Two weeks from today, I will be in Valparaiso Chile preparing to board the Viking Jupiter cruise ship for an 18 day trip around Cape Horn ending in Buenos Aires Argentina. My biggest concern at the moment is the status of my right knee, which is still suffering from a fall 10 days ago where I landed with my full weight on a rock on that right knee. I have generally felt that it was getting better and better each day and it would not be a problem for this trip. But tonight Kim and I went to a show at the La Jolla Playhouse, which was a fairly standard format of a 2 1/2 hour show broken in half with a 15 minute intermission. As always, Kim got us aisle seats so that I could be more comfortable, but unfortunately they were left aisle seats not right aisle seats so my right leg was still not able to stretch out into the aisle and relieve some of the pressure that my knee still feels when it’s bent for long periods of time. It never occurred to me that my knee would hurt during a 2 1/2 hour show, but despite quite reasonable legroom at the La Jolla Playhouse, auditorium, sitting cooped up with my knees was a bigger problem than I’d realized.
We got to our seats early, which is usually a good idea but tonight given the large size of the theater, it required me to get up and down probably 20 times to let people in the middle of the row by to get to their seats. Standing up from a seated position and stepping up steps are the two activities which aggravate my knee more than any others. Sure enough, by the time the show was starting, my knee was screaming at me from its cramped and bent position. This was the kind of discomfort I was fearing for our future travel because we have what amounts to 15 hours of flight time to get down to Santiago before I can relax and pamper my knee on the ship. I’m less worried about the 15 or 16 hour return flight since that’s almost 3 weeks later and I’m hoping that this knee improves over the course of the journey. I had envisioned spending the 18 days on the ship, going off on our excursions when we were in port and using the promenade deck to walk out the kinks in my knee on the sea days when the schedule was light and the weather was nice enough to allow walking around the deck. Based on tonight‘s discomfort, I’m wondering how many excursions I’m gonna feel like taking and how much promenade deck walking I’m gonna feel like doing.
Right now, I am most concerned about a quick trip we have planned for this weekend to drive almost 6 hours to Phoenix for my friend Steve’s book launch party and then drive six hours back on Sunday after staying the night at our friends Mark and Jeanne‘s house. Kim has already asked me if I feel I will be able to drive for six hours each way and before this evening I waved off that concern and said my knee was feeling good enough so that that would not be a problem. I’m a little less certain of that at the moment. I do not like last-minute cancellations and always feel like it’s a sign of weakness if you can’t stay the course of the program you set up and muscle through whatever discomfort you may be feeling. I will talk about the drive on the way home from the theater tonight because I know Kim will have a point of view, but I tend to think that this is one of those times when what’s called for is just to muscle through the discomfort and not make last-minute excuses on account of some knee boo-boo. It was already a long trip to make for what amounts to a one to two hour reception where I will be one of many and probably not missed if I didn’t show, but showing support for a fellow writer seems important and seems worth doing regardless of the hardship.
I think, taking along extra ibuprofen and being prepared to cede the wheel to Kim for periods of time when I need to rest my knee, may be the best solution for this weekend. I do plan to leave extra time so that we need not be rushed, but six hours is a long ride no matter how you slice it.
Kim and I discussed the weekend trip on our way home from the theater. You see, I had made my excuses to her at intermission and told her that I was going to sit out in the truck, even though I was enjoying the show to me. This was the only way to survive the evening given the pain I was feeling. By the time the show was over and she came out. My leg was somewhere in between getting better and still hurting, but we decided that we would go forward with the plans for the weekend anyway so tomorrow I will see how well this knee will hold up first in the driver’s chair and then if need be in the passenger seat for this six hour joint to Phoenix. I almost feel like this is a test drive for what I’m going to have to deal with in two weeks both at the Delta terminal at JFK where we switch Plains and in Santiago on the way to Valparaiso as we get ready to embark on our journey. At the moment, I’m feeling like collapsing on the bed in our cabin is going to be one of those really good moments for me at the early part of this trip.
I think I’ve concluded that as we get older, we’re always going to have these eggs and pains, and that the right thing to do is to muscle through and try our best to stay active and not default to that easy sedentary lifestyle that is so much more comfortable in the moment.What I’m effectively saying in the parlance of my younger generation is that now more than ever we each have to keep on keeping on because giving up simply not a good option and figuring out how to work through discomfort or pain will have its own rewards.