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October 2004

Monday, October 11, 2004

Well it’s another birthday. But I don’t like telling too many people because I inherently don’t love birthdays. What I do like about my birthday, however, is it’s kind of like the yardstick of life…a day (not a holiday) out of the week we measure ourselves from year to year. We have fond memories as a child, and then fuzzy memories (at best) as an adult of what we did on this day one, three, five years ago.

For me, I think about years I felt good and years I felt bad. I think about the anticipation leading up to, say, my ninth birthday. Or the year I found my present hidden by my parents a weekend earlier (and was punished as a result). I think about how many more birthdays I’ll have, and I try to remember each one I’ve had until today.

It can be depressing, it can be happy. It can be all of these things throughout the day. I don’t think birthdays should be about the attention we pay that person. I think birthdays should be a day for that person to quietly think about their life, what to be thankful for, and what to be happy about.

Today it’s about feeling good. Not just because it’s my birthday. But because I feel good.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

I knew October would be a crazy month back in March, I just didn’t think it would ever come. And now that it’s two thirds over, I’m pretty relieved. We’ve been on the road like rockstars, criss-crossing the country for doctor events, patient programs, medical conferences and scientific meetings. Between Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Antonio, Seattle and Chicago, I’m getting lots of flyer miles and very little sleep. Waking up in different cities every few days really takes a toll on the body, but makes coming home so incredibly worth it. Nothing in this whole world beats the feeling of my bed after spending a week in some hotel. Even though secretly I do miss the room service.

Last week we were in San Antonio for the American College of Rheumatology’s annual scientific meeting. This is the largest rheumatological conference, where over 8,000 medical professionals specializing in arthritis descend on one city – in this case, the most humid one in the U.S. – for a week or so. We learned all about new treatments and got to meet thousands of doctors and get the word out about CreakyJoints. I think for me the most exciting part was all the doctors who came up to us telling us how often they refer their patients to our programs. Our little arthritis project keeps growing and growing.

But clearly the target heart rate of the month was reached in a very unlikely place at a very unlikely time. I insisted we drive from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Phoenix, Arizona last week. I figured we’d take a day off from the airports and enjoy some fresh desert air. What you don’t want to do while driving through the desert (especially when you’re in a hurry) is miss your exit, because there won’t be another one for about 120 miles. Such was the case in the Cadillac DeVille we so fortuitously rented, because in our efforts to return to schedule and arrive on time, we were stopped by an Arizona State Trooper. A cop’s cop. Who happened to clock us doing 94 in a 65. But the speed Gods were on our side that day, because we drove away with a written warning – and directions to get back on course. One of those things you’d have to see to believe. Just don’t tell my mother. Or my insurance company.