Travels and Travails

“We’re travelers,” said Sam to her grandparents just the other day.

This morning, the last day of 2008, she announced that one of her plush kitty cats was traveling to California. She packed up a suitcase full of toys, then wheeled it bumpity thump down the stairs to the living room where she parked it in the doorway. “Okay!” Sam shouted. “My kitty is in California!”

If only travel were that easy!

But here we are, back in the States, in Pennsylvania, despite our own bumpity thumps on the way out of the UK. Really there were only two bumps. The first was traveling with a very sick little girl. The night before we were to leave Brighton, Sam went to bed screaming and writhing, crying about her ear. I have never seen her in so much pain. I called the out of hours number at our doctors surgery. A nurse called me back and then made us an appointment at the hospital A&E (Accidents and Emergency, not Arts and Entertainment). She suspected an ear infection had followed Sam’s flu.

I had hoped never to set foot in the Royal Sussex County Hospital during our stay in Brighton, but there we were, racing down Kings Road at night in a taxi on our final night. The hospital was dismal. There were some very sick people in the waiting room. Sam cried a lot. And wriggled. And basically refused to let the doctor do much more than peek inside the one offending ear. No infection. “It’s likely fluid is trapped in the middle ear,” the doc said. All you can do is relieve the pain.” She gave us a bottle of children’s ibuprofen and instructed us to double dose her with ibuprofen and paracemetol. “You’re going to have a rough flight tomorrow,” she also said. Lovely.

But the pain killer combo worked, at least for Sammy to get a little bit of sleep that night. She was plenty grumpy in the morning, though, as we dashed out of our flat and hauled our bags and ourselves to the train station and then to Gatwick Airport.

An hour-long wait at Gatwick to get our boarding passes. And then, THEN we learn that our flight is delayed by about four hours. Four extra hours in the airport with a sick child. Lovely.

And then airport security wouldn’t let us through with the packaged strawberry soy milk we had brought for Sam. This was the only drink she would tolerate during her illness. It was shrink-wrapped tight and unopened, but no– I had to taste it in order to demonstrate that it wasn’t a secret chemical weapon. Heaven help the state when terrorists figure out how to make a liquid weapon that doesn’t kill you immediately upon consumption and tastes like strawberry.

But they let us through with our other chemicals– the two open bottles of children’s pain killers. Thank heavens. That cocktail got us through the four hour wait at the airport and then the 8+ hour flight. Sam cried during the descent into Philadelphia, but that was it.

We made it.

I’m happy to report that Sam is completely well now. The day after we arrived in PA, AC and I both succumbed to the illness, but we’re better now too. And we’ve had a relaxing Christmas holiday.

But soon, soon, we’ll be traveling again. AC leaves in a couple of days to return to California. Sam and I will follow a week later. Here’s hoping for fewer bumps down the stairs.