Readers of my cancer blog will know I didn’t hold back on the horror of that particular time, now this story isn’t about that period of my life, in fact it was several years earlier when I was oblivious to that missile heading my way. But, I will nevertheless tell this story in all its somewhat gruesome detail, so if you are the queasy type then scroll on. 

I was heading to Annaheim for a food show, the irony of this will come later. Never a Disney fan, too much schmaltz for me, but heading for Disneyland country I was. Turns out alongside all the rides and Mickey Mouse the town makes its money from a big portion of an events, exhibitions and conference sideline. Who knew.

Get in…

My flight was in the morning which meant the horrible early start heading for Heathrow, I’d not had time to eat much breakfast and grabbed a family sized bag of Peanut M&M’s on the way through the airport. I scoffed them down and boarded my flight. Less than an hour in I felt like I needed to do the largest burp, and this was without the gaseous intervention of a can of 7-Up. But I just started to feel worse and worse, and eventually I thought oh crikey I’m going to be sick, and as luck would have it (not) I’m in the middle of a row of four seats and had to climb over the snoozing woman (one foot on either arm rest, style… come on, we’ve all done it) next to me and sprint down the aisle to the bank of toilets, mid cabin. Well I thought that was that, glass of water and back to my seat… you know watch the film and eat something resembling cat sick (excuse the pun) out of a foil tray, but no… and still many more no’s. If I said this went on the entire remainder of the flight I would not be exaggerating. 

Ate the lot (no shame)

In between inflight turbulence and trying to blag my way at speed into the First class loos, I spent most of the flight in one toilet or lying on the floor outside another, and believe me sticky plane carpets don’t bear a close inspection, or being handed yet another sick bag by a flight attendant. Long distance porcelain phone calls and cuddling those god awful plane toilets for hours with only brief islands of calm before it all began again. It all got really grim as I had to be seated for the final approach to LA, it wasn’t a smooth descent either, but yes you’ve guessed it, I kept on yacking. The poor people in the row behind me were passing sick bags forward for me in quick succession. The lovely lady, I’d climbed over earlier was holding my hair (I had loads of it in those days) and mopping my forehead with those hand sanitiser wipes. At least part of me smelt vaguely of lemons.

Artist’s Impression in Case You’re Already Feeling Queasy

We landed eventually, and I was told to stay in my seat while they got everyone off first. The poor sods sitting anywhere near me, almost ran off the plane. The flight deck had radioed ahead to get me some support. By this point I couldn’t stand, I was so ill and exhausted, they helped me off the plane with rubber gloves and face-masks. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw Dolly Parton waiting for me with a wheelchair on the ramp. I squinted through my sickie hair and sweat exhausted eyes, nope still Dolly Parton. 

DAVID CROTTY/PATRICK MCMULLAN VIA GETTY IMAGES

“We y’all hear you been sick on the plane darlin,’ she said.

I really was either unconscious or they’d slipped me a Mickey Finn on that 747. Dolly wheeled me at a fair lick through the airport, turns out hours of inflight barfing gets you through passport control at speed. We arrived in the luggage hall and I’m eyeing the carousel and it’s rotating just like my head feels, the smell of rubber is well, making me feel… yep one last throw on the arrivals floor (at least it was tiled). I looked sideways at Dolly and said “Are you… ?” And she said, “No darlin’ I’m just a Dolly impersonator and I work at the airport for extra dollars. But you sit tight now, … we can rely on each other,” and she grinned and winked at me. How did she know to choose a line from one of my all time favourite Dolly songs?

Well thank f**k for that I thought as we burned a hasty trail through customs, and she unceremoniously tipped me out onto the pavement by a bus stop, adjusted her ‘you know what’s’ and apologised for not staying with me but she didn’t want to be vomiting tomorrow when she had a show to do. I waved her off and looked for a taxi… the fresh air hitting me square in the face. 

I spent the next 48 hours in my hotel room barely moving and room service had been instructed to leave my food outside the room and just knock. I felt vile. Norovirus had left me like an old peanut shell husk. But the story doesn’t end there, and after the exhibition Rasta Prom closing night with Ziggy Marley, by which point I was much better, I weaved my way back to LAX and the flight home. I’m sitting at the gate and I spot the lovely lady who’d been so flipping kind to me on the way over. I asked how she was and she looked weakly at me and said she seemed to have picked up a sickness bug and was ill for most of the trip to California. I bought her a drink and apologised profusely. She was as kind to me as I’d remembered. I did make sure my seat wasn’t next to hers this time, didn’t want to risk a repeat performance. 

Moral of the story:

Don’t have peanut M&Ms before a long haul flight. To this day I can’t eat them. 

If you think you’ve seen Dolly Parton you probably have. 

Always take an extra sick bag.

The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me. Just make sure you give some back. 

You do something to me that I can’t explain 

Hold me closer and I feel no pain

Every beat of my heart

We’ve got something goin’ on. 

Lyrics by: Maurice, Robin and Barry Gibb

Sung by: the one and only Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers.

(Alternative blog title: Chucking 9 to 5.)