Finally home again

The business trip
My two-day wonder trip turned into a four-day wonder trip. Station assessments have been completed on Miami and Dallas/Ft. Worth. WHEW!!!!!

Twelve and fifteen hour days just about broke me. My entire body is in protest today. Most of those hours were on my feet, running around the airport. Out to the gates, back to the counter, the back office, the gates...over and over.

I wouldn't call it fun, but it wasn't awful either. Maybe it was a little bit fun. I'm a lot more of a people person than I ever realized. The agents were a blessing, and extremely helpful, as were the managers too, and our contractors that handles our hardware and installs our software on the airport machines were great to work with. They all thought I was a big manager of something, when in reality I'm just a flunky doing a job that no one else wanted to do. I let them think I was important, that way they bent over backwards trying to help me.

Unfortunately a lot of the hardware that belongs to the airports and our software isn't working correctly. My job is to make sure everything gets up and running the same as our proprietary stations (where we own everything). I don't actually do the "fixing", but I coordinate the right people to get things fixed. The hard part is determining if the problem is ours or if it's the contractor or the airport. I'm caught in the middle of "it's not our problem, it's their problem". I have to figure who owns the problem and get them to fix it. Turns out that's a lot more challenging than it sounds.

The assessments are done for these two stations, but now there's a lot of work to be done to get things running smoothly again. That's why the extremely long days, and why I have many more long days ahead of me.

The food
It was difficult just finding time to eat. I ate really healthy, no junk, but I ate stuff I normally wouldn't eat - like raisin bran, cheerios, fajita salad, 2% milk. Wednesday was a bad day because I worked 14 hours without sitting down, not eating a bite of anything, not even a glass of water until 9pm that night (I started working at 6am). I know that was stupid, but I was trying to leave on the 2pm flight, then the 6pm flight. If I skipped eating I thought I could finish everything. As it was, I had to stay another day and things are still a mess in DFW.

Exercise
Sadly, since I didn't have time to eat, I also didn't have time to work out much, until Wednesday night. That hotel had a fitness center that didn't close at 10pm (stupid hours at the other two hotels). It was open 24 hours so I worked out at 11pm Wednesday and again at 5am on Thursday.

My health
Honestly, I'm sick as a dog. Monday before I left I went to a walk in clinic. I'd been coughing non-stop for two weeks (since my cold). Sure as anything, I had bronchitis, sinus infection and an ear infection. It was too late to cancel the trip so the doctor gave me some powerful cough medicine with Hydrocodone (synthetic codeine), and antibiotics. The cough syrup worked miracles. I stayed awake (and a wee bit hyper) by popping caffeine pills during the day while taking that cough syrup. It would have knocked me out otherwise.

When I got home last night my husband insisted I go to a real doctor today. Apparently I looked like death (according to him), and sounded like it too with a deep, hacking up a lung kind of cough (but only when I stopped taking the cough medicine).

I saw my doctor this morning, and I'm sicker than I thought. When she did the oxygen saturation test (how much oxygen is in my blood) it had a reading of 92. It's suppose to be 99 or 100. My doctor had a fit. She told me a horror story that a lot times these readings aren't very inaccurate and when it's 92 it could be as low as 60 (then what's the point of the test?). It's the little machine you clip on your finger. She said if I didn't watch out, I could die from the bronchitis. Whatever. It's not the first time I've had bronchitis so I know it's not that big of a deal. Just inconvenient.

She put me on Prednisone for five days and gave me another prescription for the cough syrup (which if I'm not careful, I could totally see myself getting addicted to that stuff). I'm still taking the antibiotics. The wheezing in my chest is already much better from the Prednisone so I don't think I'm going to die after all.

I weighed at home this morning and I'm exactly what I was three weeks ago, 161.8. I'm going to Weight Watchers tomorrow for an official weigh in, and I'll post it here this weekend.

Anyway, that's been my week. I can't even begin to tell you how very glad I am to be home. Oh - and my renewed passport came in the mail while I was gone. Now Canada and Mexico are in my future very soon. Lucky me.

NSV on my trip
There were actually tons of NSVs on this trip, but I almost forgot the most important one. It was the highlight of the entire trip. I knew I was going to be hot with all the running around I had to do so I work sleeveless tops. In Dallas I wore a really cute black top with a scooped neckline that had a band of white around the neckline, and a new pair of loose fitting black slacks (size 10--I'm sure they were cut on the large size). Everything was from the White House Black Market store, my favorite store these days. I didn't have time to get a picture of myself so here's what the top looks like on a model (of course, my arms aren't as skinny as hers, but I actually prefer my arms over her arms).

The cut of this top really shows off my shoulders (I do have some nice deltoids, if I say so myself, and I've worked very hard to get them). A guy that was a supervisor on the ramp, about half my age, came up to me when no one was around and asked me what I did to work out. I thought it was an odd question and asked him why he was asking me that question. He said, and I quote, "because you are in really good shape, and I can tell you work out a lot. Are you a marathon runner?"

Okay, so that was an insane comment and he probably needs glasses, but he seemed sincere. I don't look like a marathon runner, but it made me feel good. Especially because he was in really good shape, and I could tell he lifted weights. He was just a kid, so that made it especially flattering. And no, he wasn't hitting on me. I'm old enough to have been his mother. That was Wednesday and that's why I went to the gym Wednesday night and again Thursday morning, even though I was dead tired (and sick). Honestly, I think that was one of the nicest compliments I've ever received in my entire life, that I look like I work out.