Courage and Despair
A trip report April 22-30, 2016
I've been stalling this report because it is just brutal. This was my 9th trip with the Bunch and of course I was looking forward to the usual good time we generally have. After traveling with these guys for 9 years they are all like family and I love them all a Bunch.
I left for the airport at 3:30 am. The airport is about 3.5 miles from my house so easy ride. My kid was dropping me off and was going to take the car home. About 1.5 miles from the airport my car just died. Like it ran out of gas, great way to start a vacation. I dug $100 of my vacation funds out and told my kid to call for a tow and I was calling for a cab. Cab showed up in about 3 minutes and by the time I had gotten to my gate at the airport the car was home and the kid was back in bed, all good, kinda.
I had a nice flight down, don't remember a bunch of it as I was sleeping most of the way. I flew South West and had an A-6 booking assignment so I sat in the front couple of rows against the wall.
All good upon landing, my cab guy was waiting and off to the resort. Got my room, got settled and headed to the pool, but unfortunately it was raining. My friend had a Jacuzzi room so we hung out in the tub and on the deck, smoking and drinking and cursing the rain. During this time I was being bothered by my left hip. It just felt like a strained muscle and I figured a week on the beach, a mile swim in the morning and it would be all good. Soaked in the hot tub a bunch and thought all would be fine. Saturday it rained. More hot tub and more pain in my hip, but with the hot tub and lack of any real activity and I was sure it would be fine.
Woke up Sunday and looked out just before sunrise, not a cloud in the sky, perfect. Grabbed my stuff and off to the beach, but damn my hip and leg are hurting so I needed to make a couple of stops along the way to rest, no big deal. I decided that due to the pain in my hip/leg that most likely there wasn't going to be any scuba diving this year, but that's fine, I'll just lay on the beach till my leg feels a little better. At this point I'm starting to take some Advil which is starting to cut into the drinking as you really shouldn't do both. I go for a nice long swim from the point at Hedo down to the far end of the Sandal's beach and back, no help for the leg and now my back hurts some.
Monday, again beautiful. Get to the beach early and it's just lovely but my freaking leg is really a bother. Another mile swim an maybe it's a little better. Now I do want to have fun and we have our nice sit down group dinner on Monday's so no more pain meds cuz tonight I drink! The dinner was wonderful. I arrived at the restaurant and all my friends were waiting. I just had a ball with my friends, we had such a nice dinner. I was taking it very easy as I wasn't sure about the leg and how much pain I might be in later and if I was going to need to take something. After dinner we went to the piano bar and before long the pain was gone, and I was out for the night. Hooked up with some friends (I call them the corruptors) and they dragged me out for an unusual night (for me) of late night at the hot tub, of which we got politely asked to move along, again. Every freaking time I go to that hot tub late at night we have so much fun finally someone says "for Christ's Sake, will you guys get a room", so we moved to the pool, LOL. No one was mad, most were chuckling, we were having fun, not being total pain in the ass' as this might suggest. Off to the pool, which turned out to be much closer to the bar and the never ending shots that were being pushed into my hands. I don't do shots, but I did that night. I don't stay up late there either. I like to get to the beach at 7:00 am so, I'm usually off to bed by 10-11 pm, but not this night. Me and my newest best friend get back to my room at about 3:30 and continued to rage till 4:30 thereby setting a bunch of new personal firsts for me. Most shots, latest ever to stay up, and a couple of more that stay on the property. Next first, latest to the beach. In 10 trips I've never arrived at the beach at 11:30, that was strange, music and food cooking. I was actually feeling pretty good, the leg hurt, but I was ignoring it. I got in my lounger with my friends all questioning me(needling me) about where I'd been, with who and what I'd been up to? I gave them not enough info to satisfy them and decided that I was just going to just "let it roll" and limped (at this point I'm really hobbling everywhere)up to the bar and got a beer for breakfast. Pain relief is either coming out of a pharmaceutical bottle or a beer bottle. Today I choose beer. Surprisingly the beer therapy worked out pretty well as I wasn't feeling any pain, but walking was actually getting to be a struggle. Happy Hour I head to the pool. GOD I LOVE MY GROUP, my friends know I'm hurting, I've got a problem, I'm pretty much planted and my drinks are being brought to me. I just hold up my cup and it's done. Someone ran and got me some chicken, all good. My very special friend has arrived and we just had a wonderful day with the exception of having to run to the men's room which is really starting to hurt my leg. And no, absolutely not, I was a lifeguard and pool rat my whole life, did not pee in the pool, LOL
Struggled to get back to my room, many stops along the way and my fucking leg is killing me. I go up for dinner and by the time I've had a couple of drinks I'm done. I tell my friend to stop by later and I'm in my room early. I have some visitors with drinks stop by and check in and my friend shows up later with a tray of treats and an awesome fun attitude which made me feel better. We drink, smoke, carouse and she is off to raise hell (serious hell, lol) and returns much later. Middle of the night I'm taking Tramadol and things aren't going great.
Next morning we stumble down to the beach, ouch, fucking ouch, all the way. My leg feels like at any moment it's going to cramp into a chaliehorse and then I'm screwed. It's been cramping for couple of days and I don't think I've got the strength anymore to be able to fight back against that. If that happens I'm on my way to a Jamaican hospital or clinic and life is going to suck. Life was getting a little tough now, I've leaned on my friends a bunch and I don't want to wear out their hospitality, but the food seems so far away from our corner of the pool at the top of the stairs. I sit for an hour watching the patties dwindle and wondering if I can make a run for one without screaming in pain. Eventually I have to because there is only one left, LOL. I can't stand in line long enough for anything from the grill so it's patties on a regular basis. All good, got the last one. In the end I lost 7 pounds.
Repeaters party. I almost crawl up thinking I'm definitely going to need another vacation to forget this, so maybe I can win something. I barely got there. First chair I reached, that was it. My friends ran over and brought me two very strong rum and cokes and couple of those little plates of food. Everyone from the group stopped by to see how I was doing and I tried to put a happy face on it, it's their vacation too after all and who wants to hear that shit, or even read it for that matter. The minute they make the drawings I'm gone.
Crawl back to the room in extreme pain and call my sister the travel agent. I have to leave a message: Can you get me out of here. She calls back gets my info, calls in every favor she has and the answer is no. In the end I stayed till Saturday.
I was stuck in my room all day Thurs, Fri and left Sat morning. Wednesday night my leg got worse and really hurt. I started taking basically everything I brought. Tylenol, Advil, Tramadol anything I can think of. I wake up Thursday morning starving. I didn't get dinner the night before and now I'm screwed as I don't know how to reach anyone. But then again, I belong to the best group. After thinking about it for a while, I opened the safe and fired up my Iphone, bought one days internet for $15. went to our groups facebook page and posted that I was stuck in my room, can't walk, starving with no way to get food. I chuckled to myself when I posted it thinking "lets see how long this takes". about 5 minutes later a member a couple of doors down showed up with food. His wife was down basically with the same thing. We have about 85 in the group and now that I've posted, it feels like I'm in a hospital room. The visitors, with food and booze roll through all day. My leg is getting worse. I can barely move without extreme pain. The door opens and one of our members comes in, I don't know her well as they've only been in the group two years and she is a nurse practioner and surgerical assistant for a back and spine doc. About two questions in and she says, do you have vicadin, no, flexiril, no. Okay, I'll find you some. Someone must have some and sure enough anyother group member shows up about 30 minutes later with flexiril. Thank God.
Saturday I wake up and first thing I think is "this isn't going to happen" there is absolutely no way I can even sit up much less move. I crawl to the shower and spend an hour on the floor trying to get ready to go. My friend comes by and helps me pack but she is leaving much earlier than me and has to go. The resort sends the baggage truck down and the kid driving it helps me get out of the room Ouch, ouch, fucking ouch. I get up to check out and really don't think it's going to happen. My group family members are there for me. My buddy Doug literally carries me to the bathroom and waits and carries me back and then runs back to get my voucher I left behind. His wife clears the way for me to get on the bus and he helps me on. At the airport my friend runs for a wheelchair. I'm in so much pain that I'm thinking, if I can last till the plane gets on the other side of Cuba I can scream till they put me down in Miami. Worst case is I can have them get me a ambulance in Baltimore and I can go to emergency there. I truly thought I'd be spending the night in Baltimore. I must mention that I love Jamiaca with all my heart, but I was not going to have any medical care there period.
In the end I managed to get all the way home. I was in and out of wheelchairs the whole way. I got wheeled though customs and didn't get searched for the first time in three years. Didn't have to wait either. Got loaded on the plane first which pissed one guy off, which really irritated me as I was also holding the A-1 boarding pass because I remembered to check in 24 hours before I left the resort. Either way I was getting on first. I made the whole trip in a kinda of catatonic state. I had my eyes closed the whole way. On the bus, at MoBay Club, at the gate and on the plane. The only time I opened my eyes the whole trip was when it was necessary. My handlers who pushed the wheelchairs were great. Really nice bunch of kids, $5-$10(tip) for there help and worth it. Arrivals in Baltimore land at Gate E, Southwest leaves out of Gate A, they are in a straight line, about a 1/2 mile, no exaggeration, a long,long way.
Got home about 1:00am exhausted, got in my own bed and actually slept. Next day off to emergency. I left with steroids, more flexiril, hydrocordone and an appointment to see my regular guy.
Now 5 weeks later and I've got time to write this overly verbose report because I'm still not walking and still in pain. I really don't want to be cut into so we are trying PT and OMM. My Physical therapist says I'm getting better, but I can't prove it.
Now I wrote this to answer the question: Should I join a group? The answer is absolutely yes!
I won't go on and gush about them, you all get the point, these people are like family, the kind of family you really really like.
Also as a footnote. I really wanted to meet a lot of you who were on the property at the same time with other groups. It pissed me off that I saw you, recognized you (which isn't always easy) and was either in too much pain to stop or was rushing for a place to sit down so I wouldn't be in a lot of pain. A lot of people arrived on the Friday before I left with the Zoo Crew I know and I didn't get to see them either. Damn, hope to meet you all next year!
Cheers
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Glad you made it home safely & are on the way to recovery.
Originally Posted by takemetonegril
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Co-Hosts of kitten + angel's 15th Annual Spring Fling April 9th - 16th, 2022 (We will be onsite 4/7/22 - 4/18/22) 
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