Thither & Yon

[Very few photos in this post. You won’t hurt my feelings if you just want to skip to the next post for more photos and final hike stats. 🙂 tldr: I got really sick and thank god I wasn’t still on the trail.]

After we came off the AT, we headed to Roanoke where we got to recover overnight with family friends Janell and George, who were perfect hosts and city tour guides. If you ever get a chance to stop by Blue Cow for ice cream, do it. Delicious.

Sunday morning, they treated us to a delicious brunch with the family, to which I contributed the bag of chanterelle mushrooms I’d brought off the trail. Oh! were they beautiful and delicious, though I’m not sure if the prize for the meal goes to Emily’s french toast or Janell’s goat cheese fritatta. It was all delicious.

We took off for DC in the afternoon, a drive that should have been about six hours. I figured I’d use some of the driving time to finish my AT Day 7 journal, which didn’t get done as timely as the other days.

“Would you hand me some Cheetos?” Dustin asked.

I set down my journal page and turned to fish the Cheetos out of the back seat. The world slipped sideways and I turned quickly back around. “Guess I shouldn’t have been writing in the car,” I said. “I’m just going to sit still for a few minutes.”

Forty minutes later I begged Dustin to pull off as I delt with the worst bout of carsickness I’ve ever had. Except… it didn’t get better. I sat with my head propped on the dashboard of the car and watched my shoes chase each other around in circles.

“Gotta go… urgent care…” I gasped. This wasn’t carsickness, and I was getting worse, not better.

Dustin found a place and hustled us over there. I couldn’t get up to walk inside, so they brought me a wheelchair. The nurses were so, so kind.

“Honey, I need you to open your eyes,” the PA said.

“Can’t… spinning…” I gasped. Gasping was the only way I could communicate at the moment.

“But I really need you to. Just for a second.”

I did my very best, but my eyes were twitching around in their sockets, refusing to stay still for even a second. I tried to toss cookies I’d run out of long, long ago.

“How confident were you about your mushroom ID?” the PA asked. Without any other explanation for what was going on, I figured I’d better bring up my wild mushrooms. None of the other 5 people who’d tasted them were in any way unwell, though, and my answer to his question was “100%.”

Nevertheless, the PA was worried about the mushrooms and didn’t know what else could be wrong with me, so they sent me to the ER. My main review of the ER is that their wheelchairs are WAY less comfortable than the Urgent Care’s chairs.

The doc asked me the same question. “How confident were you about your mushroom ID?” I gave him the same reply. I wouldn’t have eaten them – and I certainly wouldn’t have fed them to anyone else – if I hadn’t been 100% sure.

“I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “You’ve got no stomach pain. Have you noticed any dizziness?” I’d been here for an hour now.

“Spinning!” I said again. Hadn’t I mentioned that here? I still couldn’t open my eyes or move my body without needing to throw up. “So much spinning…”

“Have you noticed any unusual sweating?” he asked.

“My face!” Long answers were currently not my forte. I was super clammy.

“Does it spin more if you turn your head one way or the other?”

I cautiously unsquinched my eyes and gingerly tried turning it this way and that. “Left,” I groaned, and squeezed my barf bag. I’d gotten IV drugs to help with the nausea by now, but the tum was not to be messed with.

“You’ve got vertigo,” the doctor said.

“Not the mushrooms?” I said, feeling a huge wave of relief.

“Not the mushrooms,” he agreed.

Of course I had vertigo. As soon as he said it, I felt like I should have known it all along. My dad has dealt with it on several occasions. And the SPINNING! Good heavens. Still, this was so much worse than I’d imagined vertigo would be. I thought I was dying.

They gave me a meclizine pill to treat the dizziness and left me alone to soak it up. Somehow, it got to be 9:30. I had to prove that I could walk to the bathroom before they’d agree to let Dustin take me and finish the drive to DC. I really didn’t enjoy that walk, but I made it, and we headed out.

I spent the next two days recovering at my Uncle Rob’s house. Thank god that had been our next destination. Dustin had work meetings, but I could just convalesce. By the end of the day on Tuesday, I was back to about 97%.

I spent a lot of time in those days imagining what would have happened if this had struck while we were still on the trail. Hobz, ever the excellent guide, had a lovely answer:

I have a really good first-aid kit, but this underlines the fact that you just can’t be prepared for absolutely everything. Trail guides and National Parks always remind you to be prepared to “self-rescue,” and I spend a lot of time thinking about that. I’ve always thought about it more in terms of injuries, but this is a good reminder that sudden-onset sickness can be just as scary.

Biggest thing I am grateful for here (other than the bloody brilliant timing, which I can take no credit for) is my hiking buddies. Hiking alone can be a lovely experience, but then who will tie you to a log and go for help?

Thanks for having my back, Dustin (literally) and Hobz (theoretically).

The adventure ends in the next post, with a trail stats recap, and musings about gear choices and trail names. Click here!