I celebrate New Year’s. I mean really celebrate it. I make resolutions, I stress about what to wear, where to go, what presents to get. I want everything to be perfect.
As you might have already guessed, everything goes wrong. Two years in a row, Jake and I spent the stroke of midnight in a fight. No bubblies, no laugher, no pretty dresses, just screaming and tears.
After the disaster of last year, I decided that from now on, Jake and I were to spend New Year’s out of town. I figured, and he agreed, that if we leave town, I won’t be stressed worrying about everything being perfect and will be delighted just to be out of town.
So we made plans. First it was the Galapagos, then Cuba, and then the Bahamas. After they all fell through, we finally settled on a trip to Savannah with Jake’s family. The location didn’t matter to me, I just wanted it not to be New York.
When I got real sick at the beginning of December, I panicked about the planned vacation. The doctor told me to relax and that I’d make it to my vacation no problem. So I skipped everything to ensure I’d get to go on this vacation. I didn’t go to my volunteer job three weeks in a row, I missed Jake’s family’s annual Christmas party, I spent endless hours on my couch, getting bedsores just so I could make it to Savannah. This New Year’s would be fun, even if it meant ruining December.
Two days before our trip, I felt 1000% better. I could sit, walk and stand without much pain. I was ready for Savannah and I knew it was ready for me. We took the train from New York to Boston (where Jake’s parents live) and celebrated Christmas with them. On the morning of the 26th, all of us went to the airport. My back had started aching slightly but I figured I’d keep up my exercises and rest a lot and things would be fine.
Well it didn’t turn out that way.
The morning after we got to Savannah, I woke up with acute pain. Jake and I walked around for an hour and pain shot up and down my legs. In the last month, the one thing doctors had asked me was whether the pain went down to my legs and it never had. They kept saying that as long as the pain didn’t go down, I was fine. And now it was going down. All the way to my toes.
We went back to the hotel and after several hours of sleep, the pain wouldn’t stop. Finally, I called my doctor and he says my MRI results are back and I have two herniated discs on my back. He said if the pain is back I should come back home and have bed rest for a few days. He goes, “You can get up to go to the bathroom, but no moving otherwise.” Gee. Thanks.
Lumbar 3/4 and 4/5. Two discs for the price of one.
Jake and I take the 6:30am plane back to New York. I spend all Thursday in bed. Today I went to my physical therapist and pain is attacking my back, my legs, my knees.
Here we are, two days before the year is over and I am to lie in bed for twenty minutes and walk around the house for twenty minutes as I alternate between having heat and cold applied to my back.
Happy New Year.
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