Money

I guess one of the worst fears for anyone taking a CB is money - or the lack of it! 6 months without a regular income is SCARY!!!!! But I think I am going to be OK. The benefit of paying for things (like accommodation and transport) up front is that anything I earn now is for ME :).

I am mentioning the CB to more people and 2 girls at my PT job today got really excited on my behalf! So hello Gabby and Alex - thanks for your support and enthusiasm, as talking to you and people like you are making it more and more exciting, despite the worries and fears.

The next 2 weeks on vacation from my main place of work are going to be full of paperwork and plans, getting everything straight before the final run to November.

Hello to Jason, by the way. Missing our conversations about non-EM stuff :)

Speak soon

Latest update

Another month goes by and only 13.5 weeks till I leave :)

OK: quick medical update: saw my consultant last week and the good news is I haven't done any permanent damage to my spinal nerves. The fact is even though I can do a little bit of running (well shuffling, really) I am NOT ALLOWED TO DO IT (just remind me of that when I try next time!). The nerves are subject to neurodyspraxia (mechanical damage) and I have to be careful with activities - although I can walk OK and keep fit now, which is big progress from last month. Such is life, living with a previously tethered cord, and associated disabilities!!

CB news: booked the last of the accommodation in Adelaide and Auckland, and booked my place on the Kiwi Experience bus. New Zealand looks so beautiful with so much to do...

Got a new camera at the weekend - must learn how to put up photos on here for when I am away! Let's try this one

Pain

One thing I perhaps haven't made clear on this blog so far, is how much pain I live with, and how this so dominates any plans for travel.

I have lived with chronic pain, 24/7, since 1999. It is due to tethered cord syndrome, accompanied by spondylolisthesis (vertebral slippage), underlying invisible spinal and visible foot deformities, acquired Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and erythromelalgia. It takes several forms: nerve pain in back and legs, bone pain in ankles, knees, sacrum and back, and all forms of pain in feet. It is a grumbling type of pain, which flares up regularly into unremitting, uncontrollable-by-drugs, depressing, despairing pain, during which I want to curl up and stay in bed, but can't as I still have a life to lead. I also have the erythromelalgia which is caused by nerve damage in my back, which causes my feet and ankles to swell, with yet more pressurised, pounding-headache type of pain, which is again uncontrollable and incurable.

Since my spinal surgery in 2001 (OMG, nearly 6 years ago!) the chronic pain dominates my life. I can never escape it - as soon as I get up in the morning it is there, as soon as I put a foot to the floor it is there, as soon as I drop to my knees in my house to get around, it is there. People think that just because I work 2 jobs, (mostly) keep a smile on my face, am actually walking, I am "fixed", that the spinal surgery did its job and the pain disappeared. If only.....

I got to the point in 2003 that I felt fit enough that I could do the Race for Life, and indeed I did. No problems, just the expected excruciating ankle pain and muscular weariness, but no long term problems at all.
I bethought it of me to do the same this year, on May 20th. Baaaad idea - I think I have acquired a long-term, permanent, debilitating, nerve-damage injury in my Right leg (the strongest of the two). Why, why, why did I do that stupid race? Why didn't I follow my instincts and not do the bl....dy race? I just pray that 6 years of post-op progress has not been wiped out in 1-second of running in that stupid Race.

This is another reason why I am feeling so down today. The pain from the injury is not getting any better. I tried to hop, skip, & jump across a road today, and nearly collapsed with the pain in my leg, and the fact it didn't have any power and could not support my (little) weight. Even before my surgery, and even when I was deteriorating fast, I could still run - now that is totally gone. I can't run one little bit, which is so depressing. It also makes me feel very vulnerable, as I couldn't get out of danger if danger presents itself on my travels.

I am getting a referral back to my nsg, but what can he do? This is my injury, I can't face the trauma of any more major surgery, and anyway, scar tissue would make things worse and not necessarily cure the problem.

I just hope (ever optimistic when faced with TCS issues and usually disappointed, I might add) that this injury is not as drastic as I am fearing. The CB will be dominated by pain - I don't want anything else to go wrong to spoil the travels.......

Hopefully I will be more up-beat next time. Speak soon

...and more :)

Yep, I spent more money this morning and booked my New Zealand "adventure". Instead of using the Magic Bus (of which the information was in short supply and not well explained on their website, and I had no reply to my emails!!) I am going to travel with Kiwi Experience - on a bus, but with lots of trips and fun-things included + a free intro to Auckland. I guess KE is a bit like Trek America and Let's Trek in that the drivers know an enormous amount about their country and so the travellers can benefit from that as well as getting cheap travel round the country.

That's all the bookings I need now. Phew! My credit card can take a rest for a bit!! The rest of it is PAYG and as needed.

I am getting so excited about this; even recounting it to a friend at lunchtime I could feel the excitement building, and sharing it makes it more real and coming-up-soon :)

20 weeks and counting.....

More travel bookings done

I am not very good at updating this blog, am I!! Nearly a month since the last post. Anyway, in the next few months, there will be more frequent posts, as plans are coming to fruition and I am having to spend money on bookings!!! I also promise to update it much more frequently when travelling, so that everyone can share my adventures.

Yep, I have a lovely place to stay in Sydney - at the Y on the Park, in Wentworth Avenue. It is what they call a boutique hotel, and it looks very nice, and "safe" for a girl on her own. It is within walking distance of the centre of town and for me, with limited walking ability and chronic pain, that is an important thing. I don't want to get tired out with walking to somewhere even before I see the place :). In Adelaide I will be at the highly-acclaimed Youth Hostel - do you think I will be young enough to stay there??

I have also booked my flight tickets. OMG the distances and times are HUGE. 17 hours to Perth via a 2-hour flying visit in Singapore (hello Auntie Nina there, whom I am named after); on the way back it is 14.5 hours from Sydney to Mumbai, let alone then getting to Delhi :-0). The quick trips to Europe next year will be peanuts by comparison.

At work, my plans for my career break are now well-known in the Faculty, as I had them published in our Faculty magazine. The overall reaction was "well done; sounds an amazing trip; look after yourself and enjoy it as much as you can before coming back here!" I intend to, don't you worry!

With all this rain we are having in the UK I am really looking forward to the blue skies and azure seas of the Indian Ocean of Western Australia in their summer time. Can't wait.....

OK, that's it for now.

"modern" travel

I've been reflecting on the communication differences between this trip overseas for a long period and my last one, as a student in 1992, when I went to Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA as part of my American Studies at Keele University

I am amazed at actually having a blog. That makes me sound really "old", but I never thought I would be in the position to actually need one. This blog is primarily a means to keep in touch with family while I am away, assuaging some of their worries, and I will be able to let off steam about things that have not quite gone to plan, or effuse on the wonders of what I am doing ... at my age :). It will also be an aide memoire to me when I write my journal or if friends ask me what I did and when.

Secondly: I can keep in touch by email. Yes, such a simple thing that we all do and take for granted, but it is a wonderful thing for making the world smaller. For instance, I have never met my cousin's daughter Rachel, who lives about 50 miles from Perth, WA, but we are corresponding by email and I almost know her already! My old mum (said affectionately) and my dad's sister now correspond by email, while only a short time ago, they had to wait a couple of weeks for letters to come and go all that way.

Thirdly: letters aka snail mail. When I was a student at BSU in 1992, this was the only way to keep in touch. I used to write pages and pages to my family as to what I was doing and how my studies were going. I would stand in line at the post office for the American stamps with the eagle on them, and with blind faith pop them into the box-shaped post "boxes" and they would wing their way over the pond.

We had long, slot-shaped pigeonholes/mail boxes in the small foyer of the Hall we were in, and I used to check the mail eagerly every day. It was such a joy to receive the long letters back, on blue, tissue-thin Air Mail paper, and I used to drink in the news from home. It was odd to discover that while we were having a long hot summer and Fall, the UK was having its wettest Autumn for years. However I could also write back that we had just experiencd a tornado within 2 miles of town, and then we had fog for about 2 weeks non-stop.

Back in 1992, mobile phones were huge bricks, not the slim-line versions we have today. Even though they existed, they were a luxury item, and the cost of calls and ownership packages was extortionate. What a difference to today when everyone has one.

Finally, computers. Back then the computer boxes were like TV sets, the screens were green (yeuk) and hard to read. Computer programmes ran at 64MB. What a difference from the flat screen slim-line, ultra-fast ones we use now.

Part of what I am looking forward to is sharing my experiences with family and friends almost in real-time. I will be able to publish a blog, or send an email, and they could almost be "with me" at that time. However, I still have to master putting photos on this blog - any ideas anyone?!?!?

Until next time :)

New Zealand plans

I am absent from work due to this pain flare-up and so have had time to think about the planning of the New Zealand part of the trip.

IT IS TOO LARGE A COUNTRY TO SEE IN SUCH A SHORT TIME!!!!!

I have jiggled around the dates for the Australia bit and will stay in Sydney longer before Xmas and before going to Adelaide. Then it is straight to Auckland to have 6 weeks in the country. I am going to use the Magic Bus (weird name, but a good way to see the country and get accommodation too in the passes), but will have to rationalise what I see. I want to see the natural beauty of the place, and do things I would never have the opportunity to do in the UK (climbing a glacier, all the activities around Queenstown, smelling the sulphurous fumes in Rotorua, and bathing in the hot-water sand-bath on the beach! are among the highlights) - so I feel myself leaning towards the big outdoors, rather than spending time in the cities.

Also, I will just have to go back for a 2nd trip won't I?!?!?

OK, must get back to that map.