I survived my trip! Remember last week how I was worried I would get sick on my quick trip to Florida? Well, I didn’t! I was armed with many bottles of emergency meds – prednisone, Percocet, and Zofran. Only twice did I need Zofran — the day after my only day in Disney World.

I felt it all that next day. My friend and I had slept over in a hotel near the theme park, and I woke up feeling pretty miserable. I was stiff, sore and exhausted in every fiber of my body. All I wanted to do was sleep, but of course, that wasn’t possible. I dragged through the day, barely being able to concentrate on anything, not really able to enjoy anything. I couldn’t wait to get home and rest. My flight was to take off later that day.

Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, my flight was three-and-a-half hours delayed. I was stuck in the airport for six hours, and I could feel myself growing more and more uncomfortable. I had been able to enjoy lunch, but it was pretty much downhill from there. At the airport, I knew I should eat something because I would be hungry on the flight otherwise, but none of the airport foods appealed to me. In fact, I felt quite sick with the idea that I might need to pick one of the options. Finally, in one food court, I was able to find a small cup of chicken noodle soup. Perfect, I thought. (I don’t know about you, but I tend to eat a lot of soup with this disease.)

I finally got home close to 1 a.m. and went right to bed. The next morning, I thought I felt fine so I went for a walk with a friend, and then had lunch with another. However, I was unable to eat much of anything. By the time I arrived back at my house at 2:30, it was all I could do to pull on my pajamas and go to bed. I slept for two hours and didn’t feel any better when I woke up.

The next day was the same. I was unable to do anything, and felt as if I was coming off a bad flu. I was exhausted, not interested in doing anything, or interested in eating. By the end of that day, I was beginning to wonder if this was really just exhaustion from the trip, or another take on my typical flare-up. Even with 11 hours of sleep the night before, I still needed a two-hour nap.

The following day I started finally started to feel more myself. I was still tired, but much more interested in life and was able to work – something I hadn’t been able to do for three days. I could feel the past few days disappearing. Whew! It wasn’t a flare-up. It was just me pushing my body too far.

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