The Big Weekend Win

Hi Ya'll, thanks so much for the response on my rambling post last week. Since you liked it so much, I thought I'd share some events of this weekend.

Saturday morning, my alarm clock was set for 8am. A time much too early for a 'normal' Saturday. I had planned to leave no later than 8:45 to drive the 25-30 minutes to Reston, VA, for the Solo and Ensemble Festival. However, I didn't really hit the road until closer to 8:55.

The first performer for whom I accompanied was scheduled to play at 9:28 and parking is ALWAYS horrendous at these events. It's kinda like a Frogger game (yes, I'm revealing my age here); however this time, everybody is following the Frog to Jump on the evacuated parking space. I made it to the classroom by 9:20. Whew!!

Then for the next 90 minutes, I jumped from room to room playing piano and giving encouragement to my students and additional performers who were not my students. Made it out of there at 11:05 and home around 11:30, allowing a few extra minutes to just close my eyes recoup (quickly).

Don't remember if I told you or not, but there was a 1:30pm wedding to attend in downtown DC. The plan was to leave my Falls Church, VA home absolutely no later than 12:30pm. About 12:05, my Sweetie stirred me saying that he was going to get dressed and I knew I needed to as well.

It was easy. My dress was ready and I just needed to made the hair look a bit better (leave-in conditioner, big brush, hairdryer, then hairspray would do the trick). BUT.....the Sweetie discovered that he really should have checked the wrinkle-status of his chosen shirt the night before. Yikes, time to pray that the iron (which is hardly ever used) was where I thought it might be and time to take over ironing duty. This happened at about 12:15.

Well, time when such that we managed to look spiffy, except one thing was missing. I couldn't find my make-up bag. See, that shows you how often I actually wear make-up. LOL. It wasn't where I thought I had left it. (Yes, my things are THAT disorganized around here.) So go au naturel did I with the "I think you look great as you are" from the Sweetie.

We hit the road at about 12:40 and made good time into town. Parking was unbelievably unavailable on this glorious Saturday afternoon, but we were lucky to find a parking spot about 2 blocks from the church. It was after the 2nd pass by the church at which my Sweetie said, "ugh, I really should have dropped you off." My reply, "no, no, that's okay. Let's keep looking." Made it into the church just as my feet were beginning to cramp up.

After the wedding ceremony, it was time to travel to the reception which was held at the Arts Club of Washington which is located in the James Monroe House on I Street (not far from Pennsylvania Ave and 20th St. NW). The church was at the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave and 25th St. NW. So the choice was to walk to the car, drive to the reception location, try to park again, and walk to the actually event. OR...... walk the .6 mile (or so) between the two destinations. I chose to walk.

The sun was shining but it wasn't hot. The sidewalk was uneven but I didn't trip. Maybe two-thirds there, the Sweetie asked, "how are you doing?" My response was, "I am concentrating very intently." Keep an eye on the ground, remember to swing the legs forward, and closer to the destination, simply think to the right leg - swing!! and don't drop!! Of course, my shoes had begun making the "THUD" sound so common in mild footdrop. And, I had taken my Sweetie's hand to extra support somewhere along the way. Very pleased, though, that the cardiovascular system was working efficiently and that I hardly got winded.

I made it the the Arts Club. WhooHoo!!!!! Started up the few steps to get into the Arts Club with my right leg. No go, nada, not going to happen. Left leg had to lead the way. Cocktails were being served on the 2nd floor, so up the stairs I had to go. As folks with MS are aware, sometimes you just have to adapt. I waited until the crowd had gone up before I took one step with the left foot and placed the right foot next to it. I did this all the way up, one step at a time.

The reception itself was extremely long. Cocktails at 2:30pm. Dinner at 4:00pm. Wedding cake cutting at 6:00 (?). Fortunately we were seated with friends and had plenty to talk about. The day and events couldn't have been more beautiful. Halfway through the reception, the bride and groom changed wedding attire. The bride who is Vietnamese changed into a traditional áo dài gown and the groom who is American changed into a áo gấm.

After deciding it was time to leave, my Sweetie walked back to the parked car with one other friend (who had taken the metro into town). The friend's wife stayed with me and we waited on the men to come pick us up. After a slight detour through Georgetown and then taking them to the Vienna Metro station where their car was parked, we didn't get back to Falls Church until 8pm.

I was completely WIPED OUT!!! Watched the movie, Grey Gardens, on HBO. Sweetie gave me an awesome foot rub which helped to ease some of the soreness out of my many foot joints. Went to bed and treated myself to extra Baclofen, a sleeping pill for total relaxation, and all of the other required medications. Slept like a dream.

Today, woke up still very sore, but less so than I would have been without the massage and drugs. Still, it was a very slow and sleepy day. One thing I started working on is putting together some research to present on the blog soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Overall, I feel like I completed my own "MS Walk" and survived to tell about it. Less than 1 mile, but on 'real-life' terrain and I'm as proud as can be right now. Yea me!!