It was an interesting flight back…
The bad:
-I was sick…not just mild sick, but heavily and severerly sick. Thank god I looked normal and I didn’t look like a person with Ebola.
-The night before, I caught a weird itchy and sore throat. It was weird because it was infecting me really quick. I have salt+water, then lozenges but the moment I stopped the lozenges, it went back quick with a vengeance. I had it the whole night. The morning of flying, it was sooooore.
-I started feeling asthma…and get this, I have my medicine…..BUT I ran out. And asthmatic kids, we have special inhalers for that. Internationally, it’s prescription-based and that prescription I did not carry with me at that trip. I almost collapsed and almost called 911 (aka the “paramedics” in UK) but thank god, I managed to scrape some more power from my puffer. What you do if you’re asthmatic is, when it runs out of the ideal number of puffs, there’s still technically the medicine in it, just not enough pressure. What you do is you repeatedly press down the puffer and it will give you small amounts of puffs every time; about 1/3 to 1/4 for each mini puff. Don’t rely on this though. Don’t blame me if you black out.
-On my 6 hour flight back, I was intensely having a fever attack. I was constantly blowing my nose and coughing and everybody was just giving me the stink eye because, yea I understand why lol. What can I do though right?
-Upon landing, I was able to accumulate a good amount of sleep which resulted to a good amount of recovery. I was normal(ish) when I landed and I was able to speak briefly and smile when I landed. (take note: fever + asthma at this point). When I got home though….My body started shutting down forcing me to rest in bed. I was lying dead and I can feel a constant and active battle of fever trying to take over against my rejuvenated immune system.
-I woke up this morning, I can do basic stuff and I felt a massive difference from yesterday and today. Taking it slow but still in recovery mode.
-Flight was also delayed for around an hour or so…
The Good:
On my last flight from Heathrow to YYZ, we had the pleasure of using British Airway’s new 787 Dreamliner and our specific plane was actually in it first flight. They said that’s why it was late due to the first-wave safety inspection. Then I had some boarding pass problems. First I had my boarding pass in seat number 30-something H. If you fly frequently, you know that’s roughly at the back of the plane (30) and somewhere aisle in the third set of seats.(H)
Upon boarding, my pass had an error/rejection and without question, they issued me a new pass, and it’s 11B . Ooh, somewhere in front, but middle seat… I’m a window-aisle-middle guy.
Upon actually getting to my seat…I noticed something cool. I know the first few rows are business class for sure. I didn’t know where it stops though. Last time I thought I had a deal, I had row5 tickets, but it was a domestic (within EU) flight and it was just a small plane and Business Class seats just means fewer inches more space haha.
So yea, I noticed I hit the jackpot. My seat wasn’t definitely Business Class but…second class? You know when I thought I was middle seat, I was “B” because our row is actually 2-3-2 seats. So my B seat is actually aisle! and I have toooons of space! We had a menu too for food serving and it was more classy then all of my airplane food experience. We had (second) priority, used stainless steel for food, the headset was actually an enclosed on-hear headset and packed together with the travelling kit (eye mask, ear plugs, toothbrush, pen, socks, etc etc) I’ve never had these experiences before so it’s definitely impressive.
The airplane in itself is impressive. I know one of the feats of 787 is their wing technology (less drag, more distance covered per gas). That doesn’t affect us sure. But the windows are now digitally tinted. You know those windows where you can dim/shade by pressing a button? It’s like that but this one is also color tinted so the plane can force it to have a blue tint, pink tint, etc. More realistic improvements is space. I’m sure they’ve moved stuff around to make more space. It’s not a very huge plane like Airbus A320. It’s really like the size of 747; just extensively re-engineered. Things are made of more durable and lighter materials…-you know what, never mind, these are information I know due to watching a lot of Nat Geo docs about this plane lol.
So up until now I don’t know how/why that happened to me. It would’ve been better if I experienced this fully without sickness but it definitely was an (aviation) experience I treasure.
