Dazed and confused…and camping in the backyard!
Never thought it would happen. What a nightmare. After spending two full weeks traveling out east and staying in busy campgrounds, I was very much looking forward to the family twelve day canoe trip we had planned in Temegami when we returned. But it didn’t happen, and can’t happen until I stop falling down everywhere: backyard porch, living room, shopping malls and even, very embarrassing, the liquor store. It seems I have a bad case of vertigo, developed by a bad cold followed by an ear infection while we were car camping out east. The canoe packs and food barrels are still sitting in the living room waiting for us to head out, but the trip is an impossibility until I stop getting dizzy, confused and, on a regular basis, falling down.
I’ve tried everything to fix my problem. Pills from the doctor mask the symptoms a bit. But my family doctor proved that it was a silly idea to try and go on a canoe trip while medicated by shaking my head back and forth in his office, then pointed his finger towards my left eye and watched me fall down like a rock. Point taken (even though that feeling is sometime quite normal after a long portage). I was even able to see a Craniosacral Therapist, best in Ontario who happens to live down the road from me. She was booked solid for 6 months but agreed to slip in a session for me due to the fact she was a Kevin Callan canoe guide fan and couldn’t stand the thought of me not being out there doing more research. I thanked her by signing her Wilderness Pleasure book on page 122 which has a picture of my naked butt. The therapy works but it’s still a long haul before I’m cured.
What does all this mean? Well, it means my four-year-old daughter can’t take her Barbie collection on a canoe trip — which brought tears, screaming and tantrums (for all of us in the Callan household).
To make it up to her, we all camped out in the backyard last night. We lit a campfire and toasted marshmallows in the backyard fire pit and dinned on one of the dehydrated meals we packed up for the canoe trip (pita pizza). And I must say, other then the ambulance sirens, low flying helicopters and the noise of police chasing down a crack dealer in the back ally behind out house in downtown Peterborough, it was a lot of fun. Of course, it’s not a 12-day remote Temagami trip — but Kyla’s Barbie dolls seems to like it.