Rubbing elbows
Today was amazing. I had to go to a women’s symposium at a big hotel on the waterfront here in Philadelphia. I was speaking to, at first, what I thought would be a couple hundred people and wound up being around 5000. Yikes. I haven’t ever done something like this before, so it was a little nerve racking. I got there and met with the woman that was putting on the conference and she was super nice. She runs the Betty Ford Clinic out in California. She gave me all the info and showed me into the little side room where all the speakers were hanging out. The first two women I sat down with were Charisse Strawberry (darryl Strawberry’s x-wife) and Susan Ford (Pres. Ford’s daughter). Holly crap. I had no idea it would be like this at all. They were both there to share their stories of alcoholism and drugs in their families. I was there just to speak on behalf of the Univ. of Penn and our strides with treatment and new research in the field. I was way out of my league and it was nerve racking and awesome at the same time. They were both super nice and I really only got to say a few things to them, but I did have lunch with both of them later in the day which was also pretty cool. I could go on and on and on about the day, but I’ll just leave it at it was an amazing experience and I’m so glad that I got to share in it. I got through my short 10 minutes of fame and didn’t screw up at all which was a relief for both my medical director and me. Oh yeah, and I didn’t trip getting onto the stage which was a huge plus. I only wear sneakers to work and I had on crazy high heels to look fancy or something like that. I took them off the minute I got back in my FJ and drove to paintball practice. Ha. From hob knobbing with famous people to getting shot by paintball pellets is a pretty fun day for me. It was a good end to my week.
