We All Need A Leg To Stand On... First leg of the journey

Minneapolis-

I can't believe I'm sitting in Minneapolis after two extremely long days of last minute preparations. In my true-to-Craig "let's see what last minute dramas can develop at the eleventh hour", I am traveling with a leg that is being troublesome.

You see, in an attempt to be thorough, I visited my chiropractor for a last-minute adjustment. After an uneventful crack-snap-pop, I decide to have him look at my sore right Achilles tendon. He decided stripping was appropriate. For those of you that don't know what stripping is, it is, in theory, a very deep tissue massage in order to rid muscles of lactic acid. Oh yeah. And it hurts like hell.

In his last steamroller-down-the-shin-bone, it felt like he caught the very edge of my calf muscle and was pinching it against the shin itself. It was like seeing and feeling lightning. It wasn't therapeutic pain, it was bad, deep tissue injury pain.

Flash forward to the next morning and I had an egg sized elevated, red, hot lump. What sort of freaked me out was the heat, the redness--it reminded me of when I broke off a branch in my foot at Cape Cod and developed blood poisoning. Except it didn't itch like the Cape cut.

So, being better safe than sorry, and with less than twelve hours til take off, I went to my doctor. He was confounded, and said,

"Hmmmm. Probably nothing. But..."

"That's a mighty big but you have there, Doctor."

He went on to relate that he had seen four cases in a month and had anecdotally heard of others, of healthy HIV positive people developing abscesses after no apparent injury. All people had low viral load and good T-cell numbers. Just like me! Yahoooooo.

Not normally a hypochondriac or one who invites drama to dinner, it did give me the great opportunity to have something else to think about. If It did turn out to be an abscess or Group A Strep infection (flesh-eating virus! How dramatic!), then it could progress at a rate which could become fatal in the time it takes to fly from, say, Minneapolis to Amsterdam. Fun.

So, faced with a non-refundable ticket/trek, I decide to forge on and just be aware of my leg. It looks okay. The redness has left the upper part of my shin but has migrated lower. Still doesn't hurt.

I'm choosing to believe it's just a healing reaction to a deep bruise. But I will be honest with myself, and if it does start progressing, I'll come home. I believe in my effort and the cause, but getting sick doesn't serve anyone.

But enough of the Grimm fairy tales. Various stuff:

Airport security at SFO is great! I was searched three times. Very thorough. What a difference in the process--informed people doing the job they're supposed to do. An airport security first!

In addition to yesterday's leg hilarity, I received an email from Jordan, the owner of Tanzania Serengeti Adventure, saying, "If it's not too much trouble, please buy me a laptop."

Huh.

Kind of like if a friend were to have a nose job and when asked by the surgeon what type, having them turn to you and say, "Oh. You pick." I wasn't prepared to pick a nose.

So I called Africa and spent ten minutes Internet searching while I talked with Jordan about features, cost, etc. We decided on a Toshiba. So I'm bringing it as a barter for the trek. Don't need to carry cash, and Jordan gets an new computer. Wins by a nose! In a day with 27 hours worth of assigned tasks, I just threw it on the pile.

For those of you haven't known me back to the days when my mom was sick, during that time, rainbows became very important to her and to our family--as signs of beauty in the storm, of hope. And they have continued to show up at unique times. My first Equity audition, which I got. When Carol Ann, my niece, was born. In Alaska during the vaccine ride, there was a photo of me surrounded by a rainbow. Kinda felt like a cool 'Thumb's up" from Mom.

Well, on this trip to Kilimanjaro, in part because of of my mom's astounding joie de vivre even in death's face (she said, "When I die, don't go to any trouble. I just want to be cremated......and then be scattered over Kilimanjaro!"), rainbows arrived. I loved her ability to laugh at the prospects of her own too imminent death. What brought up the story was, as I was sleeping on the SFO to Minneapolis flight, I awoke feeling warmth on my chest. The sun had risen and there across my Permethrin- impregnated shirt, was a huge rainbow prism refracted from the plane window. Another thumb's up from Mom!

I must say, being a cyber-chatterbox, I am tempted to email this first entry, but I think I'll wait til I'm a little more sure about my chorus girl gam's health. So I'm sitting, eating animal crackers with my leg elevated in Minneapolis. (My friends Renata, Jane & Leanne, drove me to the airport at 4 AM, and Renata even walked to the 24 hour market at 3:30AM to buy the aforementioned cookies, candies, etc... friends as angels!)

I'm ready for leg two-this one without the hot, the red, the bump.

Peace.

Craig