Weekend Well Worth it!

Friday was a critical day, I went into Kirklin Clinic at 7am to get labs drawn and left two hours later with approval from my nurse and the doctors to travel! Another bonus was that all my counts were in the normal range. After weeks of hearing this is too high, and this is too low and your levels are just off, NORMAL was the best thing I could have heard. I came home had a celebratory omelet and got my bag together to fly to Baltimore for Rae's bachelorette party.

Of course nothing can be easy and on Friday hurricane Bill was working it's way up the East coast. This fact became overwhelmingly clear about an hour into the flight when the plane started jerking, dropping and making noises that a plane simply should not make. So there were a few things going on at this point in my head. A) We are 40,000 feet up in the air, dropping and noises are no good. B) Steroids make me nauseous and probably should have gone without the omelet. C) my heart rate is extremely elevated and that can't be good for the platelets. While all this is going through my head I realize that less than a week ago I was in the hospital for a life threatening illness and dammit I am not going down in a plane crash! So I spent the rest of the flight concentrating on keeping my eggs down my staring at my toes. Which I might say were perfectly manicured in Basket Case Pink and are truly well proportioned. Needless to say I landed safely at BWI.

Rae picked me up from the airport and we heading back to Frederick where I got to hang out with my dad for a few hours. He made home made kielbasa and kraut for dinner, it was fabulous. I also got to meet Cinnabar, the new Australian puppy in the household. She is cute and fuzzy and a little on the unruly side, but precious none the less. Becky came over after dinner and hung out with me for a few hours so we could catch up on gossip.

I decided to go to Pilate's with my mom on Saturday morning. Now I enjoy high cardio activities and while I do enjoy Pilate's and yoga I have always regarded it as more of a light toning and stretching activity. This was also the first time I have 'worked out' in almost three to four weeks. And it kicked my ass. I'm still sore. Kinda sad really, doesn't look like I'll be in TBC shape anytime soon. Good news is the REC offers Pilate's, so I'll have to see if I can make it to some of those classes.

The rest of Saturday was all about Rae. I met her and her family at the Braddock Community Center for the bridal shower. Her mom, Mary, made fabulous food! And her aunt provided antique ring holders for everyone to choose from. I got two (there were some left over) one that's sterling silver in the shape of a swan and a wooden one with two white ducks painted on it. Now I've never been to a bridal shower, but I thought this one was top notch and HELLO PRESENTS! I really need to work on this getting married business.

From there Rae and I went back to her apartment in Ellicott City to unload the loot. And then the unthinkable happened. I took out my laptop to get directions to the hotel, after writing everything down I closed the top and heard a pop. Now that's not normal. So i reopened it and too my horror the screen was cracked like a spider web. I turned it on and turned it off and turned it on again, closed it opened it, because all those things were going to make the screen go back to normal. They didn't. And I came to the conclusion that August is just not my month.

Decided not to be a debbie downer I put that to the back of my mind and Rae and I heading off to Baltimore to get the party started! Katz called from the hotel to say they did not have our suite ready yet, which was ridiculous since it was after 5pm, and they were giving us free drinks at the bar. Once we got there and the room was ready Katz and Courtney went up to decorate while Rae and I waited on the rest of the party! In total there were nine of us.

The night started off with an entertaining lingerie shower a few pre-night out bachelorette themed gamed and then off to dinner at RUB in Federal Hill. Which if you are in the Baltimore area and you like BBQ, go there! They have awesome brisket and sweet potato french fries. They also gave us a private room which was smart and our waiter wished us on our way with a round of shots on the house.

From there we walked to the bar district of Federal Hill. But once again it was not my month. Half way there while admiring the brickwork of the condos lining the street I managed to trip, break my shoe and hit the pavement. The only one in the group with a low platelet count falls. What are the chances? Thankfully one of the other girls lived near by so I walked to her house and picked up a pair of flip flops, much safe than heels, checked for major damage, there was none, and we headed back out.

Now another lovely steroid side effect is that I don't sleep. And I have been warned on several occasions about not drinking and taking Ambien, so I got about four hours of sleep. I got up on Sunday, picked up a bit then headed over to see Claire's apartment behind Camden Yards. Cute little place. On my mom's order she drove me back to the hotel afterwards, probably a good idea really.

We heading out of the hotel around noon to pick up lunch and Rae, Court and I spent the rest of a splendid afternoon re cooping pool side working on our tan. I made it to the airport with no problems and this flight was much better than the last. Smooth the whole way and the steward even told me he loved my hair. Jason and the dogs picked me up from the airport and I must have been feeling better because when we got home I swept the entire house. My nurse warned me about that.

I've decided that labs go quicker the earlier you get there. So I got to the clinic today at 7am again to get my blood drawn, then took a walk over to Starbucks in the North Pavilion. The barista remembered me and said I was looking so much better. I also stopped in the Blood Bank to say hi and Cindy my favorite pheresis tech was there. She was so happy to see that I was doing well and said she would tell everyone I said hi.

I headed back to the clinic to get my results. At that point I got a text from Jason that the Xterra wouldn't start. Seriously?! One more day until September. He was able to clean off the battery terminals enough to get it started while I was waiting on my results go, so that issue may have resolved its self. My nurse came out and apparently travel and drinking did have a slight negative effect on my levels. My platelet count is down to 186 and my RBC is at 10. But she said just to take it easy the rest of the week and they should rebound. So that's what I plan to do. I took my laptop to Apple and being the wonderful company they are they ordered me a new screen at no charge and will have it fixed back to new later this week. Finally good news!!

So now I'm working on my work website from home and heading to my MBA class this evening. Hopefully I can follow that up with the two episodes of Top Chef and Project Runway that I recorded last week. Apparently there are two chefs on there from Frederick, so root for them if you watch the show.

My dad is coming down to hang out with my on Thursday and COLLEGE FOOTBALL STARTS THIS WEEKEND! So once I make it to September it should be smooth sailing.