Or How To Survive Holidays on Ibuprofen.
But Vivien, how do you prepare for such a gigantic event - you might wonder. I'm glad you asked. You will visit the pharmacy a lot during the week before your holiday. Now. They don't give you at once the amount of painkillers you'll need, so you will visit pharmacies. Plural. Multiple times. You stock up on ibuprofen like the inflammation apocalypse is approaching and say a prayer every night that they don't take your precious-s-es from you during security check. Like wherever you're going won't have ibuprofen anyway.
Once you've collected just the right amount of drugs, you'll pack your bags. And then re-pack your bags. Around 3-4 times. Your teenage mind says bring nice stuff to wear cause you obviously wanna peacock around Hudson Yards, but your old, thirty-something windmill for a brain reminds you that all you'll need is the same 3 things you wear all the time. Comfort before hoes. And even that will cause you no less pain - but more on that later.
Obviously, what takes the most space in your luggage is the bag full of medicine, so you're willing to compromise and bring less make-up or jewellery or heels or boyfriends. Anything but the pills, out!
So you packed and ready to head to the airport and relax into your holidays, right? Wrong! Let's take public transport to the airport, cause it's Luxembourg and it's free. Lët'z. Let's try at least - fun fact: buses in Luxembourg tend to RSVP no to their scheduled arrival. Either way, you'll make it to your destination somehow, there are flocks of sheep running around in the city sometimes, just hop on one - free as well, - arrive to the airport smelling like a barn and blame it on Le Monde Sur Mesure.
Whilst we're on our imaginary flight, being uncomfortable, unable to sleep and blaming ourselves yet again for not filling out the special dietary request 24 hours prior to the flight (shoutout to British Airways though, they brought me literally everything they found without dairy; including business class meals - the closest I'll ever get to it), let's daydream about our destination.
New York. The city of concrete jungle made of tomatoes. The dream. Mine, at least. I've been wanting to visit the US of A ever since I was a zygote. I have absolutely no idea why I waited so long, but I finally made it, even if it's a more wrinkled, less enthusiastic version of me, I blessed them with my presence.
I prepared a long, long list of what to do and what to see, preparing myself mentally that most probably half of the list will be skipped due to the limited amount of time spent there. Or at least I thought I prepared myself for that. I've had an image of New York in my mind, tv raised me, I've seen the world. Guess we could say I was already well travelled at age 12. I was excited, but less excited than as if the whole trip happened a decade earlier. Little that I knew on the flight, it did matter.
After around 84 years, arriving to your destination feels like the most relaxing, heavenly thing in the world.
False!
Dear Endometriosis Tissue Cramping Like a Son of a B-, welcome to New York! It's ibuprofen time, day zero, here we go. Tell me one more time I brought too much, I dare you, I double dare you! Good planning, I say. Perfectly prepared for 5 days out of the 8 to be spent in pain. Not like New York is a place where you have to have energy to experience it all, right? Unlike The Man with me, jet lag didn't do much to me, or maybe drugging myself on day zero helped in having a good night's sleep. Ready for day one.
Waking up with a jet lag migraine was somewhat expected, so half-asleep birdboxing to your stash of medicine, the first dose of drugs is served before the Sun's up. Life-hack: if you go right back to sleep and don't remember taking a pill when you get up again, it doesn't count.
My best advice to you, if you're above thirty, is to start the day with 800 mg of ibuprofen before breakfast. You never know what's going to happen during the day. For example, never have I thought that I would be willingly walking 25000 steps just to see stuff, when in my daily life I park 2 meters from the entrance of the supermarket illegally, just to avoid walking an additional 100 meters. I assume it's my survival instinct kicking in, because let me tell you what happens if you walk more than what your body is capable of handling. First the left knee says nah, then the right one joins the revolution. Here's where you start to be grateful for the morning dose of ibuprofen, but don't think that it stops there.
Dragging your legs across the city and limping on whichever side hurts less at the moment doesn't matter much when there is something to see in every corner. Surviving the day on regular painkiller intake and approximately fifteen iced coffees. The glam. The chimpanzee hopping on subway stairs to see the world, balancing with a venti iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso. They say if your coffee order is more than four words, you're part of the problem. Mine is eight, I am the entire problem. Glad we clarified that too.
It's impossible to see everything you want in a week. Even if you prepare a list of things you want to do, there will be so many distractions (knee, cramp, migraine... okay; fun shops, foods to try, weird places to see), that it will for sure leave you with a feeling of discontentment. Not in a sense that it's hard to appreciate the newly gained experiences, but it's nearly impossible to feel like you've done it all. It can get overwhelming with all that's around you, so unless you're on something other than ibuprofen, you will need to rest. Well, I did not. Until visiting Brooklyn. I don't remember much of Brooklyn. Heading out of DUMBO, between the Brooklyn and the Manhattan bridge, I did fall asleep in the grass, like a good hobo on a Sunday morning. The rest of the day is blurry. Kids, do not combine medication with a tropical heat of 25 degrees. Also, just because you live in Luxembourg, where the Sun is a myth, keep reminding yourself that it does exist in better other places and so does sunscreen.
The perfect description of how women operate: I was perfectly fine for the night of our anniversary dinner. Never felt better, never looked better. I am my own fairy godmother turning myself into a Disney princess with the help of forest animals ten tons of make-up, strictly until midnight.
We (I) booked a fancy restaurant way in advance just to be sure that it's going to be something special. Dinner with a view from the 101st floor, including an outdoor deck observatory to over-flood instagram with content that nobody cares about besides you and your mom. The fixed price included the dinner itself and a visit to the observatory. Did we make it to the observatory? Silly you for asking. If you were about to search for the two unluckiest people in this world, search no longer. The outdoor deck was closed until the minute we started our dinner, then opened when the wind-circumstances calmed the f down, and re-closed just in the moment when we finished the two-hour long dinner and could have visited. The instagram community was safe once again. This was still far the best anniversary I've ever had, hands down.
So let's summarise our general holiday-condition: cramping, limping, sunburnt and -stroked and heavily medicated. Do I remember my trip to New York? Vaguely. Is it absolutely necessary to go back and complete the activity list? It's a must. Am I going to take the same amount of ibuprofen with me? Mm. Might take more. I think it's essential to travel prepared - whatever that means for you and your medical history -, don't expect your body to work better just because you're somewhere else. As much as it seems, this wasn't a bad trip at all, but all along I was thinking how it would have been to visit years ago, before all these issues teamed up and created Captain Planet of Pain. Soon I'll be one of those old ladies sippin' margaritas in crowded resorts, reserving the sunbeds with their towels at 5 am, but until then, I'll keep dragging myself through the globe on ibuprofen, because it's worth it.
I go lay down now.
Thank you, bye.
V
Comments
Post a Comment