Can I have your attention please?

It felt less like an airplane and more like a lounge, really. It is nearly midnight. Fluorescent purple lights line the row of black leathered seats. A red glow bounces off the drawn window shades from the individual television sets that adorn the back of each headrest. You can't pick out the flight attendants easily because they are not wearing a common uniform nor do they pin their names to their chest on generic winged badges. You just assume the man greeting you, cell phone in hand, helping you with your overhead carryon is an employee. Smooth jazz music plays over the speaker. Virgin America is ranking high in my book.

I make my way to row 19...and glance to seat E. The sleepy and handsome Indian man sitting in seat D stands to let me in. The window seat is unoccupied and I silently hope that F remains empty for the remainder of the flight, so that I can rest my feet maybe on the window sill and my head maybe on my neighbors shoulder? I nestle in and begin to read the screen in front of me. What? WiFi? Yes, WiFi. Virgin America not only appeals to very attractive people...as that is all I see on this aircraft, but it also offers wireless internet service. Is this a dream?

All the overhead bins fill and the flight attendants begin to close them for takeoff.  My eyes wander to the numbered rows and I notice that I am a huge moron. I have mistakenly sat in row 20...not 19. I start to get just a bit nervous as I am already crammed into my seat. The sleepy Indian man has already comfortably relaxed, with his arms folded nicely into his lap. I would feel like a fool to make such a tired man move because I messed up. I turn to him and say "this isn't row 19 is it?"

He glances at the number, 20, that looms above. "No, it's not." 

I exhale loudly...maybe too loud? and express my deepest hope that no one else boards. The man looks up and we both witness an empty hallway. "Looks like you may get lucky," he says. This is when I notice that he is really attractive and wonder if the luck will get me a new york date.

And then it starts. An hour or so of small talk. He is originally from India (fist pump) but lives in New York as a banker. But he isn't as lame as most New York bankers because he lives in the Bronx and I give home extra points for that. I can't resist. I tell him my crazy thievery story of Delhi and he tells me that it is the most incredible thing he has ever heard. Because it is. He likes that I am from Utah and tells me about the camping trip he took just last year. He says that Delicate Arch is the most beautiful thing his eyes have ever laid upon. What he MEANT to say is that Delicate Arch is ok...but you!...you are stunning! 

We both yawn (it is the Red Eye you know) and he says he unfortunately has to work in the morning. I agree that some sleep is in order, I mean, I have to shop for my maid of honors dress in the morning. Exhausting.

Just as my eyelids meet each other for some rest, an announcement is made. "Can I please have your attention. We are experiencing a medical emergency. If there is a Nurse or Doctor on board could you please ring your call light. Thank You."

Now, if I recall, the last red-eye flight I took, this same exact thing happened. Lesson learned. Is this a nightmare? No matter how many life threatening situations one encounters in a hospital there is something that remains calming...you are in a hospital. 

I reach my hand up and hit the call light. I notice that 2 or 3 other lights go off and some relief lays over my nerves. But the relief dissipates...the others 'refused' to help. Assholes. So me and a man stand in the aisle, offering up our services. Apparently, a lady found her way to the back of the plane so that she could barf all of her insides up. A nice deed as that bag could have easily been her neighbors lap. We glance at her sorry state. "You know, I'm just a medic. You're the nurse...you should go." Then, the man I thought was a helper; a renegade; a man with no fear, turned around and sat his selfish self right back down in his seat...19 F. My should-have-been neighbor.

The ailing, vomiting passenger couldn't have been much older than myself. She looked so sick. Her elbows resting supportive on her thighs, her head bowed and leaning forward, perfect and proper throw up posture. An oxygen mask held up to her mouth by the female flight attendant. Her hair was a little wet from the sweat that dripped down her face. Her skin was clammy and cold to touch. Her body convulsing.

"I don't know what is wrong. I just don't feel right," she was able to mutter. It was clear her anxiety was increasing as the number of people staring at her rose. She was starting to panic. The male flight attendant in a not calm enough manner shouts "HERE! Take this!", as if we were in an action film. It was a small black bag, the size of a carryon perhaps. I unzip it to reveal a mini clinic. Clinic in a bag. Every emergency drug you could imagine. 

I ask her the basics. Are you pregnant? Are you allergic to anything? Did you eat something that just isn't sitting right? When did it start? Blah blah blah. She told me she had just spent three days in Vegas. "Ohhh so you are really hungover?" She denies that she even drank (shaw right) but claims the pizza she had for lunch came up in the airport bathroom. Her vital signs are normal, including a mild temperature of 98.1. I give her some Phenergan and hope that she can stomach it. Of course she doesn't and all the fingers point to me, again, to syphon through her puke to see if the pill had come up with the pepperoni. I am surrounded by Assholes. I feel bad as there is nothing I can really do for her. I tie her hair up and rub her back assuring she will live to eat pizza another day. 

I ask her name. When she responds it gets drowned out by the loudness of propelling engines which made it really difficult to be a personable nurse when I didn't know what to call her. The flight attendants didn't remember either. I try to make small talk. 

"So what do you do in New York?", I crouch and ask her...loudly so she wouldn't have to puke and try to decipher what I was asking at the same time. 

"I'm...(gag)..unemployed." Shoot.

It all pointed toward the flu, which at 30,000 feet above the earths surface can feel like the plague. The congregation of the young flight crew stared at me in awe. They wanted to be nurses. They wanted the ability to break that little plastic lock on the anti-nausea zipper. They wanted the pilot to be nice to them, the way he was to me when he realized that I could probably save this persons life (my back rubbing skills are that good).  They asked me what is takes to go to nursing school and soon, the attention is no longer on the patient but all 6 sets of eyes are on me.

"You know, nursing is hard. It is a lot of bull shit sometimes. But so much reward comes from the work I do. Especially when people are grateful for your help." I smile , casting a bling in my pearly whites.

"Is it like Grey's Anatomy? Are nurses and Doctors hooking up all the time?"

"Well, I can't say that it is, however, I can say that most anesthesiologists are pretty hot and eager to meet nurses. Especially if they are Indian...as in from India. They will even cheat on their wives for a night of a wintry makeout session...so I hear. Especially if they are Indian. They are very smart and intellectually stimulating. Mostly the Indian ones." So then every single flight attendant on board is circling around me, as my patient remains puking, and I tell them about all the scandals of the nurse/anesthesiologist love triangles. They are loving it and I have them all convinced that they indeed need to trade the swanky flight attire and those neat can opening rings for that of scrubs and a stethoscope.  Their eyes grow big and round and almost in unison I hear them say "wow...ane..sthes...iologists...huh?"

"Yeah, pretty slimy characters but quick with an epidural and quite fun to look at." I turn to the patient who seems un-entertained by our conversation as her body is twitching with each dry heave. 

"My uncle is an anesthesiologist," she says. I look up to the others, creasing my lips in a manner that without speaking says 'oops'.  "He's not from India, though right?"

We clear a row for her to lay down and she can't stop thanking me. Thank you for this and thank you for that. I tell her that it was my pleasure to fish through her puke, hold her hair, remind her she doesn't have a job and pretty much say, in so many words, that her uncle  is most likely cheating on her aunt with an attractive young nurse. I tell her that I really hope she can find calm in all the turbulence that is happening now and likely for the remaining hour and half of the flight. "I also really hope you can find a job...the market is just so bad right now." She closes her eyes. The look of disgust remains on her lips.

She lays her head down on the tiny plane pillow, her knees as crawled into a fetal position as she can manage, her face looking miserable. 

Yes, the life of a nurse. The feeling of accomplishment. The feeling of knowing you have helped someone. Really saving a life when it is on the brink of ending. Ahhh, what a sense of satisfaction. 

I sit back down and tell my heroic story to the my 20th row crush. He says he is glad that I was able to help. "Does it make you want to ask me on a date?"...is what I want to say but I just describe to him in detail what her throw up looked like. Then I start to get pensive. How much life saving did I really just do? Eh. I close my eyes and begin thinking about how I could wiggle my way into 19 D's life, saving it of course from a life of boring banking. 

Only on a red eye flight...