Mile High Highlights

This past weekend in Denver was such a wonderful experience! It was a last-minute trip, and both my boyfriend and I had a lot of homework, but we flew out anyway for a nice weekend getaway. Since we booked it last second, our flight there was really early in the morning, and home was really late at night. Regardless, that gave us a lot of time to explore the city and relax!

At the airport there was a wheelchair around the parking area (fortuitous, no?), so I grabbed it and my boyfriend pushed me through the long corridors of the airport. Once we got to the security checkpoint there was a long line (even at 4 in the morning!) so we opted to forgo the chair and just walk through line. Once we were standing and waiting, we realized that disabled and wheelchair persons are allowed to cut through everyone else and are brought straight to the front of the line! Alas, we waited our turn politely and then went through the new TSA body scanners! I was a little nervous since my body is filled with metal, but they are used to metal plates from surgery. Plus they could probably see the plates as I stood naked (from the radiation) in the terminal area. After getting through security, Boyfriend and I waited at our gate and away we went!

Denver itself was really beautiful. I have a terrible sense of direction, but we rented a car and Boyfriend got his bearings unnaturally quickly and was able to carry us around the city. We went out for a really nice dinner on the first night, bought bottles of wine and dessert samples and even got free ice cream at the end!

It was hard for me to walk around, so I wore my knee brace all weekend. We went on a brewery tour and then to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Saturday, so that was a lot of walking! We went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner that night too, mmmmm my favorite restaurant. On Sunday we checked out of our hotel and grabbed lunch at the Downtown Aquarium - it was so fun to sit right next to the fishtanks! Our flight didn't leave until late Sunday night. When we got back home, we were exhausted and immediately fell asleep.

Even though it was an exhausting weekend, my leg held up pretty well. Like I said, I wore my leg brace the entire time, but I was able to move around decently (of course, we didn't go hiking in the mountains or anything too strenuous). There was one moment of the trip that wasn't as fun, though. In addition to being very broken and having problems with that, I am also a Type 1 diabetic, meaning I have to take insulin injections anytime I eat something. Monitoring my blood sugar levels has never been a problem for me; I keep a very close watch on them and they are always under control. However, since my body is changing so much because of my recovery, my sugar levels have been reacting surprisingly. Over the weekend, since I was very active, much more active than normal in terms of walking and moving around, my levels dropped very low one morning. It's really scary when this happens, and before my accident it had never happened. Over the past few months, there have been a couple times when my blood level is so low that I cannot wake up in the morning. This happened while in Denver, but luckily Boyfriend recognized the signs and called the paramedics. Within a few minutes (after being hooked up to a sugar IV), I was awake and better. Once I wake up, I can't remember anything that happened earlier, so it was very frightening waking up to a room full of paramedics with Boyfriend hovering next to me holding my hand. Fortunately, I was OK and didn't have to go to the hospital, but my body is reacting very strongly to the slightest adjustments back into a more normal lifestyle (aka walking). It is something I'll have to keep a closer watch on. Thank God that Boyfriend was there and saved my life.

Despite the emergency blood sugar situation, we still had a very enjoyable time. Notice the leg brace in the last one outside the aquarium!

-Amanda