Healings, Nothing More Than Healings....

  Healing is boring.
  Healing is getting in my way.  Healing is something I'd rather do in the winter when sitting on the couch with cup after cup of tea is my preferred activity anyway.  Healing takes patience and stillness and for a girl who considers it a luxury to spend two nights in a row in the same place, this is a task. Healing feels like a very grown-up thing to do and in the last couple of months there is not much that has made me feel like a grown-up.  But healing is what I need to do if I have any hope of hiking to Canada.  Canada, you've never felt so far away.....
  I know some of you won't believe this, but I am at a loss for words.  Oddly, being  stationary and in pain is not whipping my creativity and gift for gab into a frenzy.  I will do the best I can to describe my predicament and feelings.  For the first time since I began the Pacific Crest Trail I'm not totally content with where I am.  Not totally living in the now.  I now look at pictures that my friends are posting on Facebook and wish I could be there, jealous of what they are doing.  Don't get me wrong, the place where I literally am is gorgeous and has perfect weather.  Lake Tahoe is a destination vacation spot for lots of people and I've somehow met the nicest, most generous couple in the whole area who have welcomed me, let me have the run of their house, and loaned me their beater car so I can get around town if I want to.  I'm very grateful and fortunate in that aspect.
  It's mentally and physically that I'm not where I want to be and I'm just doing my best to keep my head up and have patience.  How very grown-up.  Unfortunately my annoying hip pain that was troubling me as I walked into Tahoe nearly two weeks ago (!) has blossomed into full-blown, full-time searing pain.  I left S. Lake Tahoe while the pain in my hip was still but a dull roar and took myself off the trail 32 miles later after limping, lurching, and enduring sharp shooting pains that left me unable to sleep or walk.  This was obviously not something that I could walk off.
  So while my friends continued to walk north toward our mutual goal, I made the very adult choice to take more time off and let my hip get better.  The only thing is that it hasn't gotten better.  After 3 days with family friends in Tahoe City, I'm on day 5 in South Lake and as seized up as ever with no signs of improvement.  Standing up from a sitting or lying position has become an activity I dread and I'm halfway surprised I haven't ripped the towel rack off the wall in the bathroom from when I instinctively grab it as the inevitable pain shoots through my hip when getting up from the toilet.  I have this mental image of one of those jaggedy cartoon caption bubbles from Batman (the old Batman show) on my hip that say BAM! or POW! when these foreseeable moments of pain shoot through me.  Once the pointy, sharp pain has cleared the path, the tight, hot omnipresent pain settles in, allowing me to move, but move like Estelle Getty in her later years.  It's hard to imagine myself, mere weeks ago, climbing mountain passes and walking 20 miles a day.  Now I'm lucky to get from the bedroom to the kitchen without incident.  Sigh.
  In the last 3 days I've been to a massage therapist, an applied kineseologist (I'm not certain how to spell that, but Windows wants to replace it with "Kremlinologist" and I think that would send the wrong message), and an acupuncturist.  The kineseologist has provided the most relief even if it was just emotional and mental relief.  Through a series of tests that had me crying with hysterical laughter (sometimes my reaction to physical pain--it's quite hilarious....well, at least to me. The doctor looked quite confused as to whether I was in pain or not.) and pain, but he determined that there is nothing wrong with  my hip ball and socket: the joint is OK.  I do, however, have a severe case of tendinitis and fasciaitis (again with the spelling, but you get the point...it's definitely not a case of "fascism").  He said he hasn't seen so much inflammation in many years, so I've got that going for me....which is nice.  The GOOD NEWS is that this will heal.  There will be no long-lasting, permanent damage.  The BAD NEWS is that there is no real time frame for the healing process.  I'm already doing all the right things and I've seen no progress toward getting off the toilet in a pain-free manner.  Also, I have no time frame for when I'll be able to get back on the trail.  That is a far off goal for me now...I just want to be able to walk normally again first.  I just want to be able to wake up in the morning, after a good night's sleep, and not have to anticipate an unwanted, painful contraction of my hip muscles.  I want to be able to hop out of bed, get out of a chair, or off the motherscratchin' toilet,  for Pete's sake, without crying out in pain and sucking air through my teeth.  I'm not looking for sympathy, good people, just telling you how it is. This too shall pass, I just wish it would pass a little quicker because it's frankly exhausting being in pain so much of the time.
  So here I am in South Tahoe.  I have to give a shout out to my hosts, Bob and Michelle, who just met me last week and have made me feel incredibly at home, relaxed, and welcome.  I'm hoping for an open adoption.  I'm trying to earn my keep by keeping them well-fed.  After months of heating water for instant food for a party of one, it truly is a joy to cook real, healthy food in a spacious, beautiful kitchen for people who are appreciative to not have to cook after getting home from work. (See how positive I am?)
  I try not to think about where I would be if I'd been able to continue hiking.  Oddly, I don't think about the trail as much as you might think.  I think because I have to muster courage to get out of a chair at this point, the trail is not a huge concern.  It is a little painful and bittersweet to see updates from my friends I'd been hiking with along the trail and see the progress they've made.  At this point, when I do return to the trail, I'll be weeks behind anybody I know and my chances of making it to Canada before there is a bunch of snow on the ground in Washington are pretty slim. I may consider skipping ahead so that I can reach Canada before winter hits and then coming back to finish the section I'll have to skip.  This sort of breaks my heart as I really love the idea of and set out to walk a continuous line of footsteps from Mexico to Canada.  It would really change my entire trip and how I feel about it.  Again, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
  For now, I'm sort of playing everything by ear, day to day.  I'm happy and comfortable where I am and Bob and Michelle haven't kicked me out yet, so that's good.  It's difficult for me to ask for help from people I know well much less new friends, but I'm trying to take them at their word that I'm not a nuisance and they're not sick of me laying uselessly around their home and whinging about my hip.  We'll see.  Bob just told me that one of his favorite things about me is that I'm not contagious.  Another thing I've got going for me.  My folks are at the ready to come up to Tahoe and pick me up. It's extremely lucky for me to have options of where I can recoup and close by options at that.  Initially I wanted to be close to the trail as I had high hopes of returning to it quickly...those hopes have been tucked away in my brand new pack, next to my brand new shoes, waiting patiently. The trail seems very far away at this point....
  For the most part, my spirits are in good shape.  I am relieved that there aren't tumors in my hip or something wrong that would require surgery (yes, I'm at the point where I think of worse-case scenarios to maintain my positive outlook....it could be much worse).  My trail mindset and the ritual of trail life is a distant memory....two weeks on my ass make it seem unlikely that I ever walked 1,127 miles though I know it's true.  I don't think I've really processed the whole PCT aspect of this injury and the consequences of it.  I do know that if I'd replaced my pack and shoes just a little earlier that this may have been avoided, but there's no use on dwelling on that fact since what's done is done.  I occasionally have a pity party for one when I have to move around:  being in pain for this long is exhausting and frustrating mentally as well physically.  But at some point I know I'm going to start feeling better and I've been proactive as far as trying to diagnose and treat what ails me, so what else can I do but sit back, enjoy reading books, watch the trees and Mount Talac out the window, sit in the sun on the deck, go sweat in the sauna and follow it up with epsom salts in my bath, put on a movie, and think about what I'll cook for dinner.  All things considered, life ain't too bad.
  But I dream of putting all this grown-up, responsible stuff to the wayside and returning to my childish ways on the trail:  eating a Snickers bar for breakfast, skipping across rocks or balancing on a log to cross a creek, making a fort every night to sleep in, watching butterflies have tickle fights, walking through forests made of giant unicorn horns, being filthy dirty and dusty all day everyday, eating my lunch on the ground while ants make a playground out of me (I'm a giant!), considering "Nutella" and "Candy" distinct food groups, delighting in the color scheme of the wildflowers on a hillside, digging holes to poop in.  No responsibility, no reason to dress up, if it's not in my pack on my back I don't need it: I miss this.  I miss the feeling of being content.  I miss living 100% in the Now.
  But I will be patient.  I will be grateful for what I do have.  I will try to make the best out of a bad situation.  I will go with the flow.  I will heal, boring as it may be.