What a weekend! I returned to Nashville on Friday for the first time since I moved 2 years ago for my friend’s wedding. I got to see people I haven’t seen in years and celebrate an amazing person and her new husband. It was such a great weekend, even though there were some issues with traveling, but I’ll take what I can get.
Before I get to recapping my trip, I have a few things I want to say. One, I was nominated for a WEGO Health Activist Aware for Best in Show: Blog! Thank you so much to whomever nominated me. If you’d like to show your support, please endorse me. Thank you! Two, my semester started yesterday, so I’d appreciate your patience as I adjust to the school year. I will aim for 3 posts a week, but I can’t promise it. Three, I am leaving pictures with my friends and everything from the wedding out of this post because while I am talking about the wedding, I was there as Kate the friend and not Kate the blogger.
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Friday
After a trip to campus Friday morning to get what books have arrived, I headed to the airport for my 12:30 flight to Detroit (my layover). If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen some of the things that happened to me, but that whole issue is getting its own post. The short version is that multiple Logan Airport and Delta employees yelled at me for not needing a wheelchair because I look fine. As we all know, that is so very far from the truth. I have already submitted formal complaints and am in discussion with the appropriate people about keeping this from happening in the future to me and to other people, but this caused major pain (emotional and physical). Regardless, I made it to Detroit, had no problems there, and then when I got to Nashville I had to wait 30 minutes for a wheelchair. Not amused in the slightest.
By the time I finally got to my hotel that evening, I was in a lot of pain. I was staying with L, one of my first friends from college – we were in the same orientation group and met the second day at Vanderbilt – so it was great to see her and another friend who came to see me. I spent the rest of the night resting so that I would be okay for the wedding on Saturday.
Saturday
Saturday was wedding day! L and I went to one of my favorite places in Nashville for breakfast: Fido in Hillsboro Village. I spent countless hours there in undergrad since it’s within walking distance of campus. Delicious food (that I can eat!), great atmosphere, and wonderful coffee. It was great to see and catch up with her and we then went to Pangea, a store across the street from Fido and one of my all-time favorites.
After that, I had used up my energy and pain levels for the day and knew that if I didn’t rest until the wedding I wouldn’t be able to go at all. Luckily/unfortunately, I had a lot of reading to do because the semester started yesterday, so I spent the rest of the day working on that. Another friend brought me food – the hotel had NOTHING I could eat and I was Not Pleased – and shortly after that it was time for the wedding itself.
The wedding was amazing. M made a beautiful bride, she and her new husband were so in love and happy, the venue was gorgeous, and seeing my college friends was perfect. And, to be honest, that doesn’t even begin to describe how great it all was. I had so much fun and actually stayed much longer than I expected to, which was an extremely pleasant surprise.
Sunday
In a delightful turn of events, I didn’t feel as bad as I expected to on Sunday morning! And that meant that I got to see my college roommate. I hadn’t seen her in 2 years, which was much too long. We roomed together our freshman and senior years, so it was wonderful to see each other. After that, I headed to the airport. I had some more wheelchair issues, but they weren’t to the same degree as on Friday. I eventually made it back to Boston and was home by 8 PM!
Overall, it was an amazing weekend, and I feel so lucky that my body pulled together enough to let me enjoy it. I honestly won’t see most of those people until whenever the next wedding is since I live so far away from them and it isn’t easy for me to travel. And now it’s back to the grad school grind.
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
[…] I’ve talked about briefly on social media and my trip recap last week, I had some serious issues with employees of the airline and the airport. It boiled down to the […]