Welllllll

I did myself in, yesterday. I woke up in the morning not feeling well, nothing specific, just bleh.  A headache but not my normal one. I felt draggy and slow, thick headed and tired. I ate oatmeal, drank some juice and coffee, and went out to the airport. My first rider was ready to go right when I got there, and off we went. And I didn't feel well. We landed, and my second rider for the day was ready to go for a 40 minute flight.  Halfway through, I REALLY didn't feel well. The sun beating in my eyes, I just felt slower and thicker and yuckier. I even caught myself nauseated and gagging.  We land from that, me pretending to feel fine the whole time when I was not.  My 3rd rider was right there ready to go, and I told the rides guy that I needed a minute, I did not feel good.  I laid down in the "rest" area on a couch for 20 minutes with my eyes closed, and at the end, didn't feel a ton better, but I figured if I could get this last guy done, I had another pilot who could take over for the afternoon.  This guy was excited, had a lot of history with the airplane, and wanted to go really badly, and I didn't want to cancel him, or cost the wing money. And I wasn't feeling as sick. So I went out there for this last 20 minute right.  We are flying along, and again with the nausea. I got out a barf bag just in case. Every time I was pointed into the sun, it was stabbing me.  I was pretending and cheerful and chatty with this guy, the whole time staring at the time, waiting for my 20 minutes to be up, and hoping I wouldn't have to hide barfing from my passenger.  Coming in to land I made sure to focus extra hard--check gear down about 5 times--and once I got him out of the plane, shook his hand, took pictures by the plane, I made a beeline for inside.  I sat in a chair for about 2 minutes, and then boom, up it was coming. I ran for the bathroom, and barely made it before I lost my oatmeal, juice and coffee from that morning that apparently had never digested.  I told the rides desk I was done, and the next guy came on board to take over for my 1 pm flight. I laid on a couch in the "rest" area for hours. I dozed on a couch in public. I was sick.  Like...nauseated, headache, severe fatigue, felt like I had a fever, lethargic.  I don't sleep in public, but I did yesterday. That's one way to know how sick I was.  Finally a guy came around and drove me to a Wal-Mart where I picked up a Covid test, since 3 people on the tour had popped positive for Covid last week.  Then he took me back to my hotel, where I slept some more.  The Covid test took 15 minutes, and came back as a negative, so that was a relief.  I slept the rest of the afternoon, I woke up here and there, drank a $2.50 bottle of vitamin water and regular water out of the sink, all I could get my hands on, went to bed at like 8:30 pm, and woke up at 6 am, starting to feel human.

I can't decide if what I had was a 24 hour bug, or if it was severe dehydration from Saturday, cumulative, that got worse when I was wrapped up back in a flight suit in the sun in the heat the next morning too, or maybe a combination of the two.  But the heat definitely made it worse, and it was only 9 am when I started, so it wasn't even bad yet.  Saturday I was in the plane from 9 am to about 5 pm with barely a break for lunch. The trailer was out of water, and I didn't end up drinking a lot.  And it was hot, and I was in a flight suit, and walking back and forth, and flying all day, and taking pictures. And not drinking enough water. I had a glass of water at the end of the day at dinner, and I drank some in the hotel room, but I also was behind on consumption I'm pretty sure. Steve is convinced that's all I had wrong with me. Heat exhaustion and dehydration.  It seems weird since it was morning and not hot yet, but...cumulative, right?  So it's entirely possible. Whatever it was, I felt *really* bad for awhile there.  And I hated going down on the busy Sunday when they actually needed me, versus the slow Friday where it rained. If you're going to be down for a day, that's the day!

This morning there was weather in Chicago, headed there, so I lit out early to beat it in.  The bombers waited until noon. It was less windy when I got there, but they put me into a hangar that's a t-hangar, with no tow bar, so we had to push it in by hand, and the left wing is too close to the wall.  Now I have to go back up there tomorrow with the guys and try to get it back out of there without smashing the wingtip.  I'm so mad. At myself, at them, at the situation. Ugh.

Getting tired over here, going to get some sleep, as tomorrow is the Flying Squirrels and then a trip to Chicago to hopefully pull out the plane.  *sigh*