September 2003 Archives

There is this trick I used to do when I would fly to Carleton. Back in the day, airlines actually used to show movies on flights that lasted a few hours. Getting between Seattle and Minneapolis half a dozen times a year meant a decent amount of traveling between 1987 and 1992. More often than not, I was bored to tears on these flights. Sometimes I'd fall asleep, but even that usually only lasted until takeoff. I enjoyed the rush into the air, buildings and trees and lakes and mountains all dwindling below, banking gently to either stare at the sky or the ground, depending on which window seat I had. I probably could have read a book, or done crosswords, or listened to tapes. Still wouldn't get me through the two to three hours between Minnesota and Washington State, though.

So they had movies. Movies came with headphones. Headphones cost money. I didn't necessarily pinch any pennies during college, but I never seemed to think it was worth spending $5 for a pair of cheap foam throwaway headphones just to watch an edited-for-airline travel movie (maybe if I had been pinching my pennies, I would have had five bucks to spare). And this was well before the headphones for my Walkman would have fit the connection in the arm rest.

The trick, then, was this: carefully rip out any page from one of the in-flight magazines. Glossy paper always worked best. Using the tray table as a firm surface, carefully (carefully) roll the paper into a very tight cone. It must be precise. You've got to keep the corner tight, or else you won't be able to jam it into the headphone jack. Crank up the volume. Insert cone. Keep a hand on it (and an eye out for the flight attendants) because you never know if they're gonna get pissed at you for "stealing" sound for the movie. It doesn't make for the best speaker, but it's free, and movies tend to make a lot more sense when you can actually follow the dialogue.

All of which sets the stage for the unexpectedly cool gift I'd received from Emma just before takeoff.

"Here," she said, handing me a pair of airline headphones, still hermetically sealed in clear plastic.

I started to protest. I didn't even have any clean clothes -- wearing ratty red sweats and a certainly very stinky Pendle College tee-shirt -- let alone a spare five bucks or so for the headphones. Hell, I wasn't even sure where my wallet was at this point. Somewhere in one of mom's bags, probably.

Emma smiled. "Please," she said. "It's on us. You can just have it. It's a small thing, really."

Outstanding. Little things really do make a difference, and this was such a stark contrast from how I usually experienced in-flight movies. I couldn't wait to find out what movie they'd be playing as we flew west across the Atlantic. Besides, after everything else that had happened up to this point, it was nice (really nice) to get a free movie out of the deal.

The movie turned out to be the critically acclaimed 1989 hit, The Bear. It's a moving tale of an orphaned bear cub that features almost no dialogue. One of only very few mainstream movies over the past ten or twenty years that relied so little on voices to tell a story. That you can understand what the bears are thinking -- without relying on voice-overs or onscreen text or other filmmaking tricks -- is actually a testament to the quality of the movie. If you turn down the sound completely (or watch it without airline headphones), you'd miss out on the score, and some conversations between the hunters, but you'd still be able to easily follow along.

In other words, everybody on that flight was able to watch and understand my free movie.

Not that I'm still bitter about it or anything.

We entered the plane through a door about halfway down the fuselage, somewhat behind the wing, on the left-hand side. Do airplanes have port and starboard? If you stood facing the front of the plane, we came in from the left, well past the main passenger entrance near the nose.

It was a big plane. Not a 747, but wide enough that there were two aisles. Two seats against the windows, a wide row of six (or maybe eight) in the middle, then another two window seats on the opposite side. Immediately across from the door was a station for the flight attendants. It stretched across the middle of the plane (access to either aisle). When we first arrived, two flight attendants were busy putting away meals, flipping switches on a long row of coffee pots, assessing inventory for the flight ahead.

One peeled away to greet us. She wasn't sure whether or not to shake my hand, but welcomed all of us aboard. She smiled, said she'd been expecting us. Her nametag said "Emma." She extended her right arm outward, like Vanna White pointing to a phrase or a place or a proper name.

When we'd been told that there would be six seats just for me, I'd envisioned that I'd have an entire middle row all to myself. Push up the armrests, grab some pillows and a blanket, kick back and enjoy the flight. This wouldn't be the first time that reality didn't meet my expectations. Of course, it helped that I didn't have a clue what to expect in the first place.

Who knew that they could simply remove seats from the aircraft? Emma had pointed to where the three rows of window seats used to be. Looks like I'd be seating in the emergency exit row. In place of those six seats, a kind of temporary bed had been installed, a place for me to lay down, sure, but much more conspicuous than I was expecting. We also had four seats across the aisle from the bed, two and two, so if I felt like sitting down (sitting up?) I'd be able to take one of the seats next to mom.

None of the other passengers had boarded yet; we were given plenty of time to get settled in. I tried to figure out a way to get comfortable. I wasn't tired. I was excited. Thrilled, almost, that I was going to be going home. Six months in England -- the friendships, travel to Europe over Christmas break, pool tournaments, volleyball matches, hikes in the Lakes District, days and nights packed with great memories -- were drawing to a close.

That's on the one hand. On the other, well, that whole leukemia thing.

Lost in thought, I didn't pay much attention to the first passengers walking past our seats.

Correction: walking past my bed, and the three other completely normal looking passengers in the seats across from me. Not that many people would notice Mom, or my doctor, or my nurse. If they paid any attention to anything other than their shuffling feet, or the numbered seats, heads would invariably turn in my direction.

And why not?

It occurs to me only now, years later, that everybody else I'd met up to this point had been professional and courteous. It was their job to accept me at face value. Doctors and sisters from the hospitals, ambulance drivers, lab technicians, security guards, even the flight attendants didn't bat an eye at my situation. And it wasn't as if I was gaunt or stricken or oozing puss from my eyeballs or anything. It was probably just the opposite: I was looking fit and healthy yet found myself surrounded by all sorts of medical apparatus. If I was a passenger on our flight, and I needed to walk past myself to get to my seat, I'd probably be asking the same questions.

What on earth is wrong with him? Is he contagious? Why do I have to sit so close to him?

Or, less cynically, but something that probably made me feel even more self-conscious, more like I was a freak on display for the rest of the passengers, were the real comments -- not imagined questions in the faces of strangers -- shared more than once after we were airborne, when people felt compelled to talk with me: you poor, poor, dear.

Mom got this one, too, apparently, during conversations she had with strangers while I slept unawares. She looked a lot worse for wear than I did, stress and fatigue piling on.

There were so many differences between my two ambulance rides to Heathrow that it is impossible to draw a fair comparison between them. Most importantly, absolutely nothing went wrong -- finally -- on the short trip from the London hospital. No blood transfusions, no emergency stops, no rush hour sirens blaring, and best of all, no sudden departures due to stabbing stomach pains.

Because we were already so close to the airport, the airline doctors verified that I was "fit to fly" before we'd even checked out of the hospital room. Memories are foggy on this particular point: it is possible that this was yet another behind-the-scenes activity, where an actual checkup was not required. Or the airline physician may have simply been one of many faceless white labcoats that I met in England. No handshakes, tight smiles, professional and courteous (friendly, even) while ticking down the clipboard with a ballpoint pen.

The point is that our ambulance did not take us to the little-known Heathrow infirmary this time. No. Instead, we drove right onto the tarmac, right up to the plane. Wish I'd had a better view from the sheltered back of the vehicle, to see if there were chain link fences or barbed wire, or if it was just like any other service road. Luggage trucks and food trucks and me, all getting ready to be loaded directly onto a freshly refueled 747.

While my health may have been vetted by the airline, there was still the simple matter of airport security. Even as far back as 1990, the UK took their airport security pretty seriously. A uniformed guard had been scheduled to meet our ambulance. He wore an army uniform, I think. Something much more significant than the airport security I'd been used to: camoflauge fatigues, thick black boots, and an M-16 slung over his left shoulder.

The four of us had already shuffled onto the damp pavement -- Mom, the RAF doctor and nurse, and yours truly -- stacking suitcases, overnight bags, cardboard boxes, rugged tackle box looking things, and two small coolers.
Paperwork exchanged hands. Passports, tickets, medical references, signatures from Pan Am. The guard slowly looked through these. Serious. Sharp. Mom's passport was brand new. He examined everything carefully.

"What's in the coolers?" he asked. A formality, I think, a casual question about the piles of obvious medical supplies that had formed nearby.

"Plastique," my doctor said.

Silence.

More silence.

The guard didn't exactly straighten his posture -- he was pretty straight already -- but he noticeably stiffened. "Pardon me?" he asked.

"Umm..." my doctor began. "I was just..."

"Open them," the guard said. The M-16 has somehow moved into his hands. He used the barrel to point to the blue and white coolers.

My doctor continued to stammer, obviously medical supplies, just joking, blood, see, in case he needs another transfusion, this one, too, I'm sorry, really really sorry, just a bad joke, nothing here but medical supplies, obviously.

I don't know if I was standing, or if was in a wheelchair (it's entirely possible that Pan Am would have wanted to "load" me, precious cargo, to make sure insurance provided for any unfortunate personal mid-air tragedy). Either way, my head was certainly down, eyes most likely closed, please, please, please whispered repeatedly under my breath.

Please let us get on this plane. Please don't let a lousy joke prevent us from boarding. Please don't send us back.

"I shouldn't need to explain to you the gravity of what you just said."

The rest of us were on the sidelines, watching the conversation unfold. Nobody else needed to bother responding. "I know," my doctor said. Penitent. Remorseful. "I really didn't mean it. It was just ..."

"Just a bad idea."

"I know."

"Don't let it happen again."

Please, please, please.

"I won't."

"Then go," the guard said, left thumb pointing back over his shoulder. "Go."

Thank you.

We spend maybe two days in the London hospital, a repeat of my time in Lancaster. Mom works out the details behind the scenes while I continue to get some much needed rest. Antibiotics and platelets and blood transfusions have done wonders, and I'm feeling better than I have in weeks. A temporary salve, to be sure, but it feels good nonetheless, to not be sleeping for hours but still wake exhausted, to cough and sniffle and wipe blood from my gums. I know that these are temporary things, but I still don't have a good idea about what's required to make them go away permanently, don't have an accurate mental picture about how one treats leukemia.

All I care about, now, this last day I'll be in England -- I still haven't returned, thirteen years later -- is getting on that plane back home.