Sick At 35,000 Feet

Turbulence isn’t always in the air. Sometimes it hits your body at 3 a.m. while you’re trying to train a new crew member and keep breakfast service on track. I’m sharing the messy truth from a recent red eye: the nausea I tried to outrun, the purser who reminded me to be human, and how a team can hold the line when one person goes down. It’s a window into real flight attendant life—crew bunks, controlled rest, crackers and chamomile—and what it costs to push through when your body says no.

That night bled into bigger questions I’ve been facing on the ground. I left a relationship, carried the guilt of walking away, and found my footing in therapy as my family worked through painful loss. Grief still loops, but it no longer decides everything. I talk about rebuilding energy through small routines, the comfort of a home close to the airport even as I dream about moving, and how collecting fridge magnets feels like anchoring memories when schedules refuse to stay still. There’s also a new chapter in love: a partner I met at work, someone who saw me handle chaos at 35,000 feet before we ever planned a date, now home every night as he moves into a different corner of aviation.

I’m also taking the show to YouTube, with two vlogs on deck: a Thailand trip with a wild audio-sync problem and a Shanghai story that includes an unexpected car incident. They’re imperfect and honest—just like this conversation. If you’re curious about real cabin crew routines, mental health, relationships that start in the galley, and what it takes to steady yourself after a hard year, you’ll feel at home here. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs some grounded honesty, and leave a quick review to tell me what part stayed with you.

Transcript

A Rough Return To Podcasting

Flight Attendant Life Update

Nausea Hits Mid-Flight

Rest, Medicine, And Turbulence

The Purser’s Advice And Anxiety

Finally Throwing Up

Controlled Rest And Crew Support

Sick Again Before Landing

Homebound Recovery Plan

Apartment Life And Wanting To Move

New Relationship And Working Together

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hi guys, this is crazy. Another podcast, like after another year or even two. I know the quality is probably crappy, but I have a new mic in my cart. I just have to order it and I hope it's good. And I'm making this podcast in English, so it's like a big update on my life. I've been sick like yesterday to today. Yesterday I was working. I'm still a flight attendant. I did not quit. I think everyone who follows me on Instagram knows that. I was so sick on my flight. I was puking. It was so embarrassing. So now I'm a line introduction cabin crew member, which means I train younger people. No, not younger people, but like people that get recruited by my airline that are new people, yeah, not younger, new people, and I have to show them what we do, like how the work is on the plane. And I was doing that, but I felt so sick. I felt super duper sick, and I just felt so nauseous. And we have rests on the plane, so we have the chance to lie down and put our feet up, or also sometimes at night flights, it is by law that we have to do that. So I went there, I took some medicine against nausea. It's called what is it called? I think it's called Dom Peridon. I took that, it did not work at all. Every time there was a little bit of turbulence, I thought I'm gonna puke all over this little crew bunk, but I had a little sick bag with me. But you know, like I didn't have the balls to actually puke. Anyways, I did not puke, but when I got up, you know you have to change because there's always a crew that is awake, and there's a crew that is lying down, you know. So we go to change. I wasn't the first rest, and it was like five minutes I was nauseous, I didn't want to eat, it was weird. I also did not really ate dinner because I was feeling so sick, but I didn't puke. So the purser comes, gives me a little pep talk, and she advises me to stick a finger down my throat. I'm sorry to everyone that has an eating disorder or anything. You probably should not listen to this, you should skip the next five minutes. So just skip it. So I did not do that because I can't. My body rejects vomiting so much, like the like the thought of vomiting makes me shiver, and so my body was like, no, but my brain was like, just please let me get this out of my system, and my body was like, no, so I couldn't puke, and she was like, stick your finger down your throat, you're gonna feel so much better, and I was like, it was a horrific scenario, and I don't know why my body is like that, it's always been like that. I just never like to puke, and when I have to puke, like when my body physically needs to puke, that means something is wrong because I never puke, rarely, something has to be like generally big wrong with me to puke, anyways. So I just don't feel like I have to puke, and then I go to the bathroom because sometimes like I went like three to four times, I just stood there and was like oh just just puke, just puke, but I knew I couldn't, so I went to the bathroom, and all of a sudden I could, and just everything came out. I felt so good the first like two minutes after I puked, and then I felt horrible. I was so weak, I was exhausted because it was a red eye, I was dead, really, like I felt so horrible. So yeah, after that I felt a bit better, like I didn't feel so much sickness, but I was just so weak, and I ate some Davida crackers. Davida are like I don't even know what they're made out of, but they're like just some crackers from Switzerland, and drank some water, and a colleague of mine made me a chamomile tea, drank some of that, and I was just dead. I thought I just got it over with. I can go on with my line introduction that I had going on, which was her last line introduction. She was awesome, she was amazing, but I I was the issue, I was the issue here. So yeah, I just was like like tired, dead tired. And then I took a little nap on a jump seat, which is allowed. We call this controlled rest. It's controlled because everyone knows you're gonna take like a little nap, and it's just a short period of time just to get like get through this exhaustion that you have in that moment. I did that, and I do have to admit the captain was super chill. He didn't mind me doing that at all. I also don't think he even asked me, like, how are you doing? I saw him once out of flight, and he just straight up ignored me. Maybe he was quite disgusted by the fact that I was sick, so I don't blame him. So I thought I got everything out of my system, I was kind of happy, but I had like this weird acidity in my throat. It was so weird. I hated that, but it was fine. Then I thought, yeah, I'm ready again to work to do the second service, which is the breakfast service. I could not, I was feeling sick. They put me back in a crew bunk because they saw I was just like a pile, a pile of human. I was like, no emotion, just feeling miserable. So I went to the rest again and I was able to rest a little again, which is thanks to the purser and the whole crew, they were so amazing. Like without them, I wouldn't be able to do that, you know. Like there was like a whole person missing in the crew, which was me. But I had the chance to lie down. So when I got up again, about 40 minutes before landing, the whole shebang started again. I had to throw up again, I was feeling sick again, it was just awful. And this night, so today is the next day, I felt sick all night. I was able to eat again, like the first time, like real food that is not just Davida cracker. Sorry, I'm yawning. I'm so exhausted too, like these past days. I've been sleeping so much, eating a little now. I ate a banana yesterday, and I was feeling sick all night. I don't know what's up with me. I thought I got it out all, but I guess I did not. So I will be resting today. I told my boyfriend, I'm like, I'm not gonna clean the apartment. When you come back today from work, you're gonna see me in bed in the same spot, and I don't want you to question anything. Cause every time I get up and I move, I feel sick. So right now I'm lying in bed, which I've never done to like record a podcast. It's crazy. Anyways, speaking of apartment, I still live in the same apartment slash house slash I don't know what to call this. Basically, it's not a loft. They called it an atelier. I don't know. I still live here. It's getting kinda crowded though. Like I've come accumulated a ton of things. I started collecting fridge magnets, which that collection is quite big now, and I really want to move. I've been seeing this for I guess a more than a year. Easily more than a year, one and a half. I've said I'm gonna move, I wanna move. I've been here for three years soon, and that's a lot because I thought I would stay here for a year max, but I've been here for three years, so we'll see. Maybe this year I will gather my courage and move to a new apartment. Or I'll stay lazy like I am right now and stay here. Because you know what? It must not be that bad if I still am here since three years. And also it's quite close to the airport, which is great. So yeah. I have a new boyfriend. I mean, I've had him for quite a while, but looking back to last episode, it's not the same person that I've mentioned in the last podcast episode. It's someone I met at work. He was a steward or also cabin crew, and I was stewardess. How cliche? Well, at least he's not a pilot, so it's not that cliche, but still, he doesn't work for my airline anymore. He's in a new field. I mean it's still aviation, but not cabin crew or another airline. He still works in aviation though, but he doesn't fly, which I love. He's home all the time. That's like so great. I could never date a pilot. Also, during during the time that we're both cabin crew members, it was great. We had the chance to fly together sometimes, and I think that is such an amazing way because you have to tackle obstacles together, like work-related obstacles, if it's like a medical case or an unruly person or just an irregularity at work, you can tackle it together and you get to know that person in such a deep way, and I think that's why our relationship from the get-go was really good because we knew, even though we were not together yet, we were friends for quite a while, just like colleagues at work. But we had, even though we were colleagues, we had like quite some challenging flights, and maybe someday I'll have the balls to explain everything. But I think there might be some legal issues that I'm not allowed to talk about from my airline side about what happens on flights, so I'd have to know if that's allowed, but regardless, we got to know each other, like how we work in difficult difficult scenarios, and we were just friends. So when we started to get into a relationship, we already had difficult things happening. Does that make sense? Anyways, we just hang out at hung out as friends, and after a while, we thought like we could get to know each other, right? So we got to know each other. It was like super easy from the get-go, and we decided to date. So now we've been dating for nine months, which is which is quite a lot. It went by so fast, like it went by like whirlwind. So yeah, I have another thing I don't think I can talk about yet, or I will talk about yet. I think I will talk about it in the next podcast episode, which makes this motivating for me to keep it up, because I'm not good at keeping things up, but I will tell that another podcast episode. But yeah, I left my old boyfriend, it was my decision, I left him, which sometimes or when I just left him, felt horrible. Cause when you leave someone that is in a bad mental state, you just feel so guilty. And I'm allowed to say that because I'm not sure if still, because I have zero contact with my ex-boyfriend, I don't know anything that's going on in his life, I don't have his social media where pretty much if there is something we have to talk about, which we don't actually, or not anymore, we send each other like really, really impersonal WhatsApp messages, but this hasn't been the case for like a year. But I know he's in a very bad mental place, or at least he was before I left him and after I left him, but it just felt horrible, but I really had to like learn and grow and heal, which I've been doing. I've been in therapy for like over a year now, and that not because of the relationship I was in, that was because I was having like a lot of hardship, not with family members, but there was just a lot that happened in my family, a lot of loss. Oh, I don't want to cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not over this because grief is a very, very hard topic and it's different for everyone, but I better and I can talk about it better than I was able to. Why am I crying again? I should stop. Anyways, grief was a big part of my 2024 slash 2025. Oh, can I stop crying? This is so cringe. I hate crying in public or in front of people. I really do hate that, and I feel like even though my eyes are not teary, my voice sounds shaky, and I don't like that. So can we just laugh it out? Okay. Whew. So I've been spending time with my family a lot, with my new boyfriend, obviously. He lives with his dad, so I've been spending time with them a lot. They're so great, amazing, and they've really been helping my healing journey. Also, my family. Can my stop can my can my voice stop being shaky? Wow, I hate this. Let's just change the topic. So I'm trying to get this podcast on YouTube. Well, this podcast will be on YouTube soon, probably in a week. So we are trying to get this on YouTube, it's so exciting. You will be able to listen to this podcast for free on YouTube. Also, I believe on Apple Podcasts it's free. I don't believe on all the other platforms and including Spotify, it's free. I think you have to have Spotify premium. I don't know. Maybe you can listen to it, but you have ads. But if you want an ad-free, Apple Podcasts is your place, and yeah, maybe we'll have some in-podcast ads soon, but we'll not talk about that now because we still manifest that. That would be so great. So, for YouTube, I have like a such cool vlog, it's a Thailand vlog. That vlog is two years old soon. That was like when I was in a really good mental state. That vlog will be uploaded on YouTube soon. I wanted to upload it last week, but there's been a problem with the audio file, it doesn't sync up with the video, which is so upsetting. I have to check that. And yeah, also in that video, we had a car accident, it was so crazy, but I'll explain more in the vlog. And then I have a vlog that is one year old, it's from China from my Shanghai vlog. I have to edit that and upload that too. So there's like two vlogs in the making for YouTube, so it stays fun. And yeah, that's just I guess all that's been happening. I will start my Stampai soon, which means for work that I stay home, and when someone gets cold and sick, I have to go to work, which is fine. I like Stampai, but I'm just gonna clean my house, I'm gonna do my laundry. I have like four big laundry baskets, it's crazy, but I really have to do that. My boyfriend, he's so neat, he barely has laundry, he always cleans up his stuff, like his room is so clean, and any of my apartment. It's clean, but it's sometimes not that tidy. Cause when I fly, I just put the luggage there, and then I have laundry, and I can only wash my laundry once a week, which is way too little. Yeah, that's crazy. But that's all basically about a little summary, and I really want to get to do podcasts again because it's fun. It's fun guys, and a lot of people have listened to my last episode. I was so surprised. That episode has like three times more downloads and listens than all the other like podcast episodes, so I really have to be more consistent because I guess people do care about what I talk about. So, yeah, that was it. I hope you guys have like an amazing week. It's Monday for me right now. I will stay in bed or maybe tidy the kitchen, I don't know yet. But that's all. I hope you have an amazing week, and I see you hopefully soon.