HopelesslyJoan

Airport bathrooms can be very welcome places! Outside of the obvious, I have found several uses for them, over the years.

I have hidden from the masses and slept on lounges, once provided, when I couldn’t afford a hotel room. I would sleep until daylight and then hitch-hike into town, but that’s another story to tell one day.

I have washed myself and grubby children of varying ages, as the years rolled by. After my two-year old threw up hotdogs and ketchup all over himself (and me), on one particularly turbulent flight over the Rockies, I made a mental note to always carry extra clothing in handluggage for myself as well as any children…I still feel badly about the passenger I sat next to on the 4 hour flight to Chicago…

I have brushed hair, applied make-up and changed clothes for lovers meeting me at deliciously foreign airports. If its a lover, even the Toronto airport can feel somewhat naughty and exotic!

On leaving behind these lovers and loved ones, I have used the Women’s washroom as place to sob quietly, in a stall, ripping off handfuls of toilet paper for my tears .

I’d contemplate in relative privacy,the last shared moments with the one(s) left behind.

In the case of a death, time spent alone to grieve really did not matter quite so much. When my Mother passed away, I cried openly, all day and where-ever. I am certain, though, that I spent time in the Regina Ladies’ room at the airport, grabbing handfuls of toilet paper for my nose.

Which brings me to my latest airport bathroom, and my latest reason for finding refuge and solace there.

I say “solace” because, even without speaking directly to each other, the company of women can bring comfort.
We watch a young mom change a cranky, screaming baby on the change table and we say something soothing to Mom or baby, or both. Or we just send a glance of compassion their way, if we are too busy or too shy to speak.

We help each other get paper towels out of impossible dispensers, and we share the sink that actually turns on when you wave your hand under the faucet.

So, recently when I made a trip from Vancouver Island to Arizona I had to deplane in Seattle.

My first flight was a 20 minute jump across the “chuck,” to Vancouver.

The plane landed on the side of the airport farthest from International flights.

And so began my ordeal.

I needed to do a great deal of walking, and I have fibromyalgia. I am a newcomer to this condition and am only just figuring out what the restrictions are on my body.

I look normal to myself, as well as to others. There are no blotches on my skin, no twisted or missing limbs. I may use a cane on occasion, only in private, though.

I am only fifty-five years old, trim and (I’d like to think) youthful in appearance. I’d be self-conscious to be seen in public, leaning on a cane!

I am not a “little old lady”.

Yet, on the marathon walk to Alaskan Airlines and U.S. customs, I found myself glancing wistfully at parked wheelchairs.

By the time I boarded my flight, three hours of standing waiting for luggage, waiting for customs inspection and always more and more walking, I was toast. Done in completely.

I dozed on the short flight to Seattle, then struggled to get out of my seat and off of the plane. I had a destination in mind, and that was the Seattle Womens’ bathroom.

I made it around the curving door, pasts the row of sinks and straight into a stall.

Perched on the toilet-seat, I leaned my head against the cold metal wall, and I started to cry. Soft, quiet little sobs.
My knees felt like they were full of cement, I could barely move them. They ached with a dull throb. My right arm felt hot and swollen, just like the tops of my feet. They bottoms of my feet felt splintered- in fact, many of my bones felt as though t hey were full of minute breaks….and I was so very, very tired.

I had two hours to rest in a waiting room, before my flight out. Time to doze a bit and then freshen myself up.

On departure, from Seattle, I was seated in first class , by some act of mercy granted by frequent-flyer angels. There,
I braced my aching legs against the bulkhead, after removing my shoes.

The throbbing pain was relieved somewhat.

If you have had a bad case of flu, then you have an idea of how a person with fibromyalgia hurts. The ache is deep and fluid, throughout your muscles.

On top of that, there are pressure points of white-hot nerve pain on numerous body parts. Mine are especially agonizing along the insides of both my arms, the tops and backs (Achilles heel) of my feet.

When any prolonged activity is performed, exhaustion sets in out of the blue like a descending swarm of locusts.
At this point, all I want to do is curl up in a fetal position and try not to stop breathing. I am THAT tired.

I was healthy and pretty casual about it, until a year ago. I under-went a “routine” day surgery which left me in screaming pain. Pain, which was addressed by treatment with opiates.

These drugs did much to alleviate the surgical pain, and it’s resultant damage to my body, but they also created a new condition. One I was never warned about.

The body can actually create nerve endings that exist only to seek out more opiates. In response to these hungry- for- drugs nerves, the brain creates more pain in the body….which requires more opiates in the body.

At least, this is how my doctor has explained it to me. The result is pain all over the body, “fibromyalgia”.

I am angry. I was one of “those” who used to be slightly suspicious of a catch-all phrase like fibromyalgia, and it”s invisible symptoms. Now I am one of  “them”, and I understand !

I am not sure if I will ever recover. I would like to know that I was able to let others know, however, to be very careful when it comes to using prescription drugs. Be prepared for unexpected and serious side effects. They happen.

Be very kind and non-judgemental if you see a healthy looking woman who gets out of a car with a “handi-cap” sign- it does not mean she is sneaking someone else’s pass so that she can get a better parking spot.

She might be me.