warning: ancient crone blood

What I have found is that you are kind of at the mercy of whatever airline personnel fate throws you with.

There was the really nice man at the airport who asked if I wanted assistance, but then assumed that I only needed someone to walk me to the gate even though I was omg tired. So I told him, no, wheelchair would be greatly appreciated, and he found someone for me. The person pushing the chair was very nice, but kept up a running commentary about how young I was to need a cane and a wheelchair. >.< She did get me through security super fast, though, and without anyone bumping me.

Most of the time I walked, though, because I was worried about (1) deep vein thrombosis from sitting too long; (2) muscles stiffening up from sitting too long.

I've found that the worst people, so far, in terms of helping people with disabilities - at least maybe just people who "are young and look fine" - are actual flight attendants. I don't know, maybe they're just really busy. When I've flown Internationally before, flight attendants seem to be more attentive about telling you where your seat is and helping you with luggage, etc., and when I had hip pain one was very nice about getting me ice so I could ice my joints. (I brought empty zip loc bags with me and put the ice in there, works like a charm.)

Not so here. When I asked about where to put my cane they just said, "In the overhead compartment. Do you need assistance with your bag?" And I said I could stow it under my seat, so then they ignored me. No one told me what they told an elderly-very-obviously-in-need-of-help-gentleman, which is that if you're preboarding and you put your cane in the overhead compartment it gets pushed to the back and then you can't get it out. So I had to rely mostly on the kindness of other passengers to get it out, because when I mentioned this to the flight attendant her response was a very annoyed, "Well you'll have to wait until everyone else deboards, I can't get back there."

Travelling with the cane otherwise was great, it did help when my energy was flagging, and it meant that I got offered a seat a couple times and people didn't question me too much about whether I needed help. Which was especially nice since I didn't travel with an advocate. If I travelled all the time I'd probably get a foldable cane I could just stow under my seat, thus eliminating the need for the overhead bin altogether.

Other thing I should have packed but didn't - a rolled up towel to use as lumbar support. Instead I used various articles of clothes I had in my carry on, but the towel thing usually works best.

Thanks to everyone for their tips - and yes, checking my bag was the best decision ever, it really, really helped save my shoulder.