It started two
days before I left when I woke up with huge shooting pain in my lower back and
a deaf ear. The ear was a result of wax buildup which I have developed since
age 50. The fact that I poured cooking oil into it to soften it for my doctor
to flush out didn’t help. As it turns out, there was so much wax the oil got
trapped behind it and rendered me deaf. Not to mention the fact that I used
(who knew) my husband’s expensive extra virgin olive oil. I mean, who among us would not want to
grab a little of the extra virgin, so long gone?! So my doctor flushed the wax
out and, because of that fine expensive oil, the wax shot out, right past the
medical robe and the metal ear bowl and onto my new pants. My doctor’s
humourous response was, “At least it was YOUR wax.” She’s right. Thank heaven
for small favours.
When I got home
after the flushing I really had to pee and I went to the powder room and felt
not relief, but searing burning pain. Phoned the doctor I had just left who
told me (given that I was leaving the country) to come back up right away. The
result as I suspected was a urinary tract infection, the first bout of which I
had just had in August. The explanation for this reoccurrence had everything to
do with my aging body parts and that darling of the female set: post-menopause.
So she put me on Sulfa again, which when I took it in August made me gag and
wretch. HORSE PILLS, I TELL YA!
At this point in
the day, the pain in my back was so bad that I could barely stand, but my
wonderful Chiropractor, the lovely Sasha, worked me over for a half hour! I got
home to find that the treatment was not only wearing off, but that my buttocks
were now covered in bruises as a result of the cure. I followed that up with a
massage and now my butt is so sore that not only can I not sit down because of
the internal pain, but I cannot sit down because of the external pain. Win win!
So, bless Sasha’s
heart, she came in on Saturday, her day off, and worked me over again to little
result. I think my back needed a break, but there was not time as we had to go
for it. So ice heat ice heat ice heat muscle relaxers later, I was packing in
slow-motion sporting a good Robaxiset buzz and a silly grin which was
accompanied by nausea. I would start to pack toiletries and wonder, “How did I
get on the floor playing “gimme it” with the dogs?” Add to that the fact that I
woke up on the day of travel with a swollen bottom lip sporting a burgeoning
cold sore. At this point I am staring into the mirror laughing my battered ass
off. You gotta laugh.
The following
excerpt is from the email I sent to aforementioned friends. The credit for the
term “downstairs lady” should go to my brilliant and hilarious friend Teresa
Pavlinek who has coined with this phrase a whimsical name for the female
anatomy.
Dear Cheryl,
Barb, Annette and Sheila,
So get to the
airport and back is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Nausea from the Robaxiset is wearing
off, but I am now in a full body sweat.
Limping along
with a stiff upper lip, which is chapped and dry from the herpes meds, I manage
to stumble to the Air Canada lounge and have a bite and a glass of wine to
sooth my tummy. Then I take two Advil, which actually work quickly and quite
well. Once on the plane I realize that although my back is better I am getting
Colin's wretched cold BIG TIME, so stuffed up am I becoming. So in no particular order, I take
Tylenol, Coldfx, and of course Sulfa for my needy, burning downstairs lady.
I have a bite of
food, watch a movie, take a nervie-dervie (sleeping pill for blog pepes who don’t
know my vernacular) and sleep through to landing. Wake up having missed
breakfast on the plane, driver picks us up and we get stuck in horrible
traffic.
Hunger and
dehydration nausea is building faster than a downtown condo. Get to the hotel
which is beyond the beyond of chic, come up to the room, order breakfast, sit
on the bed with Colin on the other side of the beautiful rose strewn dining
table, eat perfect French toast until I feel my stomach is ready to accept the
Sulfa pills to aid the woes of the “downstairs lady.”
Perched on the
embroidered silk bedcover, I put the pill in my mouth, gag for all I'm worth
and piss all over the bed. As I run screaming, gagging, laughing into the
washroom, my husband follows me with a hand towel wiping clean the evidence.
HELLO London!
The Clampetts have arrived.
“Come and listen to a story ‘bout a gal
named Deb,
A poor simple slut who just pissed a
hotel bed.
She picks herself up, cause she's got
nothing left to lose
And heads to the smart shops to buy her
some shoes.”
***The following
is the part that Annette, she of the great wit, added as response:
“So Deb sent an email to her friend named
Annette
Who heard about the peeing and had to
take herself to bed
Cause when she heard Jed singing about
some bubbling crude...
Annette had no idea that it really was so
ruuuudddee.
Pee that is ... Colin's knows...
Holding a towel ... away from his nose!”
JEALOUS YET?????
I know, I know, I’m a jetsetter, what can I say?
