The Road (Trip) Not Taken

“Boy, you really dodged a bullet.”

So said our daughter when I told her the results of her father’s MRI and the surgical procedure scheduled for February 4.

Today.

Wait, February 4 was to be the first day of our cross-country road trip. As I write this, we should be in South Carolina right now – on I-85 somewhere between Spartanburg and Greenville.

Instead, the alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., far earlier than necessary for a day’s drive to the Drury Inn and Suites in Montgomery, Ala.  Rather than heading off to travel some 5,000 miles covering 15 states, this morning we drove two miles covering 15 blocks to an outpatient surgery center.

Instead of starting my dream trip to watch wintering whooping cranes, visit dear friends and family, and see Tony Hillerman’s Navaho country, I waited while medical professionals repaired my husband’s aching back. I believe the procedure is called “vertebroplasty,” or in layman’s terms, injecting glue or cement into the collapsed area of the vertebra.

“What were you thinking, Mom?”

Okay, I concede; it’s a good question.

I was thinking a road trip would be really fun. And, that we should do it while we still could.

Perhaps that ship has sailed.

Last Wednesday, the vet said our 12-year-old dog should have a suspicious lump on her fanny removed. The surgery could be done before the trip, but Piper would have to wear one of those Elizabethan collars for about 10 days until the stitches were removed.

The next morning at his appointment to get the MRI results my husband learned that there was good reason for his back pain; he had a compression fracture. When pressed, the doctor said he could go on the road trip, but…

He would have to wear a lumbar support brace, walk very little and stay flat on his back as much as possible.

So, my dream trip could have been thousands of miles of keeping a dog from licking her wound and stabilizing a less than stable spine.

What was I thinking?

So, one back brace, one Elizabethan collar and 15 different accommodations -- some more pet friendly and ADA accessible (Note:  I have come to greatly appreciate the Americans with Disabilities Act) -- than others.

“But wait, there’s more,” as the Ronco pitchman famously said.

“Mom, I looked at your route; you were going to some really remote places. I had visions of you stuck somewhere with no cell-phone coverage.”

Now, I know at some point the children become the parents.  The tables turned, as Wordsworth wrote.

But, so soon already?

Yet, it is heartening to hear a voice of reason from someone I well remember as an adolescent.

Okay. Okay. I hear you. 

But, maybe there’s still a road trip to be taken in our future.

Let’s get Piper’s biopsy results, heal, ditch the durable medical equipment, and plan a shorter adventure. Maybe our first trip should have South Carolina as the destination and not a waypoint.