Some Stuff

Firstly

Brenden leaves for Austria TOMORROW! Sorry we didn't keep you guys updated on that gig. Anyway, exciting stuff. His competition is on Sunday and he'll be in Austria for the duration of the entire conference. I'm kind of a little bit really jealous since Austria is kind of a little bit the main country I wanted to study abroad in and never got the opportunity to. I made Brenden promise to take lots of pictures. And buy me socks. (I really like socks so whenever someone offers to buy me a souvenir, I request socks.)

Secondly

A little update on my illness since people have been asking. I'm doing a million times better. I can actually wake up in the morning and stay up all day. No fevers since April. My finger joints, wrists, and elbows are still achy every now and then but I can actually use them. A new and interesting symptom is that my hair is falling out. It started shortly before I came back to Georgia and I originally attributed it to stress but it hasn't stopped since then and my hair is now visibly thinner (at least to me.) It's made me think a lot about my physical appearance and what it means to me in regards to my personal identity. Like, if I lose all my hair will I still be okay with who I am? It seems silly but it's never been something I've had to worry about before. Anyway, I decided that if this hair loss keeps up, I'm going to shave my head before it gets gross looking and cross my fingers that my shaved head isn't too gross looking. Head scarves and wigs FTW.

And Lastly,

Monday night Brenden and I babysat for a couple who is soon leaving our ward. He passed his dissertation defense that morning and they wanted to go out to celebrate. While they were out celebrating, we made cards with the girls for their dad. I brought over some colored paper, glitter stickers, and fancy markers. When you're a kid, other people's stuff is always exciting and fun to play with. This proved true with these kiddos. They were coloring for about three and a half hours and refused to sleep.

Anyway, the oldest daughter is about seven years old and she was determined to write her dad a letter on the back of the picture she drew him.

The letter went something like this:
"Congrats on the test Dad. I love you so much. I hope your students like you. Did you like the test? I am very proud of you. I think you did very good on the test. I think you worked very hard on the test. You are very smart. I think you will make a good doctor."

And she drew a picture underneath with big balloons and two students sitting at desks while her dad wrote 2+2=4 on a chalkboard.

It was completely adorable.

"Sleep is overrated." *

At 12:30am Saturday night, Brenden and I had the brilliant idea to rearrange all of our bedroom furniture. Yes, genius idea. Let's wait until it's really late at night to lift and move heavy furniture. After finishing a little less than an hour later, we discovered our new arrangement granted us more floor space than our previous arrangement. So the next logical step to discovering this floor space was to utilize it, right?

Brenden went to one of our closets, pulled out his tent and started assembling it.
In the middle of the bedroom. Nearing 2am in the morning.

I kept asking him why he needed to assemble the tent right at that moment and his only answer was, "Because there's room."


"Just don't put up the rainfly."

"But I have to."

* As often quoted by Brenden's dad. Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday Morning

Six AM: We left my parents' home on 77th Street and took Seawall Boulevard down to the ferry. We watched the sun rise over the Gulf and I took a mental picture to hold me over the next few months until I can see it again. It's quiet and peaceful. We could see people walking on the beach, running on the Seawall, doing Tai Chi all against the backdrop of a purple, blue, pink, and orange sky brightening over the water. I like early mornings on the Seawall. This is when the locals come out and reclaim their land. These are the people who belong here. Some people don't appreciate Galveston's beauty, but some people are blind. I thought about how much I'm going to miss this place. 

We took a ferry ride to the Bolivar Peninsula at six-thirty. We saw fishing boats and cargo ships bringing in their haul for the morning. Once our car got off the ferry, I turned around in my seat and took one last look at my island, her buildings grey in the distance. It was just me and Brenden on the little two lane highway bordering the Gulf of Mexico. We like taking this route to get to I-10 rather than battling the rush hour bumper to bumper traffic into Houston. 

Bolivar is a small quiet town. Houses are still missing from when Hurricane Ike roared ashore four years ago and the remaining houses are empty, awaiting their summer visitors. There are locals that call Bolivar home and we could see them walking out onto their wrap-around decks to watch the sunrise over the water while they sipped their coffees. There were flags dancing in the gulf breeze from several of these decks, signaling a friendly hello and good luck. We remained quiet to take it all in.

It was a good start to the long drive back to Georgia. 

"Inspiration at Dawn " by Rene' Wiley (a Galveston artist)

An Old Update

This is an old post I wrote at the end of March shortly after my mom left Georgia after staying with us for a week to take of me. It was a great week. I had my mom in town, Mom and Dad McQuay also made a short visit to see/hear Brenden's first master's recital, my fever went away, and I was feeling well enough in the evenings to see Brenden's four performances that week.

When I was writing the blogpost (which I didn't actually finish,) I didn't want to post it because I didn't think it was that big of a deal: I got sick and then I got better. I realize now that wasn't the case.

This post should give you a succinct description of the first month I was sick with histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis, also known as Kikuchi's disease which is a lot easier to remember and spell.

3/31/12
Brenden said I should title this blogpost "I Miss My Mommy" because that's all I've been saying since she flew back to Texas Thursday afternoon. And it's true. I miss my mother terribly. She stayed with us for almost a week and she left her magic touch on our home and our hearts.

I really cannot express the gratitude I feel towards my mom right now. I know some people saw my facebook status when my mom decided to fly out to Georgia to take care of me but I'll provide a little more background and explanation about what's been going on these past few weeks.

At the beginning of the month, my body began feeling really achy and sore. I didn't know what was wrong and I attributed the aches and pains to my desk chair at work. The aches got worse and spread across my body more and I was just exhausted and totally worn out by the time I got home from work each day.

The week of the 11th, we finally bought a thermometer and discovered that I did indeed have a fever and was more than just achy. I missed work that Tuesday so I could stay home and just get over my fever. It was Brenden's spring break week so he stayed with me and helped me recover. I woke up the next morning with a low fever and went to work. My fever would get worse throughout the day but that first week of fevers it never got above 102 (and it spiked in the evenings when I was already at home) but each morning it was a really low-grade fever so I just kept going to work. (I really hope I didn't get anyone sick.)

Since I simply couldn't seem to shake this fever, I went to the Urgent Care Clinic that Saturday (St. Patrick's Day!) The doctor prescribed me antibiotics which did nothing except make me more sick. I was told that if I wasn't feeling better in a few days I should go ahead and go back to the clinic so that's what I did that Tuesday. My fever had been getting worse. It would only go down after I took Tylenol or Ibuprofen but after the medication wore off the fever would be back full force. The doctor I saw that Tuesday was pretty sure what I had was mono so she ran some more blood tests. I was told to go ahead and stop taking the antibiotics, which I gladly did, but I wasn't given anything else to try to treat my actual illness. The doctor wanted to wait until she got the tests' results back before she prescribed me anything.

I waited miserably at home each day, waking up in the middle of the night with fevers of 103-104, taking Tylenol and waking up seven hours later with a fever just as high. I had no appetite at all. Everything tasted bad; I didn't even want to drink water. Brenden was back at school trying to work on papers, exams, and get ready for his upcoming four concerts/recitals the next week. While Brenden was at school, I was helpless at home. The day before my mom flew out to take care of me, I was too weak to go downstairs to get myself food from our kitchen. My arms hurt too much to even carry my own mug.

Friday morning of the 23rd, the test results came in and the mono test was negative which meant I still had no idea what was wrong with me and I just seemed to be getting worse and worse. When my mom found out the doctor needed me back at the clinic to get more tests done because they didn't know what was wrong, she called up my dad and told him she was flying to Georgia to take care of me. My dad agreed that that sounded like a good idea. So while my mom was calling airlines and getting everything in order to fly out that afternoon, my dad called me back at my house where I was desperately miserable and frustrated and told me my mom was coming. I immediately started crying because I was so grateful. My spirit was boosted and just knowing my mom was coming to see me made me feel better already.

When my mom arrived that evening, I greeted her from the bottom of my stairs, wrapped up in a blanket, shivering, because my fever was climbing back up to 103. I know I looked like a pathetic sight. That night she made me homemade soup and even though I could only eat about 5-7 tablespoons, it was so wonderful to have my mom taking care of me. That night when I woke up at 2am with my inevitable fever, she sat up with me for the next two and a half hours and let Brenden sleep (poor Brenden hadn't been getting time to sleep or focus on much schoolwork while I'd been sick.) My mom took me to the clinic to get more blood tests done and Brenden was able to spend the day at school, practicing and working on his paper without having to worry if I was going to die alone at home. My appetite had been so bad that week that I'd actually lost a couple of pounds from Tuesday to Saturday. My mom made it her personal mission that I always have some food available at all times to eat whenever I felt the tiniest bit hungry. Brenden and I woke up to a hot breakfast every morning she was in town. I would go back to sleep after eating and my mom drove Brenden to school so he wouldn't have to take the bus.

(I just added this last paragraph to give some kind of close to the post since I didn't originally finish it.)
The doctor I saw at the clinic who was sure I had mono was still sure I had mono and prescribed me some steroids during our last visit. The steroids worked wonderfully, my fever went away, my body wasn't as achy, and I was able to do things again. After we were convinced I was healed (no fevers for a few days,) my mom flew back home. I finished my five-day pack of the steroids that same day and that evening I got another low-grade fever.

A Friend Returns Home

Yesterday a long-time family friend passed away. She'd suddenly had an aneurysm the week before and had been struggling to hold on for the past week.

I don't feel it's right for me to write about her because I don't feel that I knew her well enough to give her a proper tribute. She was close to my mom and had been dear friends with my grandmother but for a good portion of my life I just considered her another one of my mother's Filipino friends (of which she has many.) I knew that she cared for me but I don't think I realized how much she cared for me until I got engaged to Brenden and she told my mom she wanted to give me a bridal shower. I was surprised. I thought it was very generous of her. It was very generous of her.

She held the shower at her home and we had a Filipino feast. She insisted we use her fine china and I was terrified I would drop my plate. She had her husband in the kitchen cooking up food almost the entire evening to keep the table full. Her gift to me that evening, besides the shower itself, was a beautiful crystal vase from Mikasa so that I would always have somewhere to keep fresh flowers. I don't remember exactly what each person gave me for my bridal showers and my wedding but I remember that she gave me that vase because the evening I received it she'd decorated her own home with fresh flowers in vases all over the house. It was a thoughtful gift. It was obviously something that meant a lot to her. It wasn't something to simply make my life more convenient, like a fancy appliance. The entire purpose of the vase was to help beautify my home. She just wanted to help me make my home a little more colorful, brighter, and beautiful.

I think my life and the lives of my family members are just a little more colorful, brighter, and beautiful because of her.

Thank you, Catherine, for your friendship, love, and beauty.
We love you and we miss you.