Back Travels

With the various trips I have been blessed to take recently, a few people have asked me how I am able to do all that, what with a cranky back and all. It’s a good question because a lot of people with back problems aren’t able to travel very easily. So I thought it might be worthwhile to answer the question.

First, a quick recap. Back in the ‘90s I coughed and blew out some discs in my back. After a number of years of denial, I had two spinal fusion surgeries. My lower back is now a solid piece of bone, and I have some really spiffy titanium instead of a couple of discs. My daily pain is TONS better than it was prior to the surgeries so I consider my situation a success story. Sure, I am in some measure of pain most all of the time, but I have some awesome coping mechanisms that have given me a great quality of life despite it. I am one very grateful woman.

But with the pain and the lack of L4/L5 and L5/S1 and the intense desire to keep the discs I have left, I do travel a bit differently than I did in my pre-cough days. For instance:

I bring equipment. Specifically, I tote around a special lumbar pillow that I use on airplanes, airport shuttles, tour buses, any transportation that isn’t my own back friendly car with my very back-friendly driver of a husband. I also pack an egg-timer shaped pillow that I sleep with between my legs to help keep my spine better aligned when I am sleeping on my side. And I also bring along a piece of medical equipment I call my zapper.

My zapper is sort of like a TENS unit, for those who are familiar with durable medical equipment. It is not one, however, according to the insurance company who refused to pay for it. I’m almost no longer bitter. Anyway, my zapper is about the size of a box of Girl Scout cookies. Thin Mints, to be exact. I attach two long cords to it; at the end of the cords are little sticky patches. When I zap myself, I attach the patches to my back and lie down for 45 minutes while electrical currents flow through the patches in varying patterns to try to scramble pain signals to my brain. It doesn’t make the pain go away; it just makes me THINK the pain has gone away. Good enough! I am only allowed to use my zapper once in a 24 hour period, so when we travel I typically zap at night while blogging. I am grateful that so far, my electronic unit with wires and sticky patches hasn’t landed me in a small room at an airport being questioned under bright lights and armed guard.

And speaking of things that make me paranoid, I also travel with a small pharmacy in my purse with six different pain medications, plus over-flow bottles in my carry-on of my three favorites. My toiletries bag also has various sleep aids (pills, earplugs, sound machine) to try to overcome issues from difficult beds. I also go stocked with those ThermaCare heat wrap things. I won’t get on a plane without them. By the way, they aren’t kidding about not wearing them too long for fear of developing a heat rash.

For the getting to and fro parts of our trips, Rob does ALL the lifting. For my job, I used to travel by myself all the time. Post-cough, I really need a Sherpa. I can't get the suitcases into or out of a car, into or out of the parking/airport/hotel shuttle, onto or off of the scale at the airline ticket counter (and no matter how nicely I ask, the airline employees always seem annoyed to be asked to do it for me), off of the luggage carousal, onto a bed to unpack. I have tried twice to travel by myself since my surgeries. One was a disaster and the other had people stationed at either end of my flights to help me with my luggage. Yes, yes, I could always just have a pocket full of $1 bills and ask for help. But that would get exhausting, demoralizing, not to mention very expensive.

The first couple days of any trip are a bit rough due to the adventure of getting there, as well as adjusting to a new bed. To the extent I can, I try to plan minimally active days for the first day or two of a vacation. Similarly, I build in about a week of minimal activity when I get home so I can recover. We have been home from our Panama cruise for one week. I’m still not “there” yet in terms of being recovered but I am getting closer every day. Today, for example, I finally tried the treadmill at the gym. Progress!

While we are on the trip itself, I try to maximize walking and minimize sitting. But I really do best with a variety of activities and elevations as well as lots of flexibility to change my mind depending how my back is doing. On our Panama trip, I chose excursions very carefully (no ATVs, jet boats, scenic hikes, horseback riding, long bus tours, etc). I also made sure that I had an At Sea day after the more active excursions. This isn’t sure-fire, though. As it turns out, the snorkeling in Cabo San Lucas sort of killed my back. I’m thinking flippers were a really bad idea. So even though I had an At Sea day after snorkeling, I didn’t really start recovering from that until well after we got home. Don’t worry, though, I will NOT be using this as an excuse not to get in the water again. I just need to be better educated about flippering. Oh, and the day we spent going through the Panama Canal? It didn’t occur to me in the slightest that that would be a tough day. A more back-friendly plan would have been to stay in the restaurant on the 14th floor and alternate sitting and standing to watch the passage. However, it would have been very boring and a lot less informative and not nearly as sun shiny warm. If I were to do the canal passage again, I would wear shoes with better arch support and would remember to sit down more often.

I honestly was hoping my back would do a bit better on the Panama trip than it did. A similarly long cruise with my mom a few years ago left me with a back happier than it had been in years. I thought it was the cruising. Now I don’t know. On this trip I walked at least 2 miles every day, I climbed stairs all over the ship, I zapped almost every night, I took full advantage of my ever-available bed and lounge chairs by the pool, I planned ahead for sitting at shows, I took my back pillow with me into Costa Rica and Panama…and yet I was on the verge of tears during the “Relieving Back Pain” seminar on the last day of the cruise. And that was before they told me the price of the questionably good feet inserts. Maybe it was the flippering. Maybe we needed to get lost more (my mom and I got lost in several towns and that produced some gloriously long walks). Maybe all the leg shaving and sunscreen applications were too much bending. Or maybe…just maybe…I just need to move to Greece.