Update from Liesel

So, has anyone wondered what I’ve been up to while Mick’s been out hiking, walking and generally sightseeing?

The majority of my time has been spent catching up with friends and family, sorting, and deciding what to do with, my childhood belongings, putting together a couple surprises to make my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary special, and addressing my back injury.

In my opinion, you know you have a good friend, or even brother for that matter, when you can just pick up where you left off the last time you saw them. Sure I’d like to know the ins and outs of their daily lives but that just isn’t how life works when you live so far away from your loved ones. We all have busy lives and no one has the time or inclination to talk or FaceTime for hours at a time. The thought exhausts me. However, I can spend hours, in person, and never tire but come away with a fulfilled feeling.

Thank you:

Mom for taking off work while I’m here, Dad for letting me disrupt his routine.

Aaron, Jodi, Asa and Gideon for allowing my invasion back into their lives/activities as if I’d never left.

Jyoti, Una, Monica and Pam for your unbelievable support, kindnesses, passion, food and time. . . It’s been such fun, so far!

My childhood belongings have been lovingly stored in my parents house for decades. Some stuff has been easy to get rid of e.g. old books and records to the 2nd hand book/record store. Other stuff not so easy, e.g. blankets knitted by my paternal grandmother, or beanbag and angel handmade by my maternal grandmother.

As I was already in every nook and cranny (crawl space included) of the family home, my parents utilised the opportunity, to go through all of their stuff. We now have enough for a very large garage sale. Now all we need are people willing to buy all this stuff or take it away! This may take several weekends as this weekend is a long holiday weekend and most Alaskans are taking advantage of the sunshine to go camping, hiking, fishing, State Fair, etc and as a result we have had little traffic. We also missed the deadline for the local paper so we’ve only advertised online. . . If you read this please come and buy some of our ‘lovely stuff’.

My parents celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary on 31 August. To be honest, it hadn’t crossed my mind to do anything but go out to dinner as a family (all 8 of us!).

What do you do for a couple who have too much of everything? You certainly don’t buy them more stuff! In the end Aaron and I arranged: dinner out as family, a homemade sign for the front garden, two tiered (my parents have completely opposite tastes) wedding cake (they eloped to Reno and never had a wedding cake), and boutonnières for the five guys and corsages for us three ladies. It was a lovely evening enjoying each others’ company and sharing my parents special day with them. Very different than my memories of my paternal grandparents 50th party, held at the village hall with a live band and a hundred friends and family.

Lastly, I’ve been dealing with my back and piriformis muscle problems. Two years ago I started having sciatic nerve problems with pain shooting down my right leg. This lead to the discovery of a slipped disk in my lower back, which inflamed the nerve, which inflamed my piriformis muscle, which inflamed my sciatic nerve. Typing all that makes me want sing about the old lady who swallowed the fly, oh my! Anyway up till now the suggestion has been to loose weight, exercise more, and treat the piriformis. Last week I’d had enough with pain and the fact I’m being left behind by my friends and husband who are going on hikes I can’t. So at a friend’s recommendation (thank you Melanie) and another friend’s nagging (Jyoti!), I made an appointment to see a physio here in Anchorage.

The physio here has recommended we start at the source, the slipped disc. Strengthening the area around the disc so that the surrounding areas do not get inflamed trying to protect the injured area. So, a new set of exercises to do, instructions to stop exercising when the pain starts (no more pushing through the pain), stick to short, off-road walking or hiking, cycling, and weights that I can do sitting or lying down. So basically completely different than what I’ve been doing for the last 2 years, which clearly was not working anyway. It seems for the immediate future Mick will continue to go on amazing hikes with my friends but hopefully I’ll be in a better place to towards the end of our stay in Alaska and ready to hike in Japan.

Author: mickandlieselsantics

We are a married couple, one American, one Brit, one male, one female, neither of us as fit as we would like to be, well over 100 years old altogether. View all posts by mickandlieselsantics