“Yes, I was thinking you a bit insane,” my primary care doctor said as I told her my plans to go to Peru and stay for a month.
“Oh, I am not going to Machu Pichu, I know I can’t” I told her, which was only partially true because I did look into the journey to Machu Pichu until my partner talked me out of it.
Radical acceptance is something I have been working on my entire life but doubly so lately with my body and what I am realistically capable of. I seem to be making slow progress.
I was at the doctor’s to get the clearance but it happened to be terrible timing because I also had to admit I’ve been having dizzy spells worse than usual. So now besides the back brace my spine doc recommends, the SI brace my rheumatologist receommends and the compression socks Dr P just recommended, I am feeling less 45 more 85. Alas, if I do a few other things as well, take an altitude medication, don’t do anything for the first three days in Cusco, hydrate and have access to oxygen, I should be okay.
Should.
My nightmare is getting medivacced out and so you’re probably like, why are you doing this, you dumb woman. Ah, but there are so many reasons and not just for the project I have slowly begun working on that will continue in Peru and into Mexico.
I’ve been recovering or having surgery for the past six years. I’ve had five spine surgeries, three fusions, and one breast reduction. I’m surgeried out. But in news that shocks no one, my neck is also collapsing and requires a fusion and surgery as I will slowly lose use of my spinal cord due to the stenosis if I don’t go forward with it. Thus, I get this year. This one magical wonderful year before I am once again parked, having another surgery and enduring the brutal recovery.
My goal when I was younger was to explore all seven continents and while that may be a bit ambitious for a woman with a broken spine and circulatory issues, Peru will make it my fifth continent. Not bad for a woman with a fused spine, eh?
I understand the need for radical acceptance but there is a part of me that just can’t quit. It’s what has kept me going an surviving. Sure, I had a blood clot but I have to try to take this trip. I have to. I can’t explain the need but I am ever so lucky that my doctors all seemed to admire my fortitude and have cleared me for this wild plan. But more than that I am ever so lucky to have the most supportive partner who is backing me up on this global tour. I don’t know how I would have arrived at this point in my journey without him.
We get this one precious life. Make it count. xx