This weekend, I’m heading to Topsail Island for a week of vacation with the family. Given how much time all of us have had to take off in the last few weeks with all the chaos, we have all tossed around the idea of not going after all – but I think we all came to the conclusion that we needed the time off now more than ever. So we’ll be hanging out at Liza and Bruce’s canal-side house, on a very quiet island – and all the kids should be back in school, so there should be lots of peace and quiet 
I’ve decided that I don’t even care if it rains, cause I would love to just sit and read and nap and laugh and watch movies – though I will certainly be taking lots of walks on the beach if it’s nice! I will take my camera and strive to take more pictures than I usually do (which is to say, take more than none). Until I do, here’s a pic of the island so you can picture me in your mind
Would it be enough to tell you that in the last two weeks I’ve been in two different urgent care centers in two different states? or that I’ve seen over 7 different medical professionals in the same time? or that I’ve had my luggage lost and hotel reservations misplaced? no? you want more? ok…well…
I arrived in California, raring to go for the last part of Wedding Week 2006, including on Thursday an almost full-day bachelorette party walking around downtown San Francisco, ice skating, and eating pizza late into the night. By the end of that, I ended up in a lot of pain and ended up in the urgent care center the next morning, having been diagnosed with a cyst that needed to be dealt with (while everyone else got their nails done, no less!). The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that night were lovely, and after another visit to urgent care the following morning, and hair appointments, and pictures in 100+ heat outside and in the church (with NO A/C!), Frances and Jonathan were joined in marriage in a beautiful service.
The reception was air-conditioned luckily, and I had lots of bubbly apple juice, and the music was great, and I took it easy with no dancing til the very end, due to the aforementioned health issues. But one of the groomsmen asked me to dance for the last dance, and I figured, ‘what harm could I do in 3 minutes on the dance floor?’ – well, apparently a lot, cause as he (the groom’s twin brother, by the way) went to dip me at the end, my shoes slipped, and, well, we both ended up on the floor, but only after I heard a very loud, very ominous ‘pop’ from my left knee. It immediately swelled up to about 3 times its normal size, and was extremely difficult to handle putting weight on it. Since I was already going to the urgent care place the next morning anyway, they XRayed the knee, found nothing broken, but it was too swollen for them to tell anything about what was wrong. So I ended up with a knee immobilizer (brace) and crutches, a dash to pick up a refill prescription for pain meds, and almost didn’t make my flight out of SF to go to Montana for the conference at MSU.
Upon arrival in Bozeman MT, my bags were not on my flight (the power was also out in the airport – are you starting to see a pattern here?) – they didn’t arrive at the motel til almost midnight (the motel is a whole other story ). Basically, I had to go to an urgent care center in Bozeman every day I was there until the last day of the conference, which was not made any easier by the fact that I was either on crutches or in a brace the whole time. The conference ended up being quite different than we expected, but still somewhat helpful I hope.
On the way back, I had to stop over in San Francisco, and after a debacle with hotel reservations, I finally had a room for the night and got in bed early, cause I had to be at the airport at 5am the next day. That flight left late, which made me miss my connection in Dallas and delayed my arrival in NC by 3 hours.
Now that I’m back, I’ve finally been to an orthpedic surgeon, who thinks that I’ve torn a meniscus (which is better than tearing a ligament) – so I had an MRI tonight to see the tear, and I’ll talk to
Lessons learned:
~ I hate United, and I love American
~ Sometime in my life, I WILL fly first class!
~ As a friend mentioned when I recounted the whole story to her, ‘you don’t normally attract this amount of drama’, and I though ‘I KNOW!’ – I try to avoid drama like crazy, but this trip it seemed to be stalking me.
~ As messy as things were, God was clearly involved, as I had great medical care, and the urgent care centers were always within a couple blocks of my hotel at the time.
~ I realized how much I like to be in control of every part of my life, and given how impossible me being in control was on this trip, I had a really hard time – I didn’t have a car, or any control over my schedule, and I was in a different time zone so getting a hold of people back home was hard – it really forced me to rely on the ‘kindness of strangers’ (or people I knew) – and as much as I hate to admit that I need help, people really came through to help me through the whole trip – whether it was the bridesmaid’s mom who drove me around and picked up gauze at the drugstore (Thanks Maggie and Kathy!), or the family friend who picked up a backpack and various assorted pharmacy stuff before my flight out of CA, or just people being concerned about my wellbeing after hearing what was going on. I don’t know if it will be any easier next time I need to let go and let others help me, but I know I need to learn to accept help from the people I love. As my mom said while this whole thing was going on, I need to be willing to accept the ministry of others in my life. So, while I hope that I won’t need to do it anytime soon, I will hopefully be more open to receiving that help when the time comes.
Whoohoo! Love the wireless internet at Charlotte Douglas Int’l Airport! I’ve got to leave for my gate in a minute, but maybe I’ll be able to check in once I get to Dallas/Fort Worth, since my layover there is about 2 hours. Being here reminds me that traveling during the week is much different than on the weekends – I’m surrounded by business people (mostly men) in the ‘corporate area’ (where the wireless is), instead of mostly families and vacationing couples. And the fun piano guy that was here on my last trip (to Orlando) is not playing today 
I’m off!
So the trip to Florida for my first big national meeting was a success!
The poster session went really well – everyone was really nice and receptive to the ideas, and most everyone said something like ‘well done’ or ‘good job’ after I’d walked them through the data – it felt really comfortable, which is a first for me, I’m usually really awkward talking about my work, esp with people who know so much more than I do about the field… but it was good, and generated some good discussion/ideas to think about.
And I got to meet some great people – my boss’s old boss (like my ‘grandfather’ in the science world 
), several of his old students (which was great, cause we talk about them all the time and I’d never met them – and they were awesome!), other famous people in the world of my research… so a good trip altogether… I’m still glad it’s over, as it was kinda stressful and exhausting (that’s a lot of lectures to attend all day starting at 8am) – but it was definitely worth it, and I’m kinda excited about spending some time this summer looking at post-docs and other opportunities for post-PhD work!
I’ve arrived, in the land of sun and sand and animated creatures – my hotel is pretty nice (though they put me in a smoking room, which I’m not too happy about ), lots of amenities (fitness center, pool, laundry room, etc) and a bit closer to the convention center than I figured, which is good considering how incredibly HOT it is here, even at 5pm! Toasty! We’ll be inside during the hottest parts of the day, inside this incredibly cool-looking convention center:
And there’s this adorable pink castle hotel next door (called ‘The Castle‘ ) – wish I’d thought to book my room there…
The trip was pretty uneventful, though I did see a girl getting taken off to the side after a drug-sniffing dog got VERY happy sniffing her bag – and it was funny how I could pick out several other people going to the same convention based on the long poster tubes they were all carrying on the plane – plus us science geeks can always sense each other – it’s a gift
I’m off to look through the program for the convention, so I can plan what I want to attend when during the week – still open for suggestions for fun things to do in Orlando (keeping in mind I won’t have a car or too much to spend on it)…
