REAL and rough airport travel day navigating multiple disabilities. It’s simply not easy, and the struggles snowball sometimes.
Not everyone is kind or understanding, first of all. There are kind people, but as you can see at the beginning the time that it takes for us to get our medical bags checked, get a medical tag for a stroller, and get a pass for an airport escort for my mom — made two women really upset. They said “they should have let everyone else in line go before them”
When we went through TSA, we realized my husband accidentally left his multitool in the baby bag before he drove to back to Arizona. He was a marine and so he keeps his multitool with him at all times. I told them to throw it away and Ruben will have to learn the hard way on that one.
Payson is hard of hearing so we practice sign language with a mentor and at home. She’s almost two, but only knows about three words in total that she can actually say. She knows more signs than she does words. She also has a skull condition that we are seeing a plastic surgeon for in a few weeks.
Side comments on the plane about dogs and kids happen often. Regardless I’m legally following the law. And with the two girls disabilities as well as mine, there will always be some type of struggle traveling.
I have a hard time, visually and autonomically in an airport by myself. I also have to manage diabetes, hemidiaphram, cardiac issues, and make sure seizures are under control. I decided against a wheelchair the second time because I knew Payson needed her stroller more and we couldn’t do both without help — but I was really struggling.
I had to sit every 3 to 5 minutes.
She got sick from how bouncy the plane was. Something I could not predict but it happened — And then we finally made it back home.
I was juggling so many things that I dropped things a lot. Not to mention my eyes my brain don’t work the way I want to sometimes. Echo picked everything up that I dropped. He alerted and he responded appropriately.
It’s not easy, but we accomplished it.
Echo was such a big help.
#disabilitytravel #servicedoglife #invisibleillness #airportstruggles #chronicillnesswarrior
