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| Live crab. |
It was only as a result of an extraordinary amount of pain relief from an anti inflammatory diet over these past five years that allowed us to begin to travel the world.
Chronic pain would make traveling to this degree unbearable and impractical. Over these past five years I haven’t had back or neck pain since the steps collapsed under our feet in Belize on the night of our anniversary in March 2013 and I banged my delicate spine and neck on the broken wood. Here’s the link to awful event.
It was a full two months until I began to feel pain free again as the injuries finally healed. From there, my strict adherence to living an anti inflammation lifestyle served me well until…
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| The grocery store has both local and western type foods. |
About three weeks ago, while living in Bali and working out in the pool, I slipped and banged my neck and spine on the stone lip and edge of the steps leading in and out of the pool.
At the time, I experienced a horrible pain in my spine, but didn’t say a word to Tom to keep him from worrying. But, I couldn’t keep my secret long when I began icing using our traveling ice pack. In telling Tom about the injury I dismissed the severity of the pain which escalated over a period of days.
OMG, I thought. Will this be our undoing? When will the pain subside? After a few days of rest, I decided to continue gently walking in the pool, albeit more carefully, and walking about the house for five minutes every half hour in order to stay mobile.
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| Lots of fresh fish reasonably priced. |
I deliberated over walking on the tile floors knowing stone floors are hard on the back, but I had little interest in walking on the road or beach more than a few times a week to take more photos. As for sightseeing, it wasn’t a remote possibility.
I tried everything I knew from years of experience to relieve severe back and neck pain from making a homemade heat pack using a plastic bag with a damp heated-in-the-microwave cloth on the inside, to a series of very gentle stretches. Nothing has seemed to help.
It all boiled down to time…enough time passing for the injury to heal with the hope I’ll return to my usual pain free existence. Have we considered medical care? We have.
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| A vegetable cutting tool presentation at the market. |
Although, certainly not in Bali with less than stellar medical care. Also, knowing that major surgery is the only real long term option if the pain continues indefinitely, there’s no point in pursuing this option.What would they do anyway?
Need I say that the harrowing five hour drive from West Bali to Denpasar was quite a challenge? Ouch.
We’ve certainly had to curtail our activities in Singapore. I’m grateful we’ve already handled two of the three visas we needed. With our upcoming long flight to Hanoi in two days, I’m a bit apprehensive about sitting on the plane so long but I made it through the one hour shorter flight from Bali to Singapore and I’ll do the same for the upcoming flight.
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| Tom was in line paying for cheese and nuts. |
We get out as much as I feel I can and continue to take photos to share. I’m saddened over the fact that we aren’t able to do some of the sightseeing we’d hoped in Singapore. When one doesn’t have a home and lives in the “world,” recuperating from any medical issue is required wherever we may be at any given time, thus we may miss out on some opportunities.
Why didn’t we bring this up sooner? I suppose it was my attempt to “tough it out” to avoid complaining. I suppose any of us retirees have bad periods where we’re under the weather in one way or another. Even the younger generation becomes ill from time to time. Its a part of life.
With the sharing of our daily lives of travel we attempt to stay upbeat and positive in our posts. Although, I must admit its been tricky over these past weeks.
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| The mall aisles weren’t crowded since most visitors were eating. |
We’re forging ahead with all of our plans over these next few months. Its comforting to know we’ll have a six week restful hiatus at the house in Phuket beginning on July 22nd. Hopefully, by then my recovery will be much further progressed.
That’s the scoop folks. This morning, Sunday, once again we went out to breakfast and walked through Chinatown without the usual weekday crowds. The walk was good and now we’re back at our hotel to rest until dinner.
We’ll be back tomorrow as we wind down to less than two days before departing Singapore to head to Hanoi.
Photo from one year ago today, July 3, 2015:
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| It was fun to take photos of wild cockatoos in Trinity Beach, Australia. For more details, please click here. |