The Birthday / Funeral Weekend
**This post was transferred from the now defunct "The Long Ease" blog.**
I decided I'm going to make the weekend a separate post rather than rolling the weekend highlights into today's treatment post. It'll be easier that way...
So. Friday evening, my dear old friend, Dawn, from my Colorado days, arrived for a visit. She was amazing enough to offer to stay through Tuesday morning so that she could house/dog-sit for us while we were in New Jersey Sunday to Monday. Only a true friend would come for a visit from thousands of miles away and hang out while you leave - just to help you out. Dawn is pretty spectacular. I'm glad we at least got to hang out on Friday night and all day Saturday.
Sunday morning (Ryan's birthday) we threw a bag in the car and headed east. My beautiful cousin, Marna, passed away last week and Ryan understood my feeling the need to attend the service. As a child, Marna and her sister, Karla, were the first people I really remember just idolizing. They were beautiful and smart and cultured and I could not have looked up to them more. Not being there for her service was just not an option for me. Poor Ryan, though... driving for 7 hours is hardly a birthday celebration - especially through Pennsylvania. But we did get to celebrate with my parents at the (surprisingly fantastic) steakhouse next to our hotel in Fair Lawn.
Monday morning, we attended the short graveside service and then visited with family over a lovely lunch. Short but sweet catch-up time with my sister, cousins, aunt and uncle and then back on the road for 7 hours to get home in time to hang with Dawn for a tiny bit before resting up to go back to treatment today.
The only things I have to share that are bladder related from the weekend, are that I had just one moment of really intense pain/urgency during the drive. It's hard for me to describe the bad moments in a way that gets across what it's like. But I feel like I do need to try, because I don't know if I've managed to share the really bad parts in any detail yet. And I definitely had a bad moment as we neared the hotel on Sunday.
I took over driving about 2 hours from our destination. Of course, my multiple road coffees caught up to me right as we hit the part of New Jersey where there are almost NO exits that seem to have anything reasonable at them (and by "anything reasonable" I mean anything with a non-scary public restroom). When the pain and urgency combine, it really takes a great deal of focus to not just pee my pants. These moments are less frequent now, but as we zipped along though NYC-bound traffic on I-80, I had one. I could not even manage to figure out how to try to get off at an exit. I was three lanes out and damn near having a panic attack. All I could do was ask Ryan to tell me how far to the hotel. Thirteen minutes. I had to stick it out.
(The last time I had one of these moments was while driving also. And the part that is hardest to explain is that the last time, it took about 15 minutes to find a gas station that had a restroom I could use... and then another 5 minutes of sitting still in the car until I knew I could walk the 30 feet into the building without an accident.)
That's the part I have the hardest time explaining and I definitely had no way to get it across to Ryan as we whizzed (accidental pun) along toward the Hyatt Place. Once we finally made it there, I had to run past my parents who were waiting outside for us, to get to the bathroom. Ugh. Terrible. But I did make it and the spare pair of underpants I packed remained unused. Whew.
Total number of times I had to pee on Friday: 4
Saturday: 6
Sunday: 7
Monday: 8
(Doesn't seem like this is the direction we want these numbers to be going...)
Now, I will get us back up to date on the HBOT treatments in a new post shortly. Stay tuned.
Xxo, Phoebe Marie
I decided I'm going to make the weekend a separate post rather than rolling the weekend highlights into today's treatment post. It'll be easier that way...
So. Friday evening, my dear old friend, Dawn, from my Colorado days, arrived for a visit. She was amazing enough to offer to stay through Tuesday morning so that she could house/dog-sit for us while we were in New Jersey Sunday to Monday. Only a true friend would come for a visit from thousands of miles away and hang out while you leave - just to help you out. Dawn is pretty spectacular. I'm glad we at least got to hang out on Friday night and all day Saturday.
Sunday morning (Ryan's birthday) we threw a bag in the car and headed east. My beautiful cousin, Marna, passed away last week and Ryan understood my feeling the need to attend the service. As a child, Marna and her sister, Karla, were the first people I really remember just idolizing. They were beautiful and smart and cultured and I could not have looked up to them more. Not being there for her service was just not an option for me. Poor Ryan, though... driving for 7 hours is hardly a birthday celebration - especially through Pennsylvania. But we did get to celebrate with my parents at the (surprisingly fantastic) steakhouse next to our hotel in Fair Lawn.
Monday morning, we attended the short graveside service and then visited with family over a lovely lunch. Short but sweet catch-up time with my sister, cousins, aunt and uncle and then back on the road for 7 hours to get home in time to hang with Dawn for a tiny bit before resting up to go back to treatment today.
The only things I have to share that are bladder related from the weekend, are that I had just one moment of really intense pain/urgency during the drive. It's hard for me to describe the bad moments in a way that gets across what it's like. But I feel like I do need to try, because I don't know if I've managed to share the really bad parts in any detail yet. And I definitely had a bad moment as we neared the hotel on Sunday.
I took over driving about 2 hours from our destination. Of course, my multiple road coffees caught up to me right as we hit the part of New Jersey where there are almost NO exits that seem to have anything reasonable at them (and by "anything reasonable" I mean anything with a non-scary public restroom). When the pain and urgency combine, it really takes a great deal of focus to not just pee my pants. These moments are less frequent now, but as we zipped along though NYC-bound traffic on I-80, I had one. I could not even manage to figure out how to try to get off at an exit. I was three lanes out and damn near having a panic attack. All I could do was ask Ryan to tell me how far to the hotel. Thirteen minutes. I had to stick it out.
(The last time I had one of these moments was while driving also. And the part that is hardest to explain is that the last time, it took about 15 minutes to find a gas station that had a restroom I could use... and then another 5 minutes of sitting still in the car until I knew I could walk the 30 feet into the building without an accident.)
That's the part I have the hardest time explaining and I definitely had no way to get it across to Ryan as we whizzed (accidental pun) along toward the Hyatt Place. Once we finally made it there, I had to run past my parents who were waiting outside for us, to get to the bathroom. Ugh. Terrible. But I did make it and the spare pair of underpants I packed remained unused. Whew.
Total number of times I had to pee on Friday: 4
Saturday: 6
Sunday: 7
Monday: 8
(Doesn't seem like this is the direction we want these numbers to be going...)
Now, I will get us back up to date on the HBOT treatments in a new post shortly. Stay tuned.
Xxo, Phoebe Marie
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