So my biggest worry before leaving for New Zealand was that something would go wrong on the health front and fuck up the trip.
People asked me ‘are you looking forward to the big trip?’ And I couldn’t say yes because I felt that I needed to get through it successfully, then be able to look back on the many good things that we would have done, with health having held out fine for the both of us.
Well my fears have sadly and soddingly annoyingly come true. Not directly the myeloma itself, but one of its very unhelpful gifts – the angry return of my buggered back.
And it’s not like I was doing anything wild when it ‘went’. We were in a vineyard, on Sun 6 Jan having dinner and I did the crazy and dangerous move of – god, silly me – leaning forward at the table to take a bite of dinner from my fork. I just felt a sharp pain – and that was it. Ten short days into a 38 day trip, not great timing at all.
I am now walking with a distinct tip to the left – strangers have even commented on it. Any twists, turns or even the slightest movement like trying to put socks on or get out of the car can be excruciatingly painful. All fairly quick in terms of the white pain coming and going, but it’s shout out loud sore, and added up over the course of a day, draining and debilitating, and definitely not what you want when away from home and trying to enjoy yourself.
Luckily I’d packed a huge pile of Diazapam, multiple strips of Voltarol, some tub of 100 pills being with N that are meant for depression but also good to relax muscles (I’m on the boat now and can’t face going down below to check the labels!), a box of soluble Tramadol, plus Naproxen and something brown and round that I can’t even identify but am consuming anyway…
Surely enough painkillers to paralyse a rhino, but all they do is slightly take the edge off the pain for bits of the day, and then make me sleep like the living dead.
It’s now Day 8, there’s been zero improvement and we now have a bumpy week ahead on our boat in the Bay of Islands. Wrapped in my back support and pretending all was fine, we did the boat briefing yesterday and got out to sea. But trying to get in and out of the dinghy to go to shore last night was more than painful – I had to ask for help to get out of the dinghy at the jetty, I’ve become that old lady who can’t do anything any more – and every movement has to be a calculated slow process, me biting my lip to not shout out.
I’m willing to suck it up and keep going, but H hates seeing me in pain and me not being able to join in anything for the next 3 weeks isn't a great prospect for either of us. Hence discussions about our options. To stay or to go? We are at an impasse now, unsure whether to come home and try and claim on insurance or whether to keep going so H can at least experience everything we had planned and I tag along watching most of it.
Fucking, fucking myeloma. Even when you feel well and ‘normal’ it can just suddenly shit on you – and the most expensive and longest holiday ever – from a great height. Maybe just maybe my back will ease off, though it’s happened twice previously in the last 9 months and took about a month to resolve each time.
I feel doubly crap – in pain myself and also feeling like a bag of shit for ruining H’s big bucket list trip of a lifetime. There’s no easy solution to this one, so I think for now we will see how I cope on the boat and maybe lying on the side seats on a folded duvet and pillows like a stranded sad whale will help it recover..
So, for all of you who thought ‘those lucky bloody Hawkes’s, off jollying yet again while we endure winter in Blighty’, well life certainly isn’t always – or even often in our case – what it might seem. And being at home, with the security blanket of Parkside up the road, and Scrumpy and Mojo for sofa cuddles would be nice if we could make it happen without losing even more dosh than we now are…
Keep safe and healthy folks. As they say, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. And god I miss my health so, so, so bloody much.
Love you all x x