The Tasmania Trip
There comes a point in your journey when you reach breaking point.
You are tired just SURVIVING.
You want to start LIVING AGAIN.
For years I’d been putting EVERYTHING on hold. I couldn’t make plans because, well, what if I got pregnant?
That thought pervaded every potential plan I wanted to make and left me PARALYSED in a place of torturous indecision. I couldn’t plan a trip at the end of the year, because what if I couldn’t fly because I was pregnant?
It goes ON and ON and ON.
I found myself in the twilight zone of limbo living, with a PERCEIVED inability to escape.
Until I’d had enough.
F*ck it.
It’s time to LIVE.
I remember being at a yoga class, resting in child’s pose, when the teacher gently said…….
“It takes STRENGTH to survive, but it takes COURAGE to live.”
I couldn’t continue the rest of the class. I stayed in child’s pose and wept.
At the beginning of this journey I made a big effort to maintain gratitude and enjoy the little things that are undeniably the LUXURIES of a KID-FREE lifestyle.
For example….
Living in a one bedroom apartment in the city
Dinner dates with my husband
Laying on the couch reading all day
Leaving the house in less than 5 minutes
Sleeping in
Going shopping anytime I want
Owning a small purse/handbag
Peace and quiet at home
You get the gist.
It is important to try to FULLY enjoy each SEASON of your life.
It is easy to get obsessed with your “goal”, which is just a ” perceived deficit”, and not live your life in this beautiful moment called THE PRESENT.
So in the spirit of LIVING my husband and I decided to take advantage of the season at hand and do some back-packing and hiking (much easier without babies, I’ve heard). Plus we already had all the gear.
In our search for adventure, snow and mountains, we flew to Tasmania…..a wild, diverse and untouched land that stole our hearts forever. Over the next year we would visit “the best kept secret of Australia” multiple times.
Our first trip was mainly reconnaissance and exploration.
One day we were hiking through a mossy snow-laden valley surrounded by the jagged peaks of “The Walls of Jerusalem”, and the next day we found ourselves on the crystal clear, azure beaches of “the Bay of Fires” with its fiery red rocks. Further down the eastern coast we watched Fairy Penguins waddle up from the ocean to feed their fluffy little offspring. The next day we were back in the city, strolling along a cobblestone street on our way to a patisserie for breakfast in the 200 hundred year old historical district of Battery Point.
It was magical.
We found ourselves wondering, why had we stopped living?
We vowed to come back to this rugged land.
A few months later we flew back to “Tassie” to hike the famous “Overland Track”. It was to be six days of the most diverse scenery I had ever experienced in a single hiking trip.
The first day alone started with button grass moorlands. We passed cute, fluffy wombats that munched happily on the pale grass. “What land am in?” I wondered.
The wooden walkway led us through a lush rainforest with a thundering waterfall. Were we in Hawaii?
Around the corner we were met by a majestic fjord-like lake, surrounded by vibrant green vertical cliffs, their rocky ledges sprinkled with a light dusting of snow. Were we in Norway?
We walked around the edge of the lake and scaled up the steep rocky “stairs” until found ourselves staring at the famous jagged peaks of “Cradle Mountain”.
We continued up the path until we reached a vast, open, sweeping landscape that left me breathless. Were we in Scotland?
We had lunch in a small, rock hut at the base of Cradle Mountain. A thick, misty fog descended, creating a mystical feel to the landscape.
Half an hour later we peered over the edge of a valley filled with thick mist that eerily felt like jurassic park.
The diversity was breathtaking.
We walked in silent awe, taking in the magical-ness of it all.
The only aspect tainting the majestic beauty of this trip was my “frozen pelvis” (my scarred and adhesed abdomen), my ovarian cyst and my chronic pain.
I’d been seeing the Psychologist for a while and she had successfully got me to a point where I would take my pain medications without guilt. In order to tolerate this trip I took my pain pills faithfully three times a day. My pelvic pain was unfortunately exacerbated by the tight belt from my backpack (where you carry most of your weight). In general I avoid wearing tight things around my waist as this irritates my pelvis and my abdominal muscles. The repercussions of wearing the backpack and belt was therefore constant spasming pain throughout my core. The cyst on my right ovary (which ended up being bigger than my uterus) was causing shearing pain and pressure in my right hip, which referred down my right leg.
We know that chronic pain is, of course, its own disease. The hyper-sensitive nerves and changes in the brain cause a heightened response and perception of pain that, unfortunately, leaves the poor sufferer in more pain than their colleagues performing the same exercise. The chronic inflammation (from severe endometriosis) also causes an increased inflammatory response and therefore the muscle pain can sometimes be unbearable.
Therefore I had to pop pain pills like candy.
Another unfortunate side-effect of having scarring and endometriosis throughout your abdomen is the involvement of the bladder and bowel; this inevitably taints the camping and hiking experience.
I have NEVER in my life slept through the night without having to get up to use the toilet at least once, sometimes 2-3 times. Usually I only pass urine, but this hiking trip exposed me to something that caused loose, watery stools. And my poor, irritable, sensitised bowel couldn’t handle it.
Every night around 2am I would wake with urgency.
With panic I would crawl out of my sleeping bag, grab my down jacket, put on my headlamp, crawl down the ladder, desperately find my boots, quietly stumble across the wooden hut, undo the bolt on the door, quietly close the door, brace myself against the chilly wind of the frosty Tasmanian pre-dawn, and walk along the crunchy dirt path until I reached a wooden walkway that led me several metres into an open field and then, FINALLY, I would reach the outhouse….the whole time taking deep breaths to keep myself from panicking, wondering whether or not I was going to have diarrhea in my ONLY pair of pajama pants.
This panic happened every night for the entirety of the hiking trip, and each night I BARELY made it to the outhouse.
Another unfortunate side-effect of abdominal scarring is the constant irritation to the bladder. The spasming of my abdominal muscles from the tight backpack belt made me feel like I CONSTANTLY needed to pee. The sensation never went away. I would try to ignore it for as long as possible until I couldn’t take it anymore and I would finally stop, take my pack off and try to pee again.
And, of course, only a tiny stream would come out.
Each stop would significantly delay our trip, so this hike ended up being one of slow and steady progress, not of speed; a difficult feat for my competitive husband. But with each stop he would lovingly help me take my pack off and would patiently wait as I did my “tinkle”.
Luckily my discomfort was soothed by the breathtaking views, terrain and foliage. For those of you who have suffered with a chronic condition (this includes depression) then you have experienced the POWER OF DISTRACTION. In those powerful moments of awe, wonder and mindfulness you find that, in that brief moment, your pain and sadness actually disappears. When the mind returns to the body you realise that in that moment you actually FORGOT your pain; you FORGOT about your sadness; you FORGOT about the future. It is truly powerful.
The diversity of the Overland Track was breathtaking. I found myself DISTRACTED for large portions of my day and would end up reeling in bliss from awe and wonder. The distraction from my pain was such a relief that I wondered why I didn’t immerse myself in nature more.
A year later I would find myself back in Tasmania, hiking the Overland track again….but this time my endometriosis would had been removed.
The difference in my pain would be so significant that it would bring me to tears. I would even sleep through the entire night, never needing a midnight rush the outhouse.
A week after that first hike on the Overland Track I lay on a hard table in the operating room.
I felt a crazy peace sweep over me. If, for some horrific reason, I did not wake up again I knew that my husband’s last memory of US would be in the Tasmanian wilderness, surrounded by magnificent snow-capped dolerite peaks.
No regrets.
We had chosen to LIVE.
The Anesthesiologist leaned over and informed me that they were giving me some midazolam.
I felt myself falling into the deep, black, peaceful darkness of anesthesia.
