I went on a short trip this week. Left Tuesday, returned Thursday. I arrived at my destination a tad early! Yippee! I was then taken to the hotel and my host verfied that the reservation was indeed correct as far as billing.
The hotel folks then informed me that they did NOT have a non-smoking room available for me, and they could not guarantee a non-smoking room with the reservation. However, they assured me that the smoking room had been cleaned thoroughly and treated with an ozone machine.
I went to the room (which was on a smoking floor, of course), opened the door and dropped my bags. I took a breath. Maybe a second one. And promptly had an asthma attack. A bad one. I grabbed my bags and left. Immediately.
I reported the situation as calmly as I could to them. I didn't go into the severity of the attack, but told them that I could not stay in that room. They offered to do the ozone machine (again). I said I would just sit in the lobby for the time being.
I sat. And I freaked out. Okay, I calmly freaked out. Used my inhaler (MaxAir is wonderful, just wonderful, folks! Minimal shakes!). And fired up my laptop and made two quick phone calls.
I called Joel to let him know I was there and briefed him on the situation. I called my Mom, who promptly wanted to throttle the hotel management and call every hotel in this city to find me a place to stay. I assured her that the situation would be rectified and I'd keep her posted.
If you don't know someone who has asthma, here are a few tips:
- you can die during an asthma attack, because your air supply is cut off -- hence the need for rescue inhalers.
- stressful situations make asthma worse, so it's all too easy to have a cycle happen where you have an attack, get stressed, the attack gets worse, you get more stressed, etc. etc.
- If you have bad allergies AND you have asthma, then you have a double whammy situation. Especially folks who are allergic to tobacco smoke, strong perfumes, etc.
- Folks who have asthma are NOT overreacting when they express concern about being in a potentially hazardous environment.
- for more information, see the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America.
I logged on to my e-mail. I considered my options. I consciously worked on calming down. This situation would be rectified. I wouldn't have to spend the night coughing and coughing from asthma attacks-- even if I had to sleep on the couch in the hotel lobby!
I decided to e-mail the folks who made the lodging arrangements and ask them to help. Sometimes this can be risky -- sometimes folks think you're just causing trouble. I'm not that kind of person. But the folks on the other end came through and took care of the situation. And someone picked me up and took me to the new lodgings.
It took a while for my system to calm down, but it did by the next morning, thankfully. What an embarrassing situation -- I don't like to reveal that kind of stuff to the greater western world (although I just did on my blog), but it all worked out.
Okay, travel adventure two happened on the return trip. The last flight of my trip was overbooked. I volunteered to give up my seat, in return for a seat on the next flight out (two hours later) AND a free roundtrip ticket for that airline, good for a year. I made sure to tell the attendant that I had carry on, and that made me a prime candidate (in my mind). And indeed it did. Turns out that these automated systems will prioritize the volunteers by alphabetical order AND if they have carry on, not checked luggage.
Well, I got chosen. It was one of those rare times that I could volunteer and it was nice to get a free round trip ticket.
And I was glad to get home. Whoo hoo!
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