psalm 37:25 NASB.

So I prayed this and stood on it.

25 

I didn't get on the first flight but praise the Lord! I got on the one at 10:30pm. I was finally headed back home. The flight was good and another uneventful one, with one exception: as we started our descent into the airport, I suddenly had searing pain in my head, behind my left eye. I seriously thought I might be having a stroke. It was so scary! However, the lower we got, the less painful it was. By the time we were on the ground, my head had stopped hurting.

It was after midnight by this time, and I was exhausted. I checked myself for indications of a stroke and found none, so I made my way to the hotel, checked in, got to my room, and collapsed on my bed. Then I googled about pain behind the eyes during flight descent for the next 30 minutes or so.

You probably already guessed; it was sinus related. I read about uneven cabin pressure and its effect on swollen sinus passages. Everything I read seemed to point to that. It didn't help that it was a smaller plane; the others I had been on this trip had been larger, in the 747 category. I would imagine the cabin pressure was distributed better on a larger plane, but I don't really know. Upon my return home, I saw a doctor and was diagnosed with a sinus infection due to a lot of fluid behind my left ear. This would account for the pain I was told.

But the story doesn't end there. Turns out I'm allergic to the antibiotic I was prescribed! I ended up in the ER with a rash and swollen, red mouth and eyes (because, of course, the symptoms started several hours after the 4th dose and just after the walk-in clinic closed at 8pm).

I can't make this stuff up. LOL!

I was told it was non-anaphylactic allergy, thank God, and sent home to take Benadryl. The next morning, I looked even worse. The skin around and under my eyes was really red and my eyes were swollen almost shut. It has taken 4 days for those 4 doses to get out of my system, but I'm currently almost "normal" again. I'm thankful I didn't take more than that!

I still love to travel, and I even love to fly. I'll just make sure I have taken allergy meds before I fly next time.

Thanks for reading my ramblings, friends. I don't travel often, so it's "big news," LOL.