Traveling w/ my achilles heel(s)

Presently, it so happens, a friend and I are in Santa Cruz, CA house sitting for my son for a few days, exchanging the cold drizzle of northwest Washington for crisp, sunny, Santa Cruz fall days.  This trip has been especially trying because not only am I dealing with daily migraines, I am also hobbling around, literally, with constant pain of achilles tendonitis.  But I refuse to stay home even though it would, no doubt, have been easier.

It takes a huge amount of determination sometimes to just go ahead, make plans, and carry them out even if I’m not feeling at all sure I can actually pull it off.  But I have, once again, set forth, in spite of everything.  And I’m not sorry.

I’ve gotten to spend some time with a friend I value in a beautiful place that I love.  I would have been limping around at home anyhow.  There have been some lovely moments this long weekend.  Great restaurant meals:  I recommend, unreservedly, Paula’s, for breakfast, and Vasili’s any time of the day, breakfast, lunch or dinner, if you like Greek food.  An added plus for us is that the owner and chief chef is Julie White, sister of my son’s sweetie.  It’s incredibly good food.

Foot cloud appears as I am taking above photo

Whenever I travel – with migraine disease –
I go prepared with all my meds, both preventative and rescue.  I also take pain pills, fiorenal with codeine, so I can make it through any severe episode with less discomfort.  I carry lidocaine patches, which help when I have a severe headache and crystalized ginger for nausea.  I package my supplements in little bitty plastic bags, one morning bag for each day and one evening bag per day.  All the am little baggies go in a larger zip lock labeled morning, and the pm baggies go in another zip lock labeled evening.  It works well.  I always take
my individual prescription bottles so I can substantiate any ‘challenges’ that might arise, but then I have a week-long plastic pill keeper that allows me to pre-sort my prescription meds into morning, noon, dinner, and bedtime dosages for seven days.  It’s a hassle, but I’ve got it down now, and it works so I don’t have to fret.  Needless to say, I plan ahead so that I have enough or more than enough meds to keep me going for 5 days (on this trip) or two or three weeks, whatever the length of my trip.  Another great thing about traveling is that I take a vacation from worrying about

1. I’m having too many headaches
2. I might be taking too many pills thus setting myself up for rebound headaches
3. Doctors appointments
4. Physical therapy appointments
5. Massage appointments
6. Any appointments
7. Headache diaries
8. Work
9. etc. etc.

I just take it one day at a time and enjoy myself.

I used to obsess about the woes of having to take all this medication (and I still do from time to time), but then I read a book that I grabbed from the communal hotel library while on vacation in Mexico.  It was a great read and immensely helpful:  Prozac Diary by Lauren Slater.  I don’t take prozac, but the point is, she has to survive (and thrive) by taking lots of meds.  Well, so can I.  And you can too.

Tomorrow we fly home, but I’m looking forward to my next trip, our annual jaunt to the Mexican beach town of Zihuatanejo in just a month.  I can’t wait to immerse myself in the warm blue-green waters of the Mexican sea.  I hope my foot is healthy enough to do a lot of walking, which I love, but if I’m still limping for limited distances, I know I’ll be able to swim, which I look forward to all year.