By B
I was excited to fly back to Minnesota for my dad’s surprise 60th birthday party. Since my husband worked I needed to take our two babies with me, Becca and Rachel, ages 3 months and 15 months.
My husband took us to the airport and I thought no problem – we’ll get on the plane and three hours later we’d land in Minneapolis.
The pediatrician had prescribed medicine “knockout drops” for my oldest daughter, so she would sleep and I would just have to care for the 3 month old.
We said goodbye to daddy and boarded the plane, buckled up and then received word that there were mechanical problems on the plane and hopefully we would leave shortly. After three hours on the tarmac and juggling two babies on my hips, and wearing out a path on the carpets up and down the aisles – they announced we were ready to go.
Mind you there was no air circulating on the plane and it was hot – I was in wool pants and a sweater and was sweaty from juggling two babies.
During our time on the ground I befriended a stewardess (I still remember her name – Roxanne) and she would bring me free scotch and waters and hold one of the babies when she could.
It was now time to give Rachel the “knockout drops”. I was feeling a little guilty for giving her this medicine, so I gave her less than the prescribed dosage….big mistake.
All seems to be going fine – they served dinner, I put Rachel’s on the foldout tray – thinking she could eat something when she woke up.
A bit later Rachel wakes up with a sudden jolt and food and drink go flying everywhere. At the same time Becca has a huge smelly messy pants. The stewardesses were kind enough to clean up the spilled tray while I tended to Becca in the bathroom.
The kids are fussy – Rachel is very groggy and fussy – I just pray we will get there soon…
All of a sudden I see the stewardesses with panic in their eyes and racing around the plane. I immediately think that the mechanical problems that caused our delayed departure were not fixed, and we were in big trouble. I’m happy to say – we didn’t go down – but I’m sad to say a man was having a heart attack three rows behind us.
With all the chaos and three doctors who were on the flight trying to do CPR it was wild. Unfortunately the man died and we had to do an emergency landing in Billings, Montana. I wanted to run off the plane, but I knew my sister was waiting at the airport for me, so I thought, “we can make it.”
We arrived in Minneapolis six hours late, with very tired cranky kids, my perfectly coiffed hair falling out of it’s French roll, and I broke into tears when I saw my sister. We had a great time at the birthday party my dad was surprised – but I could not face the return flight.
I bought my sister in law an airplane ticket, so she flew back with me – the flight back home was perfect, totally uneventful, but the trip to Minnesota was truly a “trip from hell”.
Note - I typed this while B dictated.
Rachel and Becca survived that plane trip, and have grown up to be beautiful, strong and smart young women. We've had a lot of fun road trips, and less eventful flights, to Montana and Minnesota over the years after that one bad trip.
We are all looking forward to flying out to Minneapolis this summer for Katie's wedding. Hopefully we won't have to give Rachel any knockout drops.
