gerardcarey
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CFx2, CPx1
The large Indian doctor sat across his desk from me looking at the results.
“A blood pressure reading of 220 over 110,” he said at last, looking over his glasses at me. “You, Mr Carey, are a stroke waiting to happen.”
A friend had come to welcome me home from Spain. She was also looking for a tennis partner.
I galloped about the concrete court thinking I was still 16 years old. Until a tin hip jammed. Over I went, crashed painfully onto my chest.
“There'll be a bit of a bruise there for a while,” I thought.
A week later it still hurt and my niece Michelle ordered me to the local hospital. The first thing my Indian doctor did was take my blood pressure. “Never mind your chest for the moment,” he said, “We need to get on top of this blood pressure asap.”
I received a dose of 'take these every day for the rest of your life' pills, for the blood pressure. My chest was x-rayed, nothing broken. They ushered me out the door, clutching my bag of heart pills.
Gerard not happy.
But I'm thinking “surely you can't just get high blood pressure? How does that work?”
The doctors had said it was all about age and genes, nothing you can do about it. Sounds like rubbish to me. There's gotta be some other cause to be so afflicted.
I must have had a bad shock somewhere recently. That would do it. Strain the heart, mess up it's beating, increase the pressure of the blood in the veins. I thought and thought, racked my brains, for the actual shock that caused it.
Then it came to me.
It was that morning, that terrible morning.
The previous afternoon we had walked into in Rabanal del Camino, and by happy chance arrived at the door of the most excellent Albergue Gaucelmo, which a young pilgrim friend immediately renamed the 'Albergue Guacamole', one of two in Spain well run by the 'The Confraternity Of Saint James' from the UK.
I put on a bit of an act, presenting the image of a near exhausted pilgrim, a bit wobbly on my pacer poles. This had the desired result of me being ushered to a room holding only three sets of bunks, all empty so far, and me being allocated a bottom one, right by the window, how good is that.
“You'll need a good sleep tonight,” the kindly hospitalero said. “It's a decent walk up to the Cruz de Ferro tomorrow, then a climb up to the highest point on the Camino Frances, followed by a long, sometimes steep and rocky descent down to Molinaseca, where you'll be staying tomorrow night.”
The Albergue Guacamole is a delightful place to stay. Communal afternoon tea, with fresh baked scones and jam, was served for all pilgrims and hospitaleros, in the expansive grassy garden area. And that evening we went to a nice service run by the last two Benedictine monks in the battered 12th century Templar church.
Great cracks ran across the dome above the altar.
“Hmmmm,” I'm thinking, “don't know if I'd want to be a monk who has to spend a considerable portion of his life underneath those.”
I've since heard that these last monks have left. But then again I've seen pictures of the church interior showing the cracks and ceiling all plastered up. So hopefully all is good and the Bene boys from Rabba are back in business.
It was nice and snuggly in my sleeping bag the next morning.
I was in that wonderful third state of existence, somewhat awake and aware of noise around me, but as yet I hadn't opened my eyes.
I felt the bunk sway a little.
I opened my eyes to see a pair of brown legs dangling from the bunk above. The feet waggled about in front of my face feeling for a surface, but, on finding none, the owner decided on a direct descent to the floor.
As the legs moved progressively down, a pair of blue shorts came into view.
The shorts were followed by a lithe well tanned torso, towards the top of which was imprinted two white circles.
“Oh,” I thought dreamily, “looks like poached eggs on toast.”
A milli-second after that every nerve in my body was jangling. I was now wide awake, very wide.
Many years previously I was diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Oz.
I was about 25ft deep, finning around a tall coral wall, when coming to meet me from the opposite direction came a tiger shark. Easily identifiable due to the menacingly dark shadow-stripes down his sides, I can still see his lower jaw wobbling from the effect of an underwater pressure wave as he moved thru the water. He presented a wide array of triangular teeth, each with a little nodule on top.
Until this paticular morning in Rabba, that was the biggest fright I've ever had in my life. Now it was the second biggest.
“Not eggs! Not eggs!” my brain was screaming. “Lady parts! People will see you looking! They'll think you are a pervert! Hide! Hide!”
I closed my eyes and disappeared down inside my sleeping bag. I even reached up to pull the hood over, to complete my enclosure.
“They can't possibly think I'm looking if I stay down in here,” I thought, “here I am safe!”
But it was an only illusion of safety.
Because the interior of my sleeping bag after a nights sleep is not, I now know, the kind of place I wish to spend even a brief period of time, let alone face an indeterminate one.
But, being a man of some fortitude, I remained submerged in this evil underworld until all noise of movement had ceased.
Later that morning I stood respectfully before the Cruz de Ferro as my pilgrim friends left their stone tokens and paper messages, said their prayers.
I was a bit sad, melancholic I suppose, as I had no stone to lay at the foot of the cross. I'd sorted a really cool one. A small chunk of now cooled and hardened lava that Krakatoa, west of Java, had spat at me as I attempted to climb it's side years previously.
I'd left it on the kitchen table at home, drongo that I am.
A group of Spanish horsemen gathered in the carpark over the far side of the Cruz. A huge, green horse float hovered in attendance. High dollar horsemen by the look of their specialised well cut clothes and tooled leather gear.
One of them encouraged his horse to clamber up the side of the rocky mound. With his arms outstretched he thrashed the reins up and down. The horse stumbled unsteadily upwards, sending pilgrims scrambling out of the way. This eventually enabled our intrepid horseman to sit mounted, at the foot of the cross, and wave his hat, cowboy fashion to a photographer down below.
The assembled pilgrims were not happy, to put it mildly.
So what are you going to do Gerard? Climb up there and give him a tune up? That might make things worse. The horse might fall. Then all hell would break loose.
Better not.
After arriving in Molinaseca that afternoon and getting organised in my accommodation I went for a late afternoon stroll during which I stopped for a beer.
And who should walk in and front the bar but our horsemen, still in all their riding regalia, the bloke who had ridden his horse up the Cruz amongst them.
Now many folk think that one should show forebearance, especially in a foreign country, when an insult is perceived.
That would mean one should keep ones big trap shut.This, they profess to be civilised behaviour.
Not me.
This, I profess to be the non-action of a coward. And I have no wish to live in the land of the gutless wonder.
I walked up and introduced myself to the aforementioned horseman as a pilgrim. I calmly proceeded to tell him, loud enough so his friends paid attention also, that I'd seen him up at the Cruz de Ferro, and that I thought his actions were rude and disrespectful.
He looked me dead in the eye as his expression changed from one of friendship to one of anger.
He unexpectedly slapped his riding whip hard against the side of his leather boot.
As was intended the noise gave me a bit of a fright. But I think I succesfully pretended not to notice. Well I hope I did.
But I was thinking, “blimey, maybe he's going to give me a slap with that whip. If he does, I'm going to have to clock him one.”
Experience ensured an automatic response.
Without breaking eye contact I turned side on to give him less of a target and dropped my right shoulder. This stance ensures you can raise your left arm to protect yourself and positions your other arm to pop out a right if required.
One of his friends noted my movements. He knew it meant a further escalation of the tension. He walked forward, threw an arm around the shoulders of my adversary, chatted away to him briefly in Spanish, then pulled him back into his group of friends.
I finished my beer and left them to it.
Think I made a pilgrim's point.
Next time I'm at the Cruz I'll make extra sure I've got my stone organised.
As for emotional baggage, I already know what I'll try to leave there.
It'll be the memory of the event that caused the onset of my medical condition.
I didn't know it then but such was the shock, it affects me still.
I can never have poached eggs on toast again.
It's my burden in life so to speak, my emotional baggage.
I'll need you to help me with that next time Cruz.
Til we meet again then.
Regards
Gerard
“A blood pressure reading of 220 over 110,” he said at last, looking over his glasses at me. “You, Mr Carey, are a stroke waiting to happen.”
A friend had come to welcome me home from Spain. She was also looking for a tennis partner.
I galloped about the concrete court thinking I was still 16 years old. Until a tin hip jammed. Over I went, crashed painfully onto my chest.
“There'll be a bit of a bruise there for a while,” I thought.
A week later it still hurt and my niece Michelle ordered me to the local hospital. The first thing my Indian doctor did was take my blood pressure. “Never mind your chest for the moment,” he said, “We need to get on top of this blood pressure asap.”
I received a dose of 'take these every day for the rest of your life' pills, for the blood pressure. My chest was x-rayed, nothing broken. They ushered me out the door, clutching my bag of heart pills.
Gerard not happy.
But I'm thinking “surely you can't just get high blood pressure? How does that work?”
The doctors had said it was all about age and genes, nothing you can do about it. Sounds like rubbish to me. There's gotta be some other cause to be so afflicted.
I must have had a bad shock somewhere recently. That would do it. Strain the heart, mess up it's beating, increase the pressure of the blood in the veins. I thought and thought, racked my brains, for the actual shock that caused it.
Then it came to me.
It was that morning, that terrible morning.
The previous afternoon we had walked into in Rabanal del Camino, and by happy chance arrived at the door of the most excellent Albergue Gaucelmo, which a young pilgrim friend immediately renamed the 'Albergue Guacamole', one of two in Spain well run by the 'The Confraternity Of Saint James' from the UK.
I put on a bit of an act, presenting the image of a near exhausted pilgrim, a bit wobbly on my pacer poles. This had the desired result of me being ushered to a room holding only three sets of bunks, all empty so far, and me being allocated a bottom one, right by the window, how good is that.
“You'll need a good sleep tonight,” the kindly hospitalero said. “It's a decent walk up to the Cruz de Ferro tomorrow, then a climb up to the highest point on the Camino Frances, followed by a long, sometimes steep and rocky descent down to Molinaseca, where you'll be staying tomorrow night.”
The Albergue Guacamole is a delightful place to stay. Communal afternoon tea, with fresh baked scones and jam, was served for all pilgrims and hospitaleros, in the expansive grassy garden area. And that evening we went to a nice service run by the last two Benedictine monks in the battered 12th century Templar church.
Great cracks ran across the dome above the altar.
“Hmmmm,” I'm thinking, “don't know if I'd want to be a monk who has to spend a considerable portion of his life underneath those.”
I've since heard that these last monks have left. But then again I've seen pictures of the church interior showing the cracks and ceiling all plastered up. So hopefully all is good and the Bene boys from Rabba are back in business.
It was nice and snuggly in my sleeping bag the next morning.
I was in that wonderful third state of existence, somewhat awake and aware of noise around me, but as yet I hadn't opened my eyes.
I felt the bunk sway a little.
I opened my eyes to see a pair of brown legs dangling from the bunk above. The feet waggled about in front of my face feeling for a surface, but, on finding none, the owner decided on a direct descent to the floor.
As the legs moved progressively down, a pair of blue shorts came into view.
The shorts were followed by a lithe well tanned torso, towards the top of which was imprinted two white circles.
“Oh,” I thought dreamily, “looks like poached eggs on toast.”
A milli-second after that every nerve in my body was jangling. I was now wide awake, very wide.
Many years previously I was diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Oz.
I was about 25ft deep, finning around a tall coral wall, when coming to meet me from the opposite direction came a tiger shark. Easily identifiable due to the menacingly dark shadow-stripes down his sides, I can still see his lower jaw wobbling from the effect of an underwater pressure wave as he moved thru the water. He presented a wide array of triangular teeth, each with a little nodule on top.
Until this paticular morning in Rabba, that was the biggest fright I've ever had in my life. Now it was the second biggest.
“Not eggs! Not eggs!” my brain was screaming. “Lady parts! People will see you looking! They'll think you are a pervert! Hide! Hide!”
I closed my eyes and disappeared down inside my sleeping bag. I even reached up to pull the hood over, to complete my enclosure.
“They can't possibly think I'm looking if I stay down in here,” I thought, “here I am safe!”
But it was an only illusion of safety.
Because the interior of my sleeping bag after a nights sleep is not, I now know, the kind of place I wish to spend even a brief period of time, let alone face an indeterminate one.
But, being a man of some fortitude, I remained submerged in this evil underworld until all noise of movement had ceased.
Later that morning I stood respectfully before the Cruz de Ferro as my pilgrim friends left their stone tokens and paper messages, said their prayers.
I was a bit sad, melancholic I suppose, as I had no stone to lay at the foot of the cross. I'd sorted a really cool one. A small chunk of now cooled and hardened lava that Krakatoa, west of Java, had spat at me as I attempted to climb it's side years previously.
I'd left it on the kitchen table at home, drongo that I am.
A group of Spanish horsemen gathered in the carpark over the far side of the Cruz. A huge, green horse float hovered in attendance. High dollar horsemen by the look of their specialised well cut clothes and tooled leather gear.
One of them encouraged his horse to clamber up the side of the rocky mound. With his arms outstretched he thrashed the reins up and down. The horse stumbled unsteadily upwards, sending pilgrims scrambling out of the way. This eventually enabled our intrepid horseman to sit mounted, at the foot of the cross, and wave his hat, cowboy fashion to a photographer down below.
The assembled pilgrims were not happy, to put it mildly.
So what are you going to do Gerard? Climb up there and give him a tune up? That might make things worse. The horse might fall. Then all hell would break loose.
Better not.
After arriving in Molinaseca that afternoon and getting organised in my accommodation I went for a late afternoon stroll during which I stopped for a beer.
And who should walk in and front the bar but our horsemen, still in all their riding regalia, the bloke who had ridden his horse up the Cruz amongst them.
Now many folk think that one should show forebearance, especially in a foreign country, when an insult is perceived.
That would mean one should keep ones big trap shut.This, they profess to be civilised behaviour.
Not me.
This, I profess to be the non-action of a coward. And I have no wish to live in the land of the gutless wonder.
I walked up and introduced myself to the aforementioned horseman as a pilgrim. I calmly proceeded to tell him, loud enough so his friends paid attention also, that I'd seen him up at the Cruz de Ferro, and that I thought his actions were rude and disrespectful.
He looked me dead in the eye as his expression changed from one of friendship to one of anger.
He unexpectedly slapped his riding whip hard against the side of his leather boot.
As was intended the noise gave me a bit of a fright. But I think I succesfully pretended not to notice. Well I hope I did.
But I was thinking, “blimey, maybe he's going to give me a slap with that whip. If he does, I'm going to have to clock him one.”
Experience ensured an automatic response.
Without breaking eye contact I turned side on to give him less of a target and dropped my right shoulder. This stance ensures you can raise your left arm to protect yourself and positions your other arm to pop out a right if required.
One of his friends noted my movements. He knew it meant a further escalation of the tension. He walked forward, threw an arm around the shoulders of my adversary, chatted away to him briefly in Spanish, then pulled him back into his group of friends.
I finished my beer and left them to it.
Think I made a pilgrim's point.
Next time I'm at the Cruz I'll make extra sure I've got my stone organised.
As for emotional baggage, I already know what I'll try to leave there.
It'll be the memory of the event that caused the onset of my medical condition.
I didn't know it then but such was the shock, it affects me still.
I can never have poached eggs on toast again.
It's my burden in life so to speak, my emotional baggage.
I'll need you to help me with that next time Cruz.
Til we meet again then.
Regards
Gerard
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