A mother’s lesson: food poisoning at 30,000 ft
To all the parents of grown up kids: how would you react if your grownup child text to say they had food poisoning just before boarding a long-haul flight?
In my case, I am referring to my son who was due to fly from Malaysia to the UK. I received a stomach-churning text stating quite simply that he thought he was going to s*** himself in the middle of Kuala Lumper train station because he couldn’t find a toilet.
I’d like to say that I responded rationally and I‘d like to say that I calmly allowed my 22-year-old son deal with his own shit, if you pardon the pun. However, as I expect many parents will understand, knowing your child is ill (whatever their age) is upsetting. What’s more knowing your child has explosive diarrhoea 30,000 feet in the air and sharing a cubicle toilet with a hundred or so strangers, is I have now learnt to be very stressful. Perhaps, this is because having had food poisoning myself and I know for absolute certainty that the very last place I would want to be is on an aeroplane!
I tried unsuccessfully to convince him to check into a hotel, even offering to book him a new flight a few days later, but he’d have none of it. He seemed to think my overt concern was somewhat unwarranted. Yes, he couldn’t eat. Yes, he was doubled up in pain. And yes, he had needed the toilet so badly, that he’d flung a bunch of Malaysian ringgits at a toilet attendant, not counting and not waiting for any change just desperate to be let through the barrier. However, he maintained and kept repeating ‘I just had a bad curry mum, stop worrying!’
He explained that after several hours on a bus he’d arrived late in Kuala Lumper, and was ravenous. He’d strolled into the closest restaurant and tucked into a hearty lamb curry served up from a tray that had been sat under the glow of a warming lamp (possibly for several hours). The very ones that we had deliberately avoided for the previous three weeks in Penang, and the very ones that EVERY guidebook and blog on travelling will tell you to avoid at your peril – unless your tummy is sufficiently acclimatised! For three weeks, we had immersed ourselves in savouring the freshly cooked steaming delicious hawker food that Penang is famous for, without even a hint of tummy trouble (serious eye rolls here).
So, apparently, I needed to chill out. He boarded his eight hour flight in the early evening and promised to call me when he arrived in Doha, where he had a three-hour layover.
When I awoke bleary eyed at 4 am to check my phone, there was NO text or missed call.
My brain went into full on catastrophe over drive. I imagined, well what didn’t I imagine…that he’d collapsed and was in a Qatari hospital… that he had something worse than food poisoning – the Coronavirus (which was just emerging at that time), Japanese Encephalitis (which he had failed to be vaccinated against, despite my nagging ) and the list goes on…
Of course, being a sensible wise adult, I also rationalised that he had most likely fallen asleep or his phone had run out of battery. My partner also correctly reminded me that my boy does have a slight tendency for forgetting and losing things. Yet, for some unknown reason the worst-case scenario version of events was intent on slip sliding into my consciousness even though I was desperately trying to push them away.
Suffice to say, the next 8 hours waiting for him to land at Gatwick, London were insanely long! I spent the small hours, twisting and turning in my bed, gazing out onto the Malacca Straits with my heart in turmoil and feeling the vast expanse of sky, oceans and continents that were between myself and my son.
When he finally landed (and yes, of course, I was watching the flight tracker app) it took him a further 45 minutes to turn his phone on and contact me. In which time, I’d sent a number of panic-stricken texts.
As relief flooded over me in waves of gratitude, his first nonchalant text read ‘why are you so worried!?’ I was past caring about his blasé attitude, and rapidly tapped into WhatsApp ‘because I am you mother!!!’ and called him.
He then revealed the torment and agony of his never-ending flights, where he was stuck in a perpetual cycle of stomach cramp, toilet, slight relief, dozing and then stomach cramp again. Yet, he still maintained that I had worried unnecessarily because after all he’d just eaten a bad curry.
What’s the lesson here? Do I worry needlessly? Yes is the resounding answer. When it comes to my son, and the people I love – all the yoga and meditation rapidly flies out of the window, dumped unceremoniously nearby, waiting to be hoisted back up once the situation is resolved.
Can I change this I muse? I would like to think so, after all worry serves no one.
Though perhaps my biggest lesson, is this: yes, finding strategies to deal with stressful events is of course important, but understanding that my ‘boy’ is a man and that he can, however hard, deal with the situation himself, without immediately requiring help from his mother is something I need to accept, and be immensely proud of. It is after all, our job as parents to raise our children to be confident and independent.
He was perfectly adept at dealing with the event himself. He was able to ask the cabin crew for help and rationalise that this was one of the worst moments of his life, but it would end. He got through it by himself, as a man.
He got through it, probably better than I ever would.
For more posts on Malaysia read:
- 11 Reasons why Penang is a perfect location for solo women travellers
- Beyond George Town: hikes & gardens
- Highlights of George Town, Penang
- Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony: An Airbnb Experience