Most of you know that I stay out of warm climates whenever possible. Therefore it seems utterly insane that I left Boston today, in the middle of a snowstorm (Ursula was her name) to fly to Dallas. Intentionally. Where it was 80 degrees.
I’m sure there are some of you shaking your heads but I do really prefer snow to Involuntary Sweating Season. Thankfully, I’m here in Dallas staying at a pretty kickass hotel and I really don’t need to leave the building for, well, anything. This place is enormous, it’s practically a city unto itself. I’ve lost count of the number of restaurants and shops. It has multiple pools, and it even has its own art collection. As in real art, not junky hotel art. There will be pictures tomorrow. Today was a busy day.
The reason I am here is because I am serving as a Patient Ambassador. Basically, I’m here because I am working with this company that brings people like me who have a particular illness or disease, in this case epilepsy, to places where there are people who need to learn more about that particular disease. In this case I’m at the National Sales Meeting of an international company that deals with a lot of epileptics. I’m here not only to talk about what it’s like to have epilepsy, but also to perform. Yep, I’m going to be singing.
I’m not here to sell anything or lecture anybody, I’m here to humanize a disease as more than a constellation of symptoms. Like with any disease, the people who have epilepsy have real lives. We work, we have families, we have hobbies. There are two other people from Boston with me who I know. We all flew down together this morning and so far we’ve had a photo shoot, an interview, and dinner. We are here to talk about ourselves, how are lives are impacted by living with a chronic disease like epilepsy, and how people who work with or treat other individuals who have this disease can see us as whole people.
It’s been a long day, but there will be more to come tomorrow. In the interim, Boston, I miss you. Best of luck with Ursula.
Until tomorrow.
~Kelly
The Books are Taking Over... 
welcome to Dallas! sorry about the crowds wrestlemania is in town! check out the perot museum or dakotas downtown!
Thanks! I’m back in Boston now, but I have to tell you I had a nice time. And you’re right, between Wrestlemania, the Final 4, and our convention which was several thousand people by itself, it was amazing how busy things were. I didn’t get a chance to hit any museums, but our hotel had so much actual art in it that I pretty much didn’t need to.
I did get a chance to see the TX Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll. I was amazed that even at dusk there were still people there acting as guides and giving out information to tourists. I’ll try to post those photos at lunch or tomorrow.
Thanks again, you have nice people in Dallas.
~Kelly
I just want to say that I like the ‘ADD YOUR $0.02’ for comments and the hotel you’re staying at sounds really awesome!
Thank you! I set up the replies that way because the default was boring and I didn’t want anything too complicated.
As for the Dallas hotel, I finally finished uploading all of the photos last night. The place was enormous. I’ll be writing a post, hopefully at lunch today about our trip to the TX Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll and maybe tomorrow about the art at the hotel. I took over 100 photos of the art and I didn’t even come close to photographing everything.
~Kelly