We made it! But I will never fly with Northwest Airlines again.
The flight attendant supervisor told me at the gate that I needed to check Froggy's respiratory vest. I said, "It's a $16,000 piece of medical equipment," and she said in a nasal, bitchy voice, "I don't care how much it costs!" It finally came down to her not understanding that Froggy had her own ticket and was allowed a carry-on.
The experience with this airline was so incredibly frustrating, I can't even go into details. Do you ever have moments with people where you just want to scream, "Are you HUMAN?" This woman must have been reptilian, because I can't imagine warm blood running through her veins.
Anyway...I'm home. It's Iowa, green, beautiful, and my family is here. Froggy is adjusting to the jetlag, we walked with the Great Strides Walk on Saturday, celebrated my sister's graduation (she's officially a therapist, even though she's been my free therapist for years!), celebrated my cousin's b-day, and went shoe shopping. Ahhh, heaven.
We have a favorite Italian Restaurant in Des Moines, and even though they are closed on Sundays, my aunt "J" convinced them to open for an hour tonight to bake some pizza pies for us! Yes, our family has clout when it comes to food. It was wonderful and I've already gained about five pounds. My sis took the entire week off work, so I can't wait to catch up with six months of sister gossip! Woo Hoo. Froggy is having a ball. Every little thing she does is rewarded with huge laughter and praise from my family. She is definitely the star of this Iowa show.
Pictures will be posted soon.
8 comments:
Oh, do enjoy your family. I know you will. I understand completely how everything that Froggy does is the most wonderful thing the family has ever seen.!
Poo on Northwest.
What I find so interesting about NW is every year, they show up to the MN CF Education day and give a spiel about travelling with CF, specifically the vest, and then their employees pull this stuff.
Friend of mine's daughter got the same sorta hassle a few years ago from them.
Have yet to travel with the vest, last time we got hassled because they thought the "breathing apparatus" (nebulizer/compressor) was an explosive device. Sigh..
Ratatosk from CF board.
I am sooooo with you on the NW airlines thing! When Daddy came to visit me for the first time (oh so many years ago when he was just 'Boyfriend' at the time) he was the ONLY person off the entire plane that was sent to be searched and all his luggage carelessly ripped apart. AND when I flew back for my grandmother's funeral a few years later, they were really snotty about where I worked in London, how long I'd been in London, why I was back, how long I was going to be back, why I lived in London in the first place, on and on and on and on ...... I WAS A US CITIZEN RETURNING TO THE US for Heaven's sake!
Ok, so all of that was because of the uptight Immigration people at MN airport, but NW airlines is crap anyway, so I'll load them with the blame as well.
Northwest has gotten a bad reputation recently that is well deserved. If you look into the whole merger thing, you can find out this is getting to be SOP (standard operating procedure), unfortunately. I just had a miserable experience with them on the way to Seattle.
Anyway, I think you're correct, the best solution is to fly other airlines. It doesn't sound like this is an isolated incident.
On a better note, glad the trip back to Iowa is wonderful.
nothing better than being home. i hate the airlines. jcn
Sorry to hear you had a crappy experience with Northworst, ooops I mean Nortwest.
Other than finances being what they are...the thing that has kept me from plannig a vacation with Emily is traveling with all her stuff. Vest, feeding pump, cans of formula for overnight feedings...it hurts my head to think about dealing with it all on the plane. So, for now, we will not go anywhere that we can't drive to...and with gas being $5.00/gal. Well, I guess we can look at pictures of fun places on the internet.
Enjoy Iowa and home and family. Looking forwrd to the pics!
Tami
mom to Emily 2 1/2 with CF
Enjoy your time at home - which I know you are already doing. :)
Hummingbird's cousin, my sister Megan had bad asthma and travels with a nebulizer. As a twenty-something she
has learned to handle that EVERY SINGLE plane trip involves her being taken aside at security and into a "special room" where they swab down the machine and say it might be a dangerous device based on said "swabbings." Ridiculous.
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