Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014. The Return from Hamilton

I’m home! I’ve been home since Saturday afternoon and the travel experience that morning almost ruined me, but Ash had healthy snacks and a couch fort waiting for me in our apartment (she’s so awesome). We crawled in and it was all that I could do to stay conscious until bedtime. Flying is tiring under the best of circumstances. When you’ve been getting bombarded with radiation for three weeks, tiring progresses to exhausting progresses to actively detrimental to your well-being.

I've mentioned before that I have been, am, and will be (for about a month) under instruction to take it extremely easy, in order to prevent swelling in my extremities. The why of it is that radiation treatments cause a lot of cellular damage, but they generally leave structures intact until they are disturbed or stressed. This is why, for instance, you will lose less hair from radiation treatments if you crop said hair closely in advance – the hair follicles are then under less stress, and the basic structure of the root is allowed to remain uncompromised, whereupon it can repair itself without the loss of the hair. I was receiving electron beam radiation, which deposits all of its energy into the outer layers of the body, and so makes delicate your epidermis and capillaries. Activity is prohibited in an attempt to limit the amount structural damage you as a patient can cause yourself, in order to make the healing process a simpler thing. Fewer complications. This is always a key factor in planning out cancer treatments.

I bring this up because of the five hours that I spent in the Calgary airport. I shook with exhaustion by the time I boarded my flight to Saskatoon.

Now, it is true that airports have services for the physically compromised, to ease their travels and travails. It is further true that I could have, and certainly should have, made use of these services. And I would have. Excepting that I discovered my five hour layover at 4:23 AM, Hamilton time. My original itinerary called for a layover of, essentially, no time at all. I would land, I would migrate to the gate of my connecting flight, and I would board if not immediately than as close to immediately as matters. Because of this, I booked no helpful services. However. When my alarm went off that morning, exactly as planned (and even so, I begrudged it), it took me a few minutes to parse what I was seeing in the notifications of my cellular future rectangle/Google box: a flight cancellation.

Naturally, I contacted WestJet, where a very nice young man facilitated my learning of the mechanical failure that had grounded my connecting flight, and of the arrangements that had been made on my behalf. Said arrangements tacked the aforementioned five hours onto my day’s journey, and not the Don’t Stop Believing sort of Journey.

I swear that I would have booked myself a mobility scooter, if it hadn't been 4:35 am when I hung up the phone, and I wasn't then rushing to get ready in time for my cab ride to the Hamilton International Airport. I also swear that I would have picked a spot and occupied it for the duration of my layover, if I hadn't needed sustenance, frequent bathroom trips from my medically required hydration regimen, and if WestJet hadn't changed the boarding gate three times. Okay, yes, with five hours to kill, I certainly could have arranged for such things while I was in the airport, but every time I sat down, I promised myself that I wouldn't get back up until my flight, and that I didn't need a wheelchair because the effort involved in getting one would be the equivalent to the effort of simply walking to my gate.

I’m sorry to my Calgary friends for not calling you for hangouts, but I was already exhausted, and I didn't feel like piercing my cancer patient travel bubble, which, honestly, isn't all that different from a regular travel bubble, wherein you ignore everything around you as much as possible, to make the time less stressful.

Ash was waiting for me when I got off the plane, and that made everything okay.

Is it ethical to market a line of sedatives aimed at children for flying?