May 24 - Okay, I'm not sticking to my story after all. My ear has been aching continuously for 2 weeks now. Enough is enough. I'm seeing a doctor at 3:45 today. Not MY doctor mind you, but at least A doctor.

So, a good news, bad news tidbit. I've gained weight!! For the first time since Christmas, my scale is going up. I've gained ~6 pounds in a little over 2 weeks! (I'm at 127.8.) This is good news because I think it's for sure a sign that I'm definitely healthier, plus it means that I'm managing to get enough food in me to add some padding back on. It's bad news because I finally have a wardrobe that I'm comfortable with. If I have to start changing it out again.....well........ugh. Every 10 pounds means a size change for us chicks so if I gain 4 more pounds, I'm going to have to dig through all my storage containers for my size 8's. Bleah.

On the bright side, I was telling the girls at work that I've gained 6 pounds in an incredibly short amount of time and Karen, the HR chickie, said "I noticed it last week and I think the 6 pounds looks really good on you. You're still skinny without looking downright tragic.". Ha!

So, continuing on with my grumping theme of how everything has changed.......

I have a really hard time staying up past 9:30 pm. I'm constantly falling asleep on Scott's shoulder! When we went to see the play at GEVA I was falling asleep near the end of the second half. At the Yankee's game on Monday night I was starting to fade during the 8th inning. It's ridiculous. I've started drinking coffee again in an attempt to be able to stay up later. I haven't really noticed it helping though.

Meanwhile, the other big change that I've noticed caused me to have a bit of a meltdown last Saturday morning. My memory is shot to hell!! Some recent examples:

When I went with Scott for his hand surgery, he was talking to me afterwards about the male anesthesiologist. I thought he was nuts, I only remembered the female one coming to talk to him. A little while later the male one walked by at which point I remembered him. How the hell could I forget seeing him just 3 hours before that??

Then I was sitting in a Green Team meeting a couple of weeks ago. I had an action item to order a bottle return container for our offices next door. I had completely forgotten to do it! At which point 5 of my coworkers fell out of their chairs because I NEVER forget things like that. I'm known as one of the most dependable employees at work. If you give me something to do, you will never have to follow up to see if it was done, you just automatically assume it got done because hey, it's Quinn. As soon as I got back to my desk after the meeting, I ordered the container. It arrived a few days later and I proudly walked across the street to hand it off to the technician over there who had requested it. As I held it out to him he said "Quinn, what the hell, you already bought me one of those two months ago.". Say what?? So, I didn't forget to order the damn thing, I just forgot that I had already ordered it?!?

So, last Friday Scott said he would come over Saturday after work so I took (3) steaks out of the freezer to thaw for dinner (why I decided on 3 instead of 2, I have no idea). Then he found out Friday night that his daughter's plane would be arriving at 11:40 in the morning so he wanted to go see her instead. I rushed downstairs and discovered the steaks were still frozen so I put (2) of them back in the freezer. Phew! Saturday morning I was up bright and early to run a few miles and when I got back I went to the fridge for some water. I looked down, saw my single steak on the second shelf, but also saw two more steaks on the third shelf. What the hell?? I checked the freezer and the steaks I had put back the night before were still there so at some point in time, I had already decided to thaw 2 steaks for an upcoming dinner. I have no idea when I had decided that or how long those steaks had been sitting there in the fridge. My brain is totally blank on the whole thing! This was just too much. I went upstairs, crawled into bed next to Scott and quietly lost it. Both he and Sam made the same basic comment about welcome to the life of a normal person. It didn't make me feel better. When you live with yourself for 40+ years and you're suddenly looking in the mirror and not recognizing anything about yourself, it's really scary and upsetting. :-(

Moving on..........

I called in another thrush prescription yesterday, I'll be picking it up this weekend. Not that I'm planning on taking it right away, but I decided it would be nice to have the actual pills on hand for the morning I wake up and decide the thrush is completely out of control once again. Because mind you, it's back, it's just not seriously affecting my life just yet. I want to hold out as long as I can until I'm absolutely miserable so that I can try to avoid building up the tolerance that Dr. K had mentioned.

Improvements:
- Thrush is back but not bad enough for meds.......yet.
- Spit production probably around 50% at this point.
- Bullfrog effect still happening.
- Garbled talking. Swollen throat.
- Partial taste buds - Sweet is around 15% right now.


Fun stuff!


Dinner with the Kunkel's was fun! Although I think the boys did more talking than Kunkel and I. Of course that's partially my fault. I can't carry on a conversation and concentrate on not choking while eating at the same time. My multitasking skills only go so far.


Loved seeing Sam and the kids on Sunday and we had the best weather ever in our ~15 years of going to the Lilac Fest!!


Baltimore was absolutely fantastic! It just occurred to me that it's a huge bonus to have found a man who is not only funny, gorgeous, sweet, and thoughtful.......but who also makes an outstanding traveling companion. The Yankees game was very exciting, not that I know anything about baseball but I kind of got caught up in the mood of the crowd. Plus the Asquino-Briggs clan (other than JBB who is a Mets fan) are really into the Yankees so there were texts and FB posts going on throughout the game. Good stuff. The highlight for me, non-sports girl, was the 'bacon on a stick' at one of the concession stands. O-M-G. Best thing I've ever had in my mouth!! I ate TWO!! (Yeah, and then I wonder where that 6 pounds came from.........). We also went to the aquarium which was beautiful, hung out on the docks with adult beverages, went to Ripley's which at one point had me laughing so hard I was crying, and then did the traditional all you can eat crab thing for dinner. A banner trip all the way around.

And our cruise has been booked! The countdown has begun..........134 days and we will be on a boat, in a balcony room no less, cruising in the Caribbean. Woo hoo! We spent the 6 hour car ride home from Baltimore picking out what excursions we're going to do. We will be ziplining, riding ATV's, jet skiing, hitting the beach and a waterpark, and doing a sunset catamaran cruise. I'm so psyched! I love having a trip to count down to!!

Finally, after all the Baltimore excitement, a quiet weekend is in order. Tonight I'm going to try my hand at making crab cakes for dinner because Scott really enjoyed the ones we had in Baltimore. Then we're heading out to see Star Trek at our fave theater with the power reclining seats. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice we might head to a local rib festival that happens annually here in Rochester before he picks his daughter up for the weekend and on Monday, again, weather permitting, we'll find someplace to play 18 holes. Ahhhh.......I love my life.