Arlene has been an active contributor to the blog for quite some time, and is a moderator on the PGS The Way Forum. She also heads up the Tucson Arizona Chapter of the American Pilgrims on the Camino.

She’s soon to be heading off on her second camino, and so I asked her to post a guest blog. Here’s what she’s posted:

Camino – High Anxieties   

I will be leaving the States to begin my second Camino Frances in less than a month.

Many of last year’s anxieties proved to be pure silliness on my part.  Worries like would I be all alone,   would I get lost, what about wild dogs, how would I find my way to and from the airport and a hundred more silly scenarios I dreamed up.  None of which became an issue while on Camino.

You would think I should have all the questions answered and not have any worries about my 2013 Camino.  After all I walked the Way last year, everything should be simple and just fall into place shouldn’t it?   That, however, is not the case.

Here are some of this year’s anxieties with my solutions in parenthesis below each worry:

Have I trained enough?

(It will have to be enough!  If I haven’t trained enough, the Camino will provide a proper training ground.)

Is my backpack a manageable weight?

(It weighs 6.34 kilograms or 13.9 pounds, last year it was a lot heavier.)

Will I regret eliminating many things from the pack?

I will be walking mid September through October, am I prepared for cooler weather?

(Spain is not a third world country, they do have stores.)

Now here are my High Anxiety items (still fretting over these) with my comments in parenthesis:

Should I carry-on my backpack or check it as baggage?  I have several plane changes before I arrive in Madrid. 

(I still haven’t decided on this yet – HELP!)

Should I risk the airline losing my backpack?

(Seriously, how often do they lose baggage?)

If I carry the backpack on-board, will I be able to have my trekking poles inside, or will they be confiscated?

(I suppose a simple solution would be to send the poles to the hotel I will be staying in the first evening I arrive in Spain.)

But what if they don’t arrive on time?

Now PGS family, share some of your concerns/anxieties of upcoming or past Caminos.  Oh, and offer suggestions for my High Anxiety concerns, PLEASE!

Obviously letting go of control and letting the Camino and my PGS show me the way, is a lesson I still need to learn.

Arlene

This post should get some discussion going!

😀

I thought it was worth starting up a new post on this subject, because I notice it’s being discussed on another page, and I think it deserves a page (or two!) on its own.

The argument being put is that you should listen to your body when you feel pain. Pain is the body’s alert mechanism that tells you something’s not right. That you should stop what you’re doing, attend to the pain and the underlying cause or causes.

If you don’t listen to your body, if you override pain’s warning, then you risk damage to your body – and perhaps serious permanent damage.

I believe that’s correct.

But I also believe there is pain and there is pain.

Everyone who walks the Camino experiences pain. If everyone who walked the Camino listened to their bodies, very few would finish. 

Dealing with pain I believe is part of the Camino experience.

For me, pain humbled me. Pain became an incredibly important part of my catharsis. Arguably, if I hadn’t experienced the pain I did, I would not have undergone the metaphysical changes that have subsequently had such a profound effect on my life.

Without pain, my Camino would not have been as much of a spiritual journey as it turned out to be, because at times the pain put me into a transcendent state.

I saw people give up the Camino because of pain. They would go to a nurse, or a doctor, and they would be told that they would have to rest up for two weeks, or stop. So they went home.

Of course a medical professional is going to advise you to stop. That’s their job. That’s what they’re trained to do. I felt that many pilgrims were relieved to have this professional advice, because it gave them legitimacy to stop.

Then there were those that had serious structural ailments and of course they had to stop. That’s just common sense. You can’t walk on a broken leg. You can’t walk if you’ve got life threatening asthma and there’s pollen in the air. You can’t walk if your knees are shot.

But there is pain and there is pain.

Blisters are painful. Bah! Unless you’re going to get gangrene and risk amputation, you can walk through blister pain. You treat the blister, you monitor it, but you keep walking. Tendonitis is painful. That’s more serious. But how many people have walked the Camino with tendonitis?

Let me state this very clearly and unambiguously –

• I am stupid.
• Don’t listen to me.
• Don’t do what I do, or did.

I’ve only ever written this blog from personal experience, to document those experiences so that some of you might get something from what I’ve done. But I’ve never tried to foist my point of view on anyone. Or tell anyone what to do.

If I’d given up in Pamplona, when my knee was the size of a balloon and my pain was immeasurable, I would have regretted that the rest of my life.

I rested for a day, I lightened my backpack, I iced my knee, I bought trekking poles, I took anti-inflammatories, then I continued on. And later during the walk I had more pain, and I continued on.

I got to Santo Domingo and the nurse there said I should take a week off. I took a day off, and kept walking. And I finished the Camino. And it will go down as one of my great achievements in life.

And it’s changed my life.

I don’t say this because I’m a tough guy, or macho, or that I’m better than someone who stopped. I hate pain. I’m a complete wuss. But, I had a particular need. That need was to finish the Camino. That’s all I wanted to do. And I was prepared to put that need ahead of anything else, including my own well being.

Is that achievement any greater because I walked through pain? No. I wished I hadn’t had the pain. But that’s what the Camino threw at me, to humble me, to literally bring me to my knees, to force me to look at my life from a new perspective.

There is pain and there is pain.

Listen to your body, then you decide what’s best to do.

Don’t do what I did. Necessarily…

My knee injury didn't happen on the Camino.

It happened over a period of nearly 35 years.

In 1978 I was a passenger in a horrific car crash in which my spine was broken, my right leg was smashed, my teeth were smashed, and I received internal injuries.

It was touch and go as to whether I'd ever be able to walk again.

I was in ICU for 10 days, and Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital's Spinal Unit, in a full plaster body cast, for three months.

I had been a keen long distance runner, and shortly after my recovery I began running again. But because of the accident, I'd lost a bit of length off my right leg.

My biodynamics were all out, even with orthotics, and so with doing about 80-100kms per week, I gradually screwed up my knee, to the point where I could no longer run.

So the injury has been there a long time.

Yesterday I wondered – if I had gone to a doctor before my Camino, and if I'd had x rays done, then the doctor would have told me that a) it would not be possible to walk 800kms on my knee, and b) if I tried, I would do serious permanent damage.

So what would I have done?

It certainly would have affected my Camino, had I seen the doc beforehand. I would have been less confident, and it might have weakened my resolve – my determination.

I know for sure it wouldn't have stopped me doing the Camino. I was so fixated with doing it, nothing would have stopped me. But it would have dented my sense of entitlement of completing it, that's for sure!

That's why, when my knee gave me pain in training before I left Australia, I didn't seek medical advice.

I'm so glad I didn't!

Today this blog tipped over the 75,000 page view mark.

This since mid April.

Soon we’ll be at 100,000.

Each day it keeps on growing and growing.

And each day you continue to delight me, provoke me, instruct me, and humble me.

Thank you!

Bill

He said it was “a miracle” I walked 800km on my knee.

He couldn’t believe it.

I have bone on bone.

Officially, the specialist (one of the top in the country) calls it an osteoarthritic knee. Unofficially, he calls it rooted.

Knee replacement territory, longer term, he says. Major surgery.

Short term, he wants me to get a brace for the knee custom-made – at a cost of $1,000; and an anti-inflammatory injection, once yearly, at a cost of $500 each shot.

He also wants me to do stationary bike, and rowing machine.

For those of you interested, the x-ray below shows that on the left side of the knee joint (or the inside of the knee), there’s no gap between the bones. There should be a gap around about the same size as on the right side.

Bone is rubbing on bone. That’s what’s causing the pain, and the inflammation.

All of this is not going to stop me doing the tour next year, no way.

I can perform miracles again!!

I have had some figures back from my travel agent – and will post more details on the Camino Tour forum.

Essentially, the travel agent is suggesting a two tired price structure; US$2,950 for the PGS family for 14 nights, hotel accommodation, meals and private van support. This is close to cost price.

For others, it’s US$3,950.

He’s suggesting that we limit the PGS numbers to 6 with 15 on the tour in total.

I will lead the group, which will include Sister Clare, along with my wife Jennifer. Sister Clare will provide Centering prayer sessions, and counselling if requested, and I will do a daily photographic tutorial, and will give camera/photo advice during the walk.

Jennifer will be on hand to discuss PGS and other esoteric things!

The tour will go from Porto through to Santiago – approximately 240kms. It will most probably be 1st or 2nd week of April, 2014

Check the forum for more details –

http://pgsthewayforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=91

Bill

For the last couple of days I've walked around Hobart – a beautiful town – the capital of the state of Tasmania.

At least, I've tried to walk. My knee is still giving me problems – a residue of the Camino in April/May.

Tomorrow I see a knee specialist.

If I'm to do any serious walking in the future, I will have to get my knee fixed. It will probably require surgery.

The numbness in my left foot is slowly fading – as the Neurologist predicted. That's good news. But the knee over the past couple of days was so painful I limped everywhere.

I walked the Camino on Ibuprofen – for 28 days, 3 x 600mgs. That's how I got through it, by masking the pain.

Stupid, really.

But I wanted to finish the pilgrimage.

And I have absolutely no regrets, because that walk changed my life.

I’m travelling again today – back to Sydney.

The Hobart art gallery MONA is every bit as good as people say it is. I’ve been to art galleries all around the world – and MONA has to be up there with the best.

(pic below)

So over to Sister Clare – always wise, thought provoking, and irreverent at times too!

Thanks Sister…

Firstly, thank you to you all for wishing me a happy birthday.

It was incredibly thoughtful, and halfway around the world I felt your kindness and love. So again, my thanks.

A strange thing happened when I woke on the morning I turned sixty. For a moment, just at that transition stage between sleep and wakefulness, I was in the hospital room where I was born, in Wimbledon London.

I looked on at my mother and father – they were so young – and they were so full of love for the baby they'd brought into the world.

It was a very strange sensation, being a witness to this, my birth. Seeing the impact it had on my parents.

And it occurred to me that I should in future turn birthdays around so that it's not a celebration of me, but a celebration of my mother and father – for all that they did to nurture me through childhood and adolescence – for all the sacrifices they made to enable me to be what I am today.

I don't think I'll look at birthdays the same way from now on, after that strange vision just at that moment before the world clutched me from sleep.