SFO->DUB

I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Ireland...and I NEVER thought that I would go because of a boy.

On the 25th of June, 2018, I embarked on the biggest journey of my life. Because I had wonderful people that were able to take over my job, I don't have the money to fly two and fro for shorter trips, and Seamus' parents were willing to host me, I was able to stay for two months. It was my first time out of the country, so I went hardcore.

If you haven't gathered by my other blog posts, I'm a Spoonie...and that makes things like traveling difficult. My mom, boyfriend, and I were pretty concerned as to how I would fare on the flight. I may have been in tears on a number of different occasions thinking about how I might have to deal with a flare up...alone...on a 10 hour flight.

Luckily, we were able to time it out so that my mom could fly there with me and my boyfriend could fly back home with me after. We got the flights booked and I started packing--two months in advance! After a couple of months trying to figure out how Mom and I were to survive our first international flight, we were overpacked and ready to go!

Things were going well the day of the flight, until we got to SFO Airport. We got to the check-in line early, and as soon as we got there, a migraine struck. Have you noticed how many lights are in an airport? You do when security repeatedly tell you to take off your sunglasses. I booked a wheelchair with my ticket, just for a moment like this! And who showed up with it?! A man with a thick, thick accent. When he said my name, I didn't understand it. When I was supposed to stand and walk and put things in various places....I had no clue what he was asking of me. I was just glad he kept motioning at what he wanted me to do.

Migraine level: 7

Once we got to our gate, my mom went to get some water so I could take something for my worsening pain, and I called Seamus. I told him about the people coming off the plane, and we started making up back stories for them. He tried to reassure me that the flight would be fine and that we would have down time as soon as I got in on the other side. While he was doing that, I was watching a cute little girl with a unicorn t-shirt dance around. I noticed at some point that I brought the wrong charging cable for my phone so I had to find a charging station. Three tries and 40 min later, my phone was charged 18% more than what it was.

We hung up when it was time to board the plane. Mom and I bumped between rows of seats before we sat down. We were both pleasantly surprised that the chair in front of my mom's had a box that prevented her from shoving her bag underneath the seat. She had to put her purse and backpack under my seat and I had to put my backpack under hers while smuggling my purse beside my chair! Talk about inconvenient...the rest of the flight she was having to nudge me for whatever she needed out of her bag, and I got her to grab things for me whenever it was urgent. I accumulated the majority of what I asked for on my lap so I wouldn't have to bother her again to put things back.

Once we finally figured out that non-sense, I discovered that my noise canceling headphones weren't working with the sound from the movie I was trying to watch so I put in the dinky earbuds they gave me. The earbuds messed with my head more by giving off as much white noise as sound.

Mid-flight I got to sneak a picture of the pretty sunrise.

With my head about to explode, my sensitivity to sound rising, and holding back tears, I put on my noise canceling headphones with the quietest song that I owned, on repeat, so the headphones wouldn't fall asleep on me. With two bathroom trips, the max dose of pain medication, and no room to move, I managed to get through the 10 hour flight...I mean what else was I going to do?

Almost to Dublin!

We were finally in Dublin and I had the sweetest girl bring me a wheelchair and roll me to luggage. She was willing to roll me to the car too, but I really wanted to stretch my legs. I wobbled to my Seamus and gave him the biggest hug I could! He couldn't wipe the cheesy smile off his face.

I successfully got in on on the LEFT side of the car and looked at my man, who was finally beside me. "Do you want to go get coffee or walk around anywhere?" It's almost like he knows I like coffee or something... ;) With that, we drove two more hours to his home near Belfast.