Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees (21 page)

A very upset-looking woman was standing just a few feet away from him. “I’m here.”

“Do you know if he’s taking any medications of any sort?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember them right now.”

“Did he carry them on board with him?”

“Yes.”

“Get them for me,” he ordered. “I need to know what he’s taking so I don’t give him something that will interact badly with anything he’s already on.”

A flight attendant and the woman moved quickly back down the aisle to find the man’s bag. In a few minutes, they were back. Kyle opened the bag and checked the meds. “Is this everything?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“No others?”

“No. This is what he takes.”

“Okay.”

Kyle opened a small container, broke the seal, shook it, and sprayed something into the man’s mouth under his tongue.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A nitrolingual spray. Do you remember hearing anyone ever talk about taking a nitro tablet when they’re having chest pain?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“It’s something like that. It’s called a nitrate, and it helps the heart to work more efficiently. It makes the veins and arteries relax and widen so that blood can flow with less resistance. That means that the heart doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood around the body. It also means that there is less blood coming back to the heart with each beat so it has less blood to pump back out. And you can see how all of these things together are good things.”

The man’s wife was getting a little agitated. “What’s wrong with him? Do you know what you’re doing?”

This was something I could deal with so Kyle could stay focused. “You got extremely lucky today, ma’am. He’s an emergency physician in one of the busiest ERs in New York. He knows his stuff really well. If anything bad like this had to happen, thank goodness it happened when someone was here who has dealt with this before.”

“But he’s so young,” she complained.

“That’s the best. He hasn’t had years to forget everything he learned in medical school and residency. And he’s an emergency physician trained to deal with a wide variety of health matters.”

The earlier bumpy air chose that moment to recur. The flight attendant got the ill man’s wife into a jump seat just around the corner since she wouldn’t return to her own seat way in the back of the plane. Really, who would? Kyle took my seat, so I also sat on another jump seat just around the corner—fortunately there were some extras.

Remembering something, I shouted around the corner, “Kyle! Put your seat belt on! Do it! Now!” I suspected that Kyle would have been totally focused on his patient and wouldn’t have paid attention to his safety, so I wanted to be sure he, too, was strapped in so that he wouldn’t go flying if we hit some air pockets. The rough air continued for a few minutes with a couple of really big bumps.

When it was safe to get back up, I returned to Kyle’s side and checked on how things were going. “Need anything, babe?”

“No. We’re okay for the moment.” The man was somewhat conscious but seemed to be sluggish. “How much longer?”

“I’ll find out.” A flight attendant called the captain. Procedures for the cockpit door to be opened in flight were rigid since 9/11, so it took a bit of juggling to get the beverage cart in place to block access to the flight deck so that the captain could come back to personally assess the situation. One brief exchange with him earlier had assured him that Kyle knew what he was doing, but still he wanted to know personally how everything was proceeding because he needed to update air traffic control and emergency workers on the ground.

“The computer tells us we’ll be landing in forty-three minutes,” the pilot reported to Kyle.

Kyle gave no commentary but nodded in acknowledgement. “Can you have an ambulance waiting when we land?”

“Already done. And I’ve asked for a straight-in approach because of an in-flight medical emergency. If this had happened over land, we’d have had lots of options for quicker landings, but out here there’s just nothing between the mainland and the Hawaiian Islands except water.” The pilot returned to the cockpit to get ready for landing.

Somehow in the midst of everything, the flight attendants had managed to serve a snack and drinks to everyone else on the plane—I wasn’t sure when that had happened, since my focus had been on Kyle and his had been on the patient. I’m not even sure I would have noticed that we were starting our initial descent into Honolulu if a flight attendant hadn’t announced the news.

The earlier hours seemed to have flown past, but Kyle later told me that the last thirty minutes seemed to tick by remarkably slowly. Every minute or two, when he looked at his watch, he was convinced that we should be landing, but every time only another minute or two had elapsed.

This was certainly not the way I had wanted Kyle’s first arrival in Hawaii to be. I had wanted Kyle to be able to sit and watch out the window as the first island came into sight. I had wanted Kyle to practically bounce up and down with excitement like he had earlier on our departure from Chicago. But unfortunately that was all impossible.

More minutes slowly ticked by. Flight attendants were busy throughout the plane preparing the passenger cabins for arrival. More time slowly—ever so slowly—ticked past. The plane continued to descend. True to his word, the pilot was able to bring us directly into the airport without a complex series of turns and twists as sometimes happens when a plane comes into a busy airspace.

When I felt the wheels touch the ground, I was extraordinarily grateful. I had flown a lot over the years, but this flight had been unusual. Our plane slowed on the runway and immediately turned off onto a taxiway for a very fast taxi to the terminal.

A flight attendant updated the passengers that when we arrived, the door at the very front of the cabin would not be available since medical personnel would be using that one to remove the sick passenger. The plane jerked to a stop, and the engines were shut down immediately. In under a minute, there was a knock at the cabin door; a flight attendant opened the door from the inside to admit a series of medical personnel. Kyle stepped out of the way to allow them access but also relayed to one man all of the information he could about the man, his medications, his situation, and what he had done in-flight. I was so proud of him!

The sick man was moved onto a stretcher and taken away—thankfully by someone other than us this time. When they had departed, Kyle suddenly found himself with an armful of me. “Hey. You okay?” I asked. “I’m really proud of you, babe! You are one freaking awesome man! And I’m glad you’re my man!”

Kyle stared at me for a moment, not knowing how to respond. “So are we in Hawaii?”

“Yeah, we’re here. I’m so sorry you didn’t get to see anything out the window as we were coming in.”

“Me too. I guess that means we’ll have to do it again sometime so I can see.”

“Deal. Let’s just skip the in-flight medical emergency next time.”

“Deal. I’m hungry.”

“You didn’t get to eat lunch when they were serving.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then let’s get out of here and find some food and then start our vacation.”

“Deal.”

I grabbed Kyle’s hand and squeezed it. We retrieved our bags, repacked the things that we had had out during the flight, accepted thanks from the cockpit and cabin crews, and said our good-byes.

W
E
HAD
lost track of time in the excitement of the flight. What had been planned as a quiet eight to nine hours of reading and napping had turned into an adrenaline-pumping medical emergency that prevented eating, drinking, sleeping, reading—all the things that we had assumed would happen.

Once we got off the plane and into the terminal, the telltale look of wonder returned to Kyle’s face. His first comment to me was simple. “Sure is big and busy, isn’t it?” As we walked, his eyes got wider and he told me what I already knew. “There are no walls.” I’d seen that reaction many times before, and I had known it would hit Kyle just as it hit everyone else.

“If they tried this no walls thing in Oklahoma in the middle of winter, it would be very uncomfortable,” was his simple observation.

As with so many other things, through Kyle’s eyes and reactions, I experienced the awe of Hawaii all again as if for the first time. I had been to a lot of places, seen a lot of things. I had traveled the world and had seen the good, the bad, and a whole lot of perfectly average things that had just simply blended into vague mists of memories. Kyle had had none of those experiences, and everything about the new places was a first for him. And jaded-world-traveler me got to tag along for the ride, which thrilled me to no end.

We grabbed a quick snack at a kiosk in the airport. Since we had no bags to retrieve, we simply exited the front of the airport into the sea of humanity that accompanied a big arrival bank of flights. The line for cabs was surprisingly not an issue, and in no time at all, we were in a cab and headed into Waikiki to our hotel.

Even though I had been to Hawaii six times previously, I hadn’t stayed at this particular hotel. I knew exactly where it was and what would be nearby. The reviews online from previous guests had been glowing in their praise of the place, the accommodations, and the staff. While I always took such reviews with a certain grain of salt, I was optimistic about the place.

First impressions are always important, so we were both pleased when our arrival was easy and efficient. There was no line—yes! Who wanted another line after flying for more than ten hours? We got checked in, our room was ready, and in under five minutes, we were on our way upstairs to what turned out to be an absolutely lovely room with a spectacular view of Waikiki Beach toward Diamond Head.

“Holy shit!” Kyle swore in wonder as he stepped to the sliding glass door that opened onto our balcony. “Holy shit!”

“You like?”

“Holy shit!”

“You already said that.”

“Holy shit!”

The only thing I could do was chuckle. “I’ll take that as a positive reaction.”

Kyle simply stood looking, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. To give my partner a few minutes to soak in the scene, I decided that I could give a little commentary about what he was seeing.

“You’re obviously looking out at the Pacific Ocean. Off in the distance,” I said, pointing toward Diamond Head, “is Diamond Head, the top of a very old volcano. Very old and most likely extinct. Tomorrow we’ll go up into the caldera and walk around inside. Un-freaking-believable experience.

“Between here and there is, of course, the world-famous Waikiki Beach, one of the best-known beaches in the world. Personally, in my view, it’s an okay beach, but there are far better beaches in the world. Hell, there are far better beaches in Hawaii and elsewhere on this island. This one is just famous because when people first started coming to Hawaii and when the jet age began, most people simply came to Waikiki and didn’t venture out anywhere beyond. There weren’t a lot of people here, there wasn’t a lot of development, and most people just wanted to lie on a beach soaking up the sun, thawing out from a cold winter back somewhere else.

“We’re on the island of Oahu, one of the eight main Hawaiian Islands. While this one is not the biggest, it is the most populated island with something like 80 percent of the state’s population living here. I’ve never really understood it, but a lot of people come to Hawaii and never venture off Oahu.

“Oahu is not the biggest, but with more than a hundred miles of coastline, it’s not exactly tiny, either. After we’ve had a day or two to get acclimated to the climate, the time zone, and all that shit, I’ll take you out and drive you around the island to show you some of the other beaches. There’s one not too far over that way,” I said, pointing toward Diamond Head once again, “that I think is a phenomenal beach. It’s called Hanauma Bay. It’s a nature preserve and a marine sanctuary. The waters are awesome—so clear. The water is shallow, and there are some amazing tropical fish that hang out there. It’s a great place to snorkel.

“If you go on past there, you come to Sandy Beach. It’s about ten minutes past Hanauma Bay near the Halona Blowhole.”

“The what?”

“The Halona Blowhole. Don’t worry, I’ll take you there. It’s a popular beach with locals but can be dangerous because of the way the ground falls away underwater. Waves come in there harder than you expect.

“And one of the best beaches—well, at least if you like to surf and you’re any good at it—is Waimea Bay. That place is legendary. In the wintertime the waves that come in there are just simply monstrous. If you want to ride the big boys and you know what you’re doing, that’s the place to go. Guys have been flocking to Waimea Bay to surf since the 1950s. In the summertime the waves are much smaller, and you can actually go swimming and snorkeling there. But when the big waves are crashing, hang on—they’re incredible.

“And if you’re a really, really good surfer and you’re willing to take some risks, you can go a little farther on to Ehukai Beach, or what you frequently hear called the Banzai Pipeline. In the wintertime when the waves are stronger, they’re really intense on Ehukai because they come in and break over a coral reef that is just a few feet below the surface.”