by Happy writer

Created on: April 29, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

"I've booked the flight to England babes" I hear my husband vaguely say. The running water from the kitchen sink which I am bent over makes his words difficult to catch, yet I know what he said and that sudden pang of panic takes over me once again. It's not that I don't want to go, not at all, I love going home and regrouping with family and friends, catching up and drinking insane amounts of tea and eating untold amounts of stodge. It's just that the flight is so long and my daughter has special needs.

We have done the LA to London flight around five times now and although I fret about it, it is getting somewhat easier. The first time we took my daughter on a Trans-Atlantic flight was to France to visit my mum. Naturally, the flight was filled with French people and because we were speaking in English, they must have thought that their remarks would not be understood by us. What they didn't know, is that I also speak French and a lot of the comments were so hurtful that I wanted to slap each and everyone of them with a frog and yell out Merde!.

I understand that my daughter must have exhausted them as much as she did us. I understand how this can be frustrating for other passengers, how her voice is rather loud and her behavior somewhat odd. I also understand that when she pulled the window shutter up, down and up again for about an hour, whilst people were trying to doze off , it could have driven them to the brink of insanity. Yet what they didn't understand was that if my husband and I tried to adjust her behavior the freak out that would follow would be ten times worse.

To some, we explained that she has special needs and that being cooped up in a chair for ten hours was excruciatingly difficult for her, probably comparable to them being stuck in a tumble drier for the same amount of time. What shocked me the most was the passengers reactions to our explanation. Many just did not care because for that moment they were put out. The general opinion is "control your child", but what if you simply do not have that power?, what if whatever is happening within her has such a tight hold that you are rendered helpless? So not only was your darling child born with a brain injury, one that you know will never go away, one that has altered her universe completely from the norm, one that sometimes makes you gag with indescribable sadness but you also have to deal with other peoples' responses to it. The worst one is the person who still chooses to be angry after knowing

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