The mermaids singing

Helpful hint if you're becoming more disabled as you age or as a condition progresses (i.e., if you're new to seeking travel assistance): figure out what sorts of thing are challenges for you in your day to day life, and see how the airports you'll be using can help.

In my case: I have relatively bad arthritis (some weeks worse than others), use a cane, have balance issues and intermittent vertigo.

The two airports I used (O'Hare in Chicago and Sea-Tac in Seattle) are usually both on the lists of reasonably accessible airports (guides, braille elevator signs, etc), and both had free wheelchairs. This would have been great given the extremely long terminal hallways without moving sidewalks, but unfortunately, it was too late by the time I found out.

Knowing about the free wheelchairs would have been especially useful when I was heading home. The TSA lines were wildly long at Sea-Tac and even though I explained my difficulty with standing in lines to SeaTac staff, I was told I had to go to the regular line (note: a roving TSA agent ended up - unprompted (although I probably looked bedraggled :D) - moving me to a faster line, but once you invoke a disability, accommodations should be made as a matter of course.

My return trip from Sea-Tac (after 5 days of hobbling around WorldCon) was also problematic given the inclines between each gate in Terminal D. Why do you have to trudge uphill with teenagers sitting on the side ledges, hanging their legs over the banisters? I shall probably never know.

Plus, there was no seating accessible to me at SeaTac. All the chairs would have been perfectly comfortable for me to sit in, but my cartilage-light knees & my vertigo won't usually allow me to get up facing forward without something to touch for balance in front of me once I'm up. I usually need to turn sideways to get up from a chair (unless it's a relatively tall chair) and touch the back for balance (unless I'm sitting next to a wall), which isn't possible with rows of freestanding chairs that all have armrests and all face each other. In my case, I found a lovely guy at the gate next to my departure gate (my gate personnel weren't there yet) who basically stole a wheelchair (the basic airport wheelchairs are just hard chairs on wheels with movable armrests, i.e., my favorites) and brought me to my departure gate, leaving me to sit in the stolen - and oddly comfortable - chair next to something I could use for balance later for the next hour. This was great, but it took me 25 minutes finding somebody to help)

Note: when I was heading to Seattle, O'Hare's departure gate did have chairs without armrests which made it easy for me to stand up without tipping over onto my face. I don't know whether having some chairs without armrests are part of ADA compliance, but even the lobby for O'Hare's car rental and bus pickup facility had a few of those. Thank you, O'Hare.

On the plus side, there were gender free bathrooms at O'Hare (single user) and at SeaTac (including multi user). I only used the one at SeaTac and the stalls all had full-length doors, which - let's be real - all public restrooms should have. I did overhear a youngish girl - maybe 12? - expressing shock to her slightly older sister about that, but then her parents said "Go in and pee. Our flight's going to be boarding soon." Good work, parents,