Hypermobility Syndrome

In the ongoing process of doctors, referrals, x-rays, etc. to get my chronic back pain diagnosed and fixed, I went to the physical therapist today and had the best health care experience I've ever had. He took his time, spent an hour with me, and made a diagnosis that totally made sense to me and just felt right. I left feeling completely high on life knowing that someone knew what was wrong and how to make it better. Let me show you in pictures! B is an example of someone who does not have hypermobility syndrome:

Notice the humped, barely 90 degree angle of his back and the inability to palm the floor.

Now look at someone who does:

Notice the flat back and the palms on the floor.

So without boring you with all of the details that I'm too tired to write about anyway, basically my joints and ligaments are looser than they should be, which causes them to move around and cause pain. It's something that you're born with, but because I grew up as a gymnast and a dancer, I had great muscles that kept my wiggly spinal joints in place. Now that I'm an adult with a desk job, my muscles aren't good enough to keep everything together. In fact, it's an extremely common injury for former gymnasts. According to the article I found online, it's what makes you a good gymnast. So when the physical therapist placed his hands on my hips and pushed together, it instantly relieved my pain. But now I have to get my spinal and stomach muscles strong enough so they can do that on their own so he doesn't have to follow me around everywhere, squeezing my hips together. Woo Hoo!!! I know what's wrong!! And I can actually do something about it! Speaking of which, I'm falling asleep as I write this, so I need to go do my nightly exercises.

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Update:
More recent posts on this topic here and here.

Birthday Party

Whew!! What a party! Dino Girl threw such an amazing black & white party and it was so much more than I ever could have asked for. There are far too many pictures to post here, but just give me a shout if you want me to send you the whole Kodak Gallery album. There was a beautiful cake, a chocolate fountain, a scrapbook made by all of my co-workers, everyone (except the birthday girl) was dressed in black in white, and about half of us made it until 4am. How's that for someone who went to bed at 7:45pm two nights ago?!

S, Ithaca Chick, K (who I spend my days reciting "The Office" quotes with), me, Dino Girl, & A.

Today, after sleeping until 11am, driving home from Dino Girl's house, and napping some more, I convinced B to get out of the house. And by "convinced" I mean that I forced him to get off the couch and attend the Harvest Festival at the winery down the road by giving him a long and intense speech about how we had to take advantage of the nice weather and we were not going to spend our Sunday watching tv for 9 hours, etc, etc. Thankfully, he came around and we drove down the road so we could celebrate the harvest season and just be outside for once.

It was a really nice and relaxing way to spend the afternoon. In addition to learning how they make their limoncella and grappa, we got to take a hay ride around the growing area and taste the actual wine grapes right off the vine - it was very cool for two people who love wine so much. This Friday begins the two-day Board Meeting and the Saturday gala, so you may not here from me much this week. I'll give it a shot, but don't expect much!

30

Weeeellllll, it's official! Yes, I am now 30. I've been excited to turn 30 for quit some time now, so this is in no way traumatic. Life in your 20s is just so nuts and everything is falling into place, and coming together and B and I had a particularly eventful 20s decade, so that definitely made this transition easier. Plus, being in the middle of your engagement year is a wonderful was to turn 30 - new decade, new marriage.

This morning, B spent the better part of 4 hours putting the new wine cabinet together. I won't even get into it here, but there were some design flaws that made it a nightmare. And of course, I was begging him to just call the 800 number and demand that they send us a new one, but a brief four hours later, all was fixed. And now.... it's STUNNING!! It's definitely my most favorite piece of furniture right now! Not that one usually picks favorites with something as seemingly mundane as furniture, but it's just so pretty!!


After the day of wine cabinet engineering, we went on a lovely picnic at one of our favorite small waterfalls. By the time we got there, the sky looked a little... suspicious. So we ate kind of quickly and made little glances at the sky, but after a few minutes, Mother Nature won and the sky opened up. We started manically throwing cheese and hummus and bread and olives into the backpack and tried to take shelter under the trees to ride out the storm. But I'm happy to say that the storm did indeed pass and we resumed our picnic. It was so nice. The gorges here are just so stunning. Now it's off to the Black & White party that Dino Girl is throwing for me!

7:45pm

Uh... that's what time I fell asleep last night. Feel free to point and laugh :) It's nice to know that one day when we have kids, B can put the whole family to bed at the exact same time.

Happy moments in a world of insanity

OK, quick posting while I'm semi-awake enough to do it! We are a brief week away from the gala/annual board meeting weekend insanity, so everyday my brain gets just a little bit mushier. But last night - which feels like a year ago - my mom surprised me by driving up while I was at work and having a whole meal and THREE desserts prepared. THREE! And that was on top of the chicken, stuffing, and homemade applesauce. It was a very, very nice way to come home from work and have a relaxing night where I didn't get sucked into the computer (hello!) or tv.

Then tonight, I came home to this super pretty handbag!! A 30th birthday present from M in Vermont. When I got home from work today, me and the handbag got some quality time as I carefully removed all of the little plastic covers from the tassels. The bag is so special that even it's tassels require protection! Thank you M!


I also came home to this big box!!!

Oh wait... you don't have my wedding registry memorized and automatically know that there is only one thing that could come in a box this big? Weird. Well, I'll tell you that this big box contains a beeeaaauuuuutiful wine cabinet that Feather Nester, Sweet Nothings, and several other friends went in on to give us for a wedding present. I told B that we had to have an easy dinner tonight so he could devote the evening to putting it together :) He's pretty burned out from work himself, though, so it may not happen tonight. Maybe tomorrow night.

I'm kind of dreading the immense amount of work waiting for me tomorrow, but I am SOO happy that it's Friday. A fact that I was totally unaware of until about an hour ago, so spending the evening watching tv and putting a wine cabinet together sounds great!

Validation

Maya Angelou said once that more than anything else in this world, we as humans seek validation. More than love, and shelter, and wealth, and fame, we seek to know that someone else is going through what we have been through - that we are not alone. I have never forgotten that quote because it tricks me every time. It tricks me because when ever I feel upset or frustrated or annoyed, I remember the quote and think to myself "it wouldn't matter who else was going through this! I'm still angry/frustrated/annoyed at the situation!" And then, almost inevitably, at some point I find out that I am not alone and someone near to me who I love and trust has, in fact, gone through something very similar. And then I think... "See! Yes! It sucks, right?! I knew it! Thank you dear friend!" And the thing is, it's not enough to have someone say "many other women have gone through this very thing, I'm sure." You actually have to talk to the person, trust them, hear their story, and then see just how not alone in your thinking you really are.

So that's what happened yesterday. Not many people wrote in the public comment section of the blog, but I got some very lovely private emails. Wonderful and reassuring emails about how they too didn't have the greatest experience while wedding dress shopping, or how they felt luke warm about their dress until they actually wore it, about how the wedding was about so much more than the dress, etc, etc. So thank you for that - it really did make me feel better.

On that note, I'm leaving you with a video for Post Secret. Post Secret is a community art project started years ago where people send in their secrets on postcards and the man, Frank Warren, posts them to his website every Sunday. I'm not a crier, but this video is the one thing that can make me cry every single time. It's honesty and hope is so overwhelming, it will bowl you over. My greatest hope in life is that I do one project, one business, create one situation for the world that is as therapeutic and honest as Post Secret is.

Shopping of all kinds

So we went for round 3 of wedding dress shopping this weekend in Albany. B and his dad went golfing, while my future mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and cousin-in-law(??) went dress shopping with me. It was so sweet of them to come along and give their opinions (which I really needed) on what felt like hundreds of dresses, and I really am so grateful for their involvement and kindness, but I have to confess... it sucked. Not "sucked" in that way where you're sick and in bed for a week and feel like you want to die. But sucked in that way where you're "supposed" to enjoy this process and you're just not. Nope, not fun, don't like it. And maybe it's just the sheer pressure: "Oooooohhhhh..... wedding dress shopping!! Oh my god, how fun!!! You'll remember this for the rest of your life... you'll never forget that moment when you just step into that dress and everyone starts crying and you'll just know. It's the dress that everyone will stare at as you walk down the aisle, and it will be in pictures for the rest of your life." Well, as desperate as I am to live in that Kate Hudson, romantic, wedding movie scene, I'm finding that I don't live there. This must be how people who don't want kids feel. Everyone really expects and wants you to feel that "thing" and you're just not feelin' it.

My basic problem: I feel like just about all of the dresses are pretty, and none of them are amazing. That's what it comes down to. I don't get that "wow, I'd love to write you a check for $1000 for this dress" emotion. Now I understand why rich people have their dresses made. Because there are also lots of dresses where you think that if you could just change this one thing (and it's always the one thing that isn't changeable, I'd love it). So, I'm stepping back from then entire process. I have the pictures, and I just want to sit and picture our wedding, and picture the location and the day and how I want to look and see if any of the possibilities fit into that scenario. And if not, well than I'm just wearing white jeans and I'll have a Billy Idol wedding.

On a happier shopping note, B's mom and sister took me shopping on Sunday for a far less stressful shopping trip and I did 2 things I never, ever, ever do and they were SO fun... I bought clothes that aren't practical and I paid full price!! Again, clothes issues, I know! But I can really tell you that I don't ever, ever walk into a store and try things on unless they come from the sales rack. But they "forced" me to spend money on myself and also offered to buy me some of the clothes as a birthday present, so apparently I just need some strong-armed Italian women dragging me around in order to enjoy clothes shopping :) I have two cute outfits for my October birthday trip to the city so now I'm actually looking forward to the trip without even the slightest bit of stress. (Did I mention on here already that the main 30th birthday celebration is being postponed until October? September is just too crazy and I wouldn't enjoy myself in NYC, so we're waiting until my big work projects are over and then we're headed down.)

So it was quite a shopping filled weekend, but despite the setbacks, it was lovely to see B's family. In addition, we got to meet Reverand S. - a family friend of B's who will probably be the one to marry us. She was great and it means that we at least got one wedding thing accomplished this weekend!

The most bad ass architect you'll ever meet

Faithful readers... meet dad. If you know him at all, then you know how hysterically funny this photo is. Papa A. is lovable and sweet, but may actually be the dorkiest man on the planet. And trust me, I mean that in a loving way... but you have to call it like it is. In addition to owning more plaid shirts that anyone I've ever met, he's also one of the original inventors of what B and I call "dad humor," and no one laughs harder at his jokes (a term I use loosely) than him. Thank god he married a woman with an equally nerdy sense of humor who actually thinks he's funny :) So when he sent me pictures of their recent trip to California, I nearly died when I saw this. He thought the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge would be a more appropriate blog picture, but I assured him that he was wrong! I have no idea whose motorcycle he's sitting on, but the backwards hat just kills me.


On a completely unrelated note, I would like to welcome Toddler Tamer to our little blog community. TT is Feather Nester's sister-in-law and has been secretly keeping a blog for a year now, documenting life as a mom to a cute little dude, but has just now announced her secret to the world. My secret goal in life, born from the fact that life is too complicated to talk to your friends and family everyday and the fact that I'm a storyteller at heart, is to get everyone I love to start a blog so we can all keep in touch. So one more down, several to go...

B and I are headed to Albany this weekend for wedding dress shopping and golf - I'll let you figure out who's doing what. See ya Sunday!

The Adventures of Dino Girl & Lame Duck

Who is "Dino Girl?" Dino Girl does not have a blog, but that's her name as far as we're concerned here because that's what her license plate says. Ms. Dino works with me at the museum and loves dinosaurs more than any human you've ever met in your entire life... ever. The house she shares with Film Guy is a shrine of dino paraphernalia. And for the record, unless you've had a friend such as Dino Girl, you could never even imagine the things that come in dinosaur form - Easter baskets, salt and pepper shakers, coat racks, etc.

Anyway, two of Dino Girls' talents are cooking and throwing kick ass parties. B and I were fortunate enough to have an amazing dinner at their house last night, followed by one of the best desserts I've ever had! Red wine poached pears. Half a poached pear covered in the THE yummiest mixture of a red wine reduction sauce that had sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and a whole mess of other wonderful ingredients. YUM!

Also, because my 30th is only a week before the museum gala and it would be too much to take our birthday trip to NYC then, Dino Girl agreed to throw me a wonderful birthday party with a black and white theme. How cute are those invitations?! I told her that if she wasn't careful, I would tag her to make the wedding invitations :)

As for our other, slightly less cool, superhero, Lame Duck... Lame Duck is me and my accompanying frustration. The doctor called me today to tell me that the latest x-rays of my back showed nothing and that all of my vertebrae are firmly in tact. Yes, this is technically good news, I know. But it also means that there is still no discernible reason for my chronic pain. And let me just vent for a moment and say that being in pain every day, not being able to sit on anything hard, not being able to lift or pull anything, sleeping with a pillow between your knees, never being able to go grocery shopping without tearing up at the end, and leaving restaurants because they have inappropriate chairs (all the while they don't know what's wrong) is just so frustrating. Two years worth of frustrating. As much as I dislike taking medicine, I think I would actually be willing to go on a daily medicine if it meant I could increase my quality of life. So anyway... the six weeks of therapy and the subsequent MRI begin in October, so I just need to ride it out until then. Keep your fingers crossed.

Real food & Real medical care

Look! I got off work at the normal hour of 5pm today which allowed for a real meal - no microwaving anywhere, just chopping, whisking, etc. It was totally unplanned, I just figured it out as I went and it was awesome. So awesome, that we even ate at the dining room table for once. Tonight's yumminess was pan seared Tilapia with lemon, sourdough bread drizzled with basil-garlic dipping oil (roasted for about 15 minutes) and a salad of red leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, crushed walnuts, and feta - topped with a homemade vinaigrette of balsamic, olive oil, orange juice, and Dijon mustard. YUM! And it was even more fun since so many of the ingredients and dishes we used were engagement presents. See - any gift that is food related, we really do use!

As for the other big news of the day, I FINALLY (two years after the injury) got to see a specialist about my back. A REAL specialist who REALLY knew what she was doing. She did all kinds of tests in the office and examined my spine very closely. Based on my symptoms and what she found while she was feeling my spine, she thinks that my last vertebrae (L5??? The one on the bottom) may be detached from my spine. So the reason I can't sit on anything hard or walk on anything hard or go through just about any day without pain is b/c my bone may be unattached and just moving around. Nice, huh? She also said that it's a common issue with former gymnasts. So she immediately sent me down to x-ray to get more images of my spine. She's not allowed (per insurance reasons) to order an MRI until I've had six weeks of physical therapy, so I start that at the end of the month. No definitives yet, but we're on our way!

And lastly, it was a sad day in NY Giants land yesterday as their three most important players succumbed to injury and we lost the game. Here is B doing his best to root the team on, but it wasn't enough to pull them through.

Dashed Expectations & Unexpected Pleasures

Update on the arm numbness: on Friday I was still having symptoms so I decided to call my doctor. She thought that it may be a pinched nerve so she prescribed me a low dose of Valium to take for the weekend to see if it improves. Other than antibiotics and an inhaler once, I can honestly say that I've never had any kind of prescription medication. I'm bad with medicine - I have an incredibly sensitive body and I usually just don't like to take any. But aching and half numb arms are a pretty big deal, so I acquiesced.

I'm supposed to take three a day for two days and see how things feel on Monday. Last night I took two to jump start myself like they recommended and that jut put me straight to sleep at 8pm. Today I only took one at a time and it provided quite a nice feeling if I'm being totally honest. Just enough to soften the edges of life and make things a little less worrisome and over-thought. So anyway, thanks to my new chemical friend, I'm spending the weekend without too much pain. (Although I will say that when one of the doses wore off, my neck was absolutely terrible - but I'm optimistic that it's a temporary issue due to the increased work hours)

Anyway! Thanks to the new job I woke up this morning and had to remind myself three times that it really was Saturday and I really didn't have to go to work. It was the strangest feeling. I had a little chat with myself and forced myself to leave the messy house just where it was and use this precious time to escape our work stress and spend some time with B. Just as we were in the final stages of getting ready for a lovely hike and picnic, the sky opened up and exploded in downpours. It was so disheartening. We had finally found time to spend together and had finally picked what to do, and it all got washed out.

But you know what can really save the day? A lovely meal. And thanks to a lunch out at a Greek restaurant and an invitation for Jaynes Ave and her family to come over for dinner, we had two! We didn't want to clean so we just moved the party into the "man room" and it was great. Cucumbers and hummus, grilled burgers, and homemade ice cream sandwiches from the chocolate chip cookies I made the other day. Great food, great friends - they'll always save the day.

Weekday slump

That's not actually a current picture - it's just to illustrate to you how incredibly boring my Monday- Friday life has become since the new job. When you work every night until 6:30 or 7:00, fall asleep somewhere near 9:00, and are sharing one car with your fiancee who works across town, it really doesn't leave much to do or write about. I do really like the new job and the challenges it's bringing, it's just that it's kicking my already limited social life in the butt!

So... what can I tell you? B and I are interviewing wedding DJs this weekend as I get myself back on track with all of the planning. We didn't do anything for a month or so as we prepared for the craziness of the engagement party and baby shower, so I was feeling a little panicky, but we're all set now. Feather Nester kicked some serious ass and did all of the videographer research for us, saving me an entire Saturday on the couch doing the same thing. Thank god for third trimester bed rest! Additionally, Ouiser has kindly agreed to use her florist skills to put together bouquets and boutonnieres the night before the wedding so I can save money by ordering the flowers online. How amazing are my friends?!!

On a totally different note, I've had the awesome experience of having half numb arms all day. Now before you panic, let me explain... I was born with the top two vertebrae of my spine fused together. 95% of the time it doesn't affect me, but every once in a while (tense muscles? poor night's sleep?) it flares up. Usually it just causes neck pain but every once in a while (which the physical therapist said was normal) my arms get numb. Unfortunately for today, it's lasted all day long, and has been accompanied by an aching in the arms and a crazy headache. Thankfully the Advil I took, which is also a muscle relaxer, helped me out a little.

So that's all that's going on here. I have to be at work at 7:30am tomorrow, so I should head to bed this instant! Luckily the weekend is coming up, which at least brings the possibility of something interesting happening! I'll let ya know.

Philadelphia

We're back from a lovely weekend in Philly. As is usually the case with our travel weekends, I'm too tired to write about it by the time I actually get to sit down at the computer, but I'll give it a shot. We arrived in Philly late Thursday night and crashed at my brother's hotel. My brother was in town on business, so my mom carpooled down with us so she could see him also.

On Friday we went to the famous King Tut exhibit currently at the Franklin Institute of Science. In case you don't know, this is the last time these treasures will ever be allowed out of Egypt and is on track to be the most popular museum exhibit of all time. It was definitely stunning and very powerful, even for someone who knows absolutely nothing about Egypt and it's history.

Front steps of the museum

B has fun in the gift shop

M compares his size 13 shoe to Shaquille's size 22 shoe!

And my own size 7.5 shoe

After our daytime adventures and the necessary hotel nap, we were lucky enough to enjoy an amazing rehearsal dinner on the Moshulu, a 4 masted ship from the early 1900s! It was incredible. Afterwards we bought a bottle of wine and had some after dinner drinks on the bow of the ship. It also turned into a nice band reunion for B when one former member showed up unexpectedly.


The next day B had wedding responsibilities all day so my mom and I walked around historic Philly a little bit - as much as the back could handle. We stumbled across the oldest candy shoppe in America and the oldest residential street in America. I'm sorry to say that the homemade chocolates weren't very good, but the atmosphere was great and they let me go behind the counter, so that was fun!


That night was the big moment - it was such a lovely wedding, one of the nicest I've been to in a while. The weather was great, everyone was in good spirits, and it was just a genuinely fun time. The groom, N, even got up to play with the wedding band in the middle of the reception.

That's it for us! Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend.