Changed My Mind

Feeling a little better, released a little tension, which is always good for the back.

I'll start with yesterday. Or maybe a bit of Saturday night. Or ...

I've had trouble with my back since ... okay, 1974, but it's really been much better for the last few years. I get occasional backaches, like normal backaches, which is what I seemed to have Saturday night, a little cramp here, a little muscle strain there. No big deal, and it was the same Sunday morning, when I went for my pedicure with the Sibs. I came home and sat at my desk chair for a while, as I do, waiting for the toes to be nice and dry, and then when I got up ... I couldn't.

So my back just got worse as the day wore on, going into spasm. I used heat, I took advil, I stretched myself out flat on the floor for awhile. I'm a little better today, not spasming, as such, but uncomfortable.

Needless to say, I did not take a walk today, although I went briefly to the mall with K in the afternoon, and it was hard walking around there. But I felt that walking around anywhere would be better for my back than sitting in a chair all day, and it was. But I'm tired now.

I finally talked to the Colleague, who was away herself last week, and she gave me some very good input on our upcoming trip. I discussed it with the Hubs when he got home, who is being so pleasant and flexible and easy-going about this whole trip that honestly, I have no idea who he is. So now I have recommendations for two hotels, and although I'm going to call tomorrow, I doubt that we can get either one of them. Although this week is the actual anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, so all the big hoopla there is going on now, it's a place that people go when they're on vacation, and most people plan more than two weeks ahead of time. I have a third place as a back-up and I know they have rooms (I checked online), so I guess we'll have a place to go. (My first choice had nothing online and said to call the hotel; the second choice doesn't offer online reservations, so I have to call.)

Am I looking forward to the trip? Hmm. Yes and no. If I'm going anyplace (other than DisneyWorld), I'm glad we're going here; I did want to make this trip and see this stuff, and for a while. Am I looking forward to the disruption of being away from home, and packing, and finding suitable food for the Hubs away from home? Not so much. That part just sounds stressful to me. I really am a homebody. I like the places I go to, the rare times I go, but I'm not so good with change, or disruption.

When K and I were in England, for example, four years ago, I lived a dream: I saw the Globe Theatre. It was amazing to be there in every possible way; it could only have been better if we saw an actual play, but it was winter and not their season. It made me very happy. Yet back in the hotel one night, when K had gone out and met some friends who were studying in London, I got very freaked out about being in a hotel and not being home and how out-of-sync with everything I was, and felt. A little bit of an almost-panic attack. It's as if the only place I can go and feel at ease is DisneyWorld. Really, I belong there. I should live there, right on Main Street.

So tomorrow I try for reservations. R is getting out of work early -- her office is closing early for the holiday on Wednesday, nice of them -- so she'll be here sometime in the afternoon, and then for dinner, and then will sleep over on the couch so that her father can get her to the airport nice and early Wednesday morning.

I made an appointment for a consultation with the cardiologist for next week. It seems that I cannot take a standard stress-test, since I can't walk on an incline for more than a minute or two and that's what the test is, so it was decided that I should meet with him first and he'll decide what alternate test I need, and if in fact I need it. I don't have symptoms, really, just indicators, but if I'm getting blocked arteries now, I'd like to know it now and not find out in ten years in an emergency room.

Okay. Now I'm going to lie down.

WATCHING RAYMOND :: ENTRY #1513