How to Catch a Plane with a Broken Leg?

Last year I was planning on visiting my brother in Shreveport LA for New Year's Eve. I had called my sister-in law and made arrangement a few weeks in advance so that I could surprise him when I went to visit. My niece was to pick me up on New Year's Eve from Shreveport Airport and drive me to my brother's home.

Well being a good mom, I decided that before I left for the weekend that I would do all the laundry and make sure that everything was clean before I left my two men at home. It was around 10:00 p.m. at night on December 30th and I was determined that the laundry was going to be complete before I left the following morning. So I was coming down the stairs with an armful of sheets and towels and I stepped on one of Missy's toys. Missy is my son's Shitsu, this little bit of fur that runs around under your feet all day. I proceeded to fall from the third step to the bottom of the flight of stairs, I counted them, hit all nine as I landed on the hall way, sheets, towels and assorted dirty laundry laying around me, Missy, bless her little soul thought that I was down there to play with her and she climbed up on my chest. All I could think of as she looked down on me was that she was lucky that I was not a mean spirited person, and she was lucky to still be alive.

I called my husband, who came up from the den to see me laying in the hallway, he being a kind soul with a warped sense of humor told me it was not yet New Year's Eve and I should not have been drinking. Love the man....Anyway he got me off the floor and my ankle had already swollen to the size of a soft ball. I looked at this foot and could not believe that it was happening to me on the day before I was to leave. When Ray saw how large the ankle had become he first called the paramedics, the ambulance arrived and the paramedic stated that it was only sprained, they told me to elevate it and they left. It sure did not feel like a sprain to me. So they departed and I told Ray that it hurt too badly for me to even put pressure on it. He took me to our local hospital, got a wheel chair and wheeled me in the emergency room, the results were that the foot was broken in three places and I was put in a walking cast.

Ray asked me if I was going to delay my trip and I told him no way, I had been planning this for at least four months and I was not going to let a thing like a broken ankle keep me from going. He drove me to the airport the next morning, and I was greeted by a RedCap who upon seeing the cast on the foot, brought around a wheel chair. Traveling out of BWI has become a challenge if you are not hurt, try traveling with a cast on is even more of a challenge. Because I could not pull myself out of the wheelchair fast enough the Security person, she was the rudest person this side of the Earth, I guess because it was a holiday and she did not want to be there, pulled on my arm and did not offer to balance me, when I went tumbling forward onto the conveyor belt that was by the station. Her manager, then came sprinting forward to assist me in standing up, not good for a broken ankle, now a bruise that was starting to form on my wrist.

Finally got through security, had an attendant take me down to the plane, they had me scheduled for a middle seat, thank God there are still gentlemen in this world, the one that I was seated next to got up and offered me the aisle seat so that I could stretch out the leg.
During the flight the staff had apparently notified Houston Airport that they had a passenger on board that needed assistance. The staff at Houston picked me up and they were going to take me from one terminal to another. When we got to were the buses were that were suppose to transport the passengers from one terminal to another the bus driver was not to be found. I had been in the airport for around forty minutes and my plane was suppose to be leaving in another fifteen minutes and I was no where near that commuter flight. I finally got the attention of the bus driver who told me that she was on break and I would have to wait. I am not a person to be dealt with like that, I insisted on seeing her supervisor and started to raise a stink. The supervisor came out I explained the situation and informed them that there was no way that I was spending the night in Houston and that by hook or by crook I was going to make it to that plane for Shreveport.

Continental Airlines held the flight for me as the bus driver was informed in not too kind words that she was hired to drive a bus not eat a bag of chips. When I got to the second plane to my horror there was not a walkway to the plane but a flight of stairs to enter the plane, there were three attendants there to assist me, one in front and two behind, they almost carried me up those stairs, I could not have asked for better. When I arrived in Shreveport the personnel where excellent, they had a chair waiting for me, they had people there to assist me off the plane, they had an attendant get my luggage and had contacted my niece and helped her get my stuff into the car. To say the least I enjoyed my stay with my brother and his family, however in hind sight it would have been better if I had stayed home and made my husband wait on me. Traveling with a broken limb was not the best thing to do.