Every year after conference two things happen to me. I get a cold, and I get to feeling depressed. It’s so refreshing to hang out with other people with the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome type of albinism that coming home is sometimes a bit of a let down – a hard landing back in reality. And, the fact that I barely ever sleep in conference probably has something to do with the cold. I just wear myself out.
This year my post conference funk hasn’t been so bad. Don’t get me wrong. I miss everyone terribly. But I came home even more exhausted than usual with a long and stressful week ahead at work.
Our magazine was supposed to go to press on the day I got back into the office. So, I worked like crazy to have all of my things finished. I got up at 5:00 am to work a few hours before going into the office, and carried work home with me at night. Coupled with the things that needed to be done to bring conference together, I was wiped out before I even arrived in New York.
This is my excuse for my major flub at the opening session Friday night. I was so embarrassed!
Donna was giving an update about all the things that happened in the HPS Network during the year. She got to the slide about the American Thoracic Society meeting and turned to me expecting me to say something intelligent. I was caught off guard, and not thinking terribly quickly because I felt like I could fall over and go to sleep at any moment.
The first image that fell into my brain about ATS wasn’t all the wonderful doctors we met, or all the help we’ve received from ATS – oh no – the first image that fell into my brain was the one obnoxious doctor. I sat on a chair in our booth and Donna was trying to explain what nystagmus looks like – so she had him look into my eyes. He took his hand, tilted my head back, peered into my eyes and without flinching says, “Are they sterile?”
I took a deep breath. All my life I’ve wanted children for all the normal reasons people want to have kids – but in that moment I came very close to lying and making up a few kids just to make a point. I managed to hold back, be polite and let it just roll off my back.
With this image in my head, however, the words that came blurting out of my mouth with a room full of the most wonderful doctors were, “Well, if you go to ATS you’ve got to remember to be really patient with the doctors.” It was one of those moments when you can almost see your words hanging in the air and they’re out there before you can suck them back in. I felt terrible!
When I got back home I discovered that the magazine didn’t go to press after all. There was still a lot of work to do. There was a lot of work to do after conference too. Sometimes people don’t put together all that HPS entails until they come to a conference. Or, sometimes they have a realization while sitting there that they haven’t had in years of attending conferences. There’s a lot of people that need to talk after conference, are interested in protocols and need help exploring that etc.
So, apparently the cure for post conference funk is to not sleep much and stay really, really busy!
Yesterday I slept in until noon. It felt so good! I needed it so much! All weekend I’ve been trying to get things done, but the pile of house work and other work that I’ve been ignoring while getting ready for conference is now a monster pile of stuff. It’s overwhelming and although I’ve now had a really good couple of sleeps, I still feel tired and wiped out.
This year my post conference funk hasn’t been so bad. Don’t get me wrong. I miss everyone terribly. But I came home even more exhausted than usual with a long and stressful week ahead at work.
Our magazine was supposed to go to press on the day I got back into the office. So, I worked like crazy to have all of my things finished. I got up at 5:00 am to work a few hours before going into the office, and carried work home with me at night. Coupled with the things that needed to be done to bring conference together, I was wiped out before I even arrived in New York.
This is my excuse for my major flub at the opening session Friday night. I was so embarrassed!
Donna was giving an update about all the things that happened in the HPS Network during the year. She got to the slide about the American Thoracic Society meeting and turned to me expecting me to say something intelligent. I was caught off guard, and not thinking terribly quickly because I felt like I could fall over and go to sleep at any moment.
The first image that fell into my brain about ATS wasn’t all the wonderful doctors we met, or all the help we’ve received from ATS – oh no – the first image that fell into my brain was the one obnoxious doctor. I sat on a chair in our booth and Donna was trying to explain what nystagmus looks like – so she had him look into my eyes. He took his hand, tilted my head back, peered into my eyes and without flinching says, “Are they sterile?”
I took a deep breath. All my life I’ve wanted children for all the normal reasons people want to have kids – but in that moment I came very close to lying and making up a few kids just to make a point. I managed to hold back, be polite and let it just roll off my back.
With this image in my head, however, the words that came blurting out of my mouth with a room full of the most wonderful doctors were, “Well, if you go to ATS you’ve got to remember to be really patient with the doctors.” It was one of those moments when you can almost see your words hanging in the air and they’re out there before you can suck them back in. I felt terrible!
When I got back home I discovered that the magazine didn’t go to press after all. There was still a lot of work to do. There was a lot of work to do after conference too. Sometimes people don’t put together all that HPS entails until they come to a conference. Or, sometimes they have a realization while sitting there that they haven’t had in years of attending conferences. There’s a lot of people that need to talk after conference, are interested in protocols and need help exploring that etc.
So, apparently the cure for post conference funk is to not sleep much and stay really, really busy!
Yesterday I slept in until noon. It felt so good! I needed it so much! All weekend I’ve been trying to get things done, but the pile of house work and other work that I’ve been ignoring while getting ready for conference is now a monster pile of stuff. It’s overwhelming and although I’ve now had a really good couple of sleeps, I still feel tired and wiped out.
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