The View from a Drawbridge

Hello, Drawbridge Nation! Oh, how I’ve missed you! You probably haven’t missed me, because I’ve made sure the blog posts continued on without a gap during my two weeks in Italy. But from my perspective, I haven’t been here in what seems like an eternity. Now I understand how my dogs can be so excited to see me even though I’ve only run down the street to the convenience store. Perspective. Anyway…

Before I plunge into writing the blog posts about the many things I experienced on my Italian trip of a lifetime, let’s establish this as a baseline so that it doesn’t have to crop up in every post to cast a dark shadow over them all: Most of the time I was in excruciating pain. A bit of this, I’ll concede, is due to the fact that I’m 60 and overweight and will never again be the skinny young thing who traipsed all over Europe when she was 19, without a care in the world.

But mostly the pain is and was due to a car accident I had in August in which I was rear ended by a similarly skinny young thing who has probably forgotten all about me by now. But she has turned my world upside down. It’s not like she put me in a wheelchair or a neck brace or anything. No bones were broken. No blood was shed. Life goes on. But quality of life? Greatly diminished.

My life is now one of ice packs and pain meds and orthopedic shoes and pain cream and careful exercise and a tens unit and having to take a break, much of the time, after walking about a block, standing too long, or climbing too many stairs. It’s been not being able to get a good night’s sleep for the pain. It’s been fighting with insurance, resisting all desires to remain sedentary while trying not to overdo, and it’s been a lot of tears, sometimes of pain, sometimes of frustration, and sometimes of anger.

Pain changes you. It sucks the life out of you. I’m 60, but there are days when I feel 90. There were a lot of things I wanted to do on this once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy that I couldn’t and didn’t do, and a lot of things I had to do much differently. It broke my heart to see how much my pain was holding my husband back on this, his first trip to Europe. When I was back in the room napping from sheer exhaustion, he often went back out to explore the neighborhood alone.

But I don’t want that pain to rear its ugly head overmuch in subsequent Italy blog posts, so I’m getting it out of the way here and now. Oh, I’m sure it’ll crop up every once in a while due to its overarching presence in my decision-making process, but I’m going to do my best to shove it back into the anxiety closet where it belongs as often as I can. Get thee behind me, back pain! (Well, strictly speaking, that’s where thou art anyway, but still…)

Having said that, though, something funny happened last night that was pain- and Italy-related that I had to share because every time I think about it, it makes me laugh. (I’m aware that sounds counterintuitive. Bear with me.)

So, on my last night in Italy, I went to bed in my usual amount of pain, but woke up a few hours later in oh-my-god-kill-me-now pain. This time it was emanating from my left knee. I have no idea why, but it was hugely swollen, and I could not get comfortable. I’m grateful that if my knee had to go and crap the bed on this trip, it waited until the last night, but it sure made navigating the airport no fun at all. It seemed to be inflamed, and the fluid build up made it feel like jelly was sloshing around in my lower thigh every time I tried to limp along. But if I limped too much, it would hurt my back.

Needless to say, I wanted to go home. It took about 19 hours to get from the door of our AirBnB in Rome to the door of our house. Having made it through all that, I treated myself to ice, elevation, and blessed, blessed sleep in my own bed, snuggling with my dogs.

When I woke up, my knee felt better. Kinda. Not the best by any means. It wasn’t quite as huge. I was glad that I had given myself one more day off before I had to go to work, though. Originally, that was just to adjust to the 9 hour time difference, but more ice and elevation was needed. (The knee thing was also an excellent excuse not to unpack.)

Anyway, I was literally chilling out on my recliner, talking to a friend (Hi, Bev!), and she suggested that I use cabbage leaves (Green, not purple. Purple stains.) and “cling film” (a delightfully British term for Saran Wrap) on my knee when I went to bed that night. I have always been open to nontraditional treatment, once I’ve read up on it, but this time I didn’t have to, because I remembered that when I worked in a health department, the nurses would advise nursing mothers to use cabbage leaves on their uncomfortable breasts. Even better, they suggested they put the cabbage leaves in the freezer first, to help combat the Florida heat. A lot of people have told me it works, and I was up for anything.

And since we were planning to watch a couple movies, I thought, why not try it right now, too? So, with Dear Husband’s help, we cabbaged me up. And sure enough, after 4 hours, I did feel some improvement. Yay!

That night, we went to bed, and I totally forgot to re-cabbage. (In my defense, it’s not like that’s part of one’s usual bedtime routine.) The next day I went to work, and obviously I couldn’t do it there. I was training someone, though, so I let him do all the heavy lifting. But I was determined to do the cabbage thing that night.

Unfortunately, DH fell asleep before I did, so I’d be on my own for this one. How the heck was I going to pull this off? I decided to pull the cabbage leaves off the cabbage in the kitchen and stack them in a neat pile. Then I grabbed the Saran Wrap and the cabbage and went into the bedroom.

I don’t know why I bother trying to be quiet, because the man can sleep through anything. But one of our dogs was already tucked in, and she was eyeing me curiously. I sat up in bed, balancing the cabbage leaves quite handily, I thought. I sat them down beside me. Knowing that this particular dog will eat anything, I gave her the side eye that says, “Don’t even think about trying to eat this,” and I pulled out the Saran wrap. I figured I’d stretch out a nice smooth base under my knee, then line it with leaves, put my leg over it, then focus on the top of my knee.

So I pulled out the Saran, and… thwick!  It was the end of the roll. I tried to keep my chuckle quiet (again, why?), and got back out of bed. Then I realized that I would have to take the cabbage leaves back with me, because the second I left the room, the dog would think the side-eye rule thingy was rescinded, and I’d come back to find the bed cabbage-free. So I balanced the pile of leaves again, and toddled down the hall with the leaves and the empty box of Saran. (And no, it didn’t occur to me to use a bowl. Don’t ask me why.)

Oh, we had more Saran Wrap. We’re Americans. We never allow ourselves to run out of stuff. In fact, we have enough to wrap the entire city of Seattle if need be. We got our next roll from Costco. But there was no way I would be able to wrap an industrial-sized Costco roll of Saran wrap around my cabbage-coated thigh. So I took the other, empty roll, and I rolled some new wrap on it. And rolled, and rolled. I thought I rolled enough that it would last me for several days.

I would have patted myself on the back for my ingenuity, but I had to pick up the pile of cabbage leaves again. Balance has never been my strong suit, so you have no idea what a feat it was that the whole house wasn’t carpeted in cabbage at this point. But apparently, I had done something to please the cabbage gods, because I made it back to bed with all supplies intact.

Again, I spread a base of Saran, coated it with a layer of cabbage leaves, put the back of my knee on top of that, then more cabbage on top, then began wrapping the Saran around and around and around. Not so tight that I’d cut off circulation, but not so loose that my dog would be tempted to nibble on me in the wee hours. (Now there’s a sentence one never expects to utter…)

I used up all the Saran wrap that I had rolled on (dammit), but still, I did it. Woo hoo! Score one for me! (Note to self: Teach the dog to high five.)

I got as comfortable as one can under those circumstances. My dog was very perplexed, but she settled right down after I gave her a good night pat on the head and closed my eyes. I sent out a wish to the universe for the rare gift of a good night’s sleep.

So, did the cabbage treatment work like a charm? Sadly, no. But only because, as I drifted off to sleep, I realized that I had wrapped the wrong knee.

Update: I did cabbage myself the following night, this time on the correct knee, and it did work! (Thanks, Bev!) My knee is still feeling weak, but it’s no longer swollen. So (with the strict understanding that I have no medical training whatsoever), if you have any inflammation or joint pain, give cabbage a try, and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Now, if only there were such a simple solution for my back…