Mr H is my legs as we reach airport security on our way to a wedding...
...with a wave of her arm, a suited lady directs fellow travellers to a queue to be scanned. She glances down at me, stripped of my coat, scarf, bags, belt, all metal objects except the plate in my head, then steals my smile as she asks Mr H
Are you with the wheelchair?
Aha. I had forgotten once I sit in a wheelchair I am a wheelchair!
...my journey with airport special assistance has begun...
The smiling ground crew collect me from the gate and with fellow wheelchair users they escort us to lifts, then across the Tarmac to the aircraft ambulift which awaits us...
Yippee we all shout as the fridge like lift whirs us into the air to rest level with the closed aircraft's side door. Our entry into the warmth. Our man knocks. We wait. Tap tap. We wait, shivering in our coats. Knock knock knock...
Then out of our window we spot the able passengers beginning to snake their way out to the aircraft. We all know that they will now be allowed into the warmth before us even though we were there first.
Fifteen more shivering minutes pass with us suspended mid air in our ice cold, wind chilled, fridge. We watch with opened mouths as the aircraft is hooked onto the tug. I bang on the window and shout
wait for us.
No one looks up!
Our man hammers loudly on the closed aircraft door. We wait. Knocks louder... then to squeals of teeth chartering relief the door is opened.
Do we get an apology? Not on your life!
When we land we are told to stay seated so the able bodied passengers can get off first. They climb aboard a waiting warm cosy bus to be transported from the aircraft to the airport terminal.
At last we are ambulifted onto the Tarmac only to become a three carriage train: Mr H is my driver, a mother pushes her young child as he clutches his Spider-Man toy and an elderly man struggles with his wife in her chair. It is a long dark walk as we are escorted along the normally unseen outside trails of Bristol airport on a wind chilled winter evening...
Shivering we pop out by the luggage carousels to collect our lonely suitcases. Everyone else has already left!
But when the Groom jumps in early with his eager I do and love glistens in his brides eyes, the journey I have travelled this year to witness such joy becomes a distant memory...
The holiday season will be upon us and people moaning about the weather will be history! As soon as I tick a destination off my list another ten appear....Travel is embedded in my genes....
Even with all my travel experience, I could never have prepared for the onslaught of flying disabled style... I assumed it would be easy..but you know what assume did..it made an Ass out of U and Me...
Getting to the airport is the easy bit...I am in control...Like a dried up meal I pre order Disabled Assistance. At check in I hand over my suitcase... my sense of control and sanity swiftly follow ...
The first hurdle is to get through the stares at the assistance desk, the mouth says Can I help you but the eyes say You need assistance??? ..my fatigue and medical history are not printed on my face...maybe I should forget the make up so I look pale, get a tattoo or wear a T.Shirt with Mines a Brain Tumour... What's your Excuse!
Settled in a wheelchair the second hurdle...the Xray machine... is in sight...I pre warn them about the plate in my head....and even have a letter from my Consultant.....but we play the same game every time...
Them: Can you walk through without your stick?
Me: Yes but the scanner will go off I promise you...Beeepppp
Them Can you walk through again...Beeeeeppppppp
Them; Hold out your arms I will run the scanner over you..beep, beep, beep
Them: Can you take your shoes off
Me If you find me a chair, I need to sit...
Them: Oh don't worry we will swab them... (for what MRSA!!)
Them; Hold onto the glass screen here and lift your feet so we can see the soles of your shoes.
Me: I can't lift my left foot
Them: Just try...!!!!
Me...Like a novice ballerina trying to do backward plies I fail to lift my foot ...Mr H watches patiently from the sidelines, we share a grimace
Them; OK thank you.....Our session of public humiliation is complete
Back in the wheelchair the third hurdle is waiting by the sign saying Assistance...anxious that a slow dash to the loo will mean I will miss my turn...manic panic surrounds us....our flight is called but we wait....and wait.... At the gate we discover that able passengers are being loaded first..mmmmm
When we land The Wheelchairs ...have to wait till last...I have never been called a Wheelchair before..........'The Wheelchairs' are offloaded like cattle...kept waiting mid air in a metal shed ...an occasional smiling groundsman snaps the tension which builds.
On Terra Firma as one of 'The wheelchairs' I am separated from Mr H...not enough room on the minibus...
I no longer worry, passport in hand, I know at some stage I will pop out like a missing horse by the carousels....and the holiday for me...will begin
