On the Road Again 2014 Prologue #5

It is amazing how things can change in 24 hours. This time yesterday I was dithering about when and how I would travel or perhaps even if I would travel west this summer. However after a lot of thought, an hours or so of computer time checking out Via Rail and  extensive consultations with my travel consultant (my daughter) I have decided to leave next Wednesday, by train, all the way to the west coast.

There are all kinds of reasons why this is an intelligent decision. There is no way that my back will be healed by next week nor I suspect the week afterwards. Even lifting my almost empty pack causes my back muscles to twinge. I can't imagine how it would feel to lift it when it is full. As much as I want to hitchhike, it just doesn't make any sense. While sitting in the train for three days might be a bit uncomfortable, it certainly would be better than spending 15 hour days in a small car perhaps squished into the back seat along with my pack and other stuff. Standing on the side of the road for extended periods of time would, I think, get quite uncomfortable if not downright painful. On the train I can sit when I need to and walk around when I feel the need to.

I am spending a lot more money than I had planned on - but then why work all winter if the money is not for spending? I am disappointed in needing to "cheat", but the alternatives are either not to go at all or to put myself at risk in terms of how long the back will take to recover. I guess every once in a while I need to act responsibly.

I guess I should start to get my stuff together.... I am a week behind schedule.

Hospitals and Ambulance Rides. Part Five

I am not normally someone who enjoys lying in bed. Perhaps because I am usually awake so often throughout the night, I look forward to getting up and getting on with the day. However the last few mornings I have not gotten up until after 9:00. Actually I am up by 6:00, go to the bathroom, take my medication and then go back to bed to snooze and to think and to drift where ever my brain takes me. It is quite nice and I find myself having to force me to get up.

As I lay in bed, my back feels perfect. I feel strong and as if I could do anything I wanted to. There are no twinges or spasms, no sense of weakness or even the fear of pain. I start to think that perhaps I should leave next Wednesday as planned. That I am being a wimp in not leaving when planned. I could spend a day on the train and then by this time next week I would be on the road somewhere just west of Winnipeg. I get all excited and start to make lists of all of the things that I need to do between now and the time I need to leave for Sudbury.  I get excited.

But then I get up.  That whole exercise is so much easier than it was a few days ago. The back spasms are still there but they are almost ignorable. The back and side muscles remain rather tender and weak, but I get up on the first try and I don't need to rest as soon as I am up. While my breathing is still a bit shallow, it no longer hurts to take a deep breath.  But within ten minutes things are starting to be uncomfortable. And I mean uncomfortable- not painful - just uncomfortable. And that feeling does not go away. This morning I went out shopping for bits and pieces of stuff - some nuts and dried cranberries to make a trail mix for the train, some more muscle relaxing drugs and few things from the grocery store. It was not terrible but it was not much fun either.

I need to make a decision soon.

Hospitals and Ambulance Rides. Part Four

Woke up this morning - seven days after the "event" and felt pretty good. I had slept better than most nights and there were no annoying twinges in my back. Even as I gently manoeuvred my body to the side of the bed in what could be a patented move to avoid a full back muscle spasm there was little discomfort. I started to have pleasant day dreams of perhaps leaving for my trip on time, and of wondering, almost  in panic if I could have everything done by next Monday.

Reality soon hit as I started to make breakfast. The rice pot was almost two heavy to hold in one hand, turning too quickly caused my back to spasm and within ten minutes I needed to sit down and give the muscles a chance to calm down. Still two days ago, just getting up and going to the bathroom required a ten-fifteen minute lay down. So things are looking up.  Not fast enough for me, but at least enough to suggest that my present state may not be a permanent condition.

Of course there are a number of things that I could be doing in terms of getting ready and perhaps today I will at least figure out what needs to be done. Hopefully my new MasterCard will arrive soon and then I can look at some travel options and buy a new hostel card etc.

I really want to be travelling by next week, but I know (in my more mature moments) that to do so might put me at some risk. I don`t want to have to spend a day or two in Medicine Hat or Salmon Arms because my back is just too sore to travel or even worse, spend two days on a bus because hitchhiking is just too hard.

 

Hospitals and Ambulance Rides. Part Three

I am bored. I am also tired, irritable, uncomfortable and far too often my entire back hurts. I am chronically tired and my digestive tract is a nightmare. But the worst of it is that I am bored. The only place that I am comfortable is laying flat in bed, which is great in terms of pain control but my bedroom ceiling is not much fun to look at. Sitting is alright for a while but after twenty or so minutes things start to hurt. Not terribly so - but enough so that it hard to concentrate on anything including the TV.  The other problem with staying in one position too long is that when I do try to get up my back muscles start to spasm and that gets really uncomfortable in terms of doing anything including breathing.

Pain, of course, is a subjective thing.  Our bodies have, thankfully, little capacity to actually remember pain. I have no objective measure of how much better I am now than I was three days ago. I don't think I feel any better but then I need to keep on reminding myself that I can get out of bed most of the time far easier than I could on Tuesday or Wednesday - I think.

I am just really bored and frustrated....... I need to keep on reminding myself that things could be a whole lot worse.