After realizing all was quiet here on the western front, the pain in my feet returned to my consciousness. I had procrastinated on the treatment and knew I'd have to do them before sunrise. I had been sleeping on my back--not natural for me. I am a side sleeper usually. Without any further thought, I sat up quickly and suddenly felt like a knife had been stuck into my gut. I had totally forgotten about the hernia. I fell back down on my back and felt my belly with my hand. The hernia wasn't even out very far. Apparently the pain was the left-over problem from the day before.
Slowly I turned on to my side and bent my knees up to my waist, untied and removed the boots, which I'd fallen asleep wearing. My stomach wasn't hurting too badly, while doing this work on my side. I took off the socks, then reached into the top pocket of my pack to grab the LED flashlight. I turned it on and the awful truth was revealed.
The tip of the little toe on my left foot was nothing but one big blister. The nail was free floating on this blister. I could have pulled the nail out, but was afraid of infection. I propped my self up on the backpack and really examined the rest of the foot, while I fished around the middle pocket of the backpack for my med kit and my multitool. The multitool was not in its accustomed place. And, a terrible feeling passed over me. I'd left it in Portland. It was one of the most useful things I've ever owned. It got me out of emergencies, allowed me to wire stitch my backpack straps, was my utensil for opening cans and subsequently eating whatever was in side them... It would be dearly missed; one more thing to add to the growing list of things I needed to buy.
I did find the med kit. I flung it open and dug out the surgical tweezers, and antiseptic wipes. Under my left big tow (on the inside of the joint) was a half inch blister the size of half a grape. There was also a small blister at the tip of that same toe. I had some work to do. The other foot wasn't bad. It had a blister right in the center of the bottom though, on the most sensitive and uncallused skin.
The two toes next to my baby toe on the left foot never developed blisters, but instead were rubbed raw, and burned when I touched them. This was a mess. I was out of regular wipes (another addition to the wishlist), so I had to waste antiseptic wipes on cleaning my very dirty feet. The edges of each foot had such thick and torn calluses, and the skin was in danger of rotting. It was a good thing no flies were around. I got the cleaning done and then began the surgery.
These tweezers kick ass! They are the sharpest most tightly-gripping tweezers I've ever had. And they are small and strong. The first task was puncturing each blister. It is always the same, in the hundreds of blisters I have treated in the past. The skin on the blister has no nerves, so puncturing is the easy part. The it has to be drained. I had no cloth so I ripped open some gauze pads to dab up what came out. THEN the fire begins. The only way to describe it when the dead skin hits the sensitive skin below it, is that it is exactly like someone holding a soldering iron against my foot. This doesn't last long, but it sucks.
Knowing it would soon feel better, I wasn't that bothered by the pain. And, it did feel better. I rubbed a bit of antibiotic ointment around the now deflated blisters. I considered putting band aids on the raw parts of the other toes, but canned the idea, knowing no band aid could withstand my walking on it and might just exacerbate the problem as it fell apart. A lot of healing can be done by simply staying off my feet and resting. That might or might not have been an issue when the sun was up.
Then it was time to address the little toe. The poor thing looked wasted, dead. I still had feeling on the skin, which was good and bad. That meant, to puncture the blister there I would feel the puncture. It was a deep way down. I tried several times with the super sharp tweezers. I could take a lot of pain, but not that much, so I stopped my efforts, and simply let it be. Being that deep it might just heal without any further manipulation. When all of the unpleasantness was done, I took the dirty socks and put them in my little black plastic bag with other trash to throw out the next day, and lied back down.
The pain faded as I looked up at the veiled stars above me. My stomach still hurt. I put all the items I'd used back in the pack, while I lied there, with my bare feet in the cool air and fell asleep. I woke at 6:00 am, sleeping through my watch alarm. But, for once, I felt that I could spend as much time as I needed at the sleep spot. The town seemed to be pretty lax about this park. The other parks were a different story. All the smaller ones I passed had very restrictive rules about camping. Oregon was much more easy going with all of its parks, and other things too.
My stomach still hurt when I tried to move. The sun was up by the time I could sit up. I desperately wanted to get to a place where I could recharge my laptop and check to see if any donations had been made. Yet, I just couldn't do it. My feet were sore, but I cold tell that they were healing. They needed more time. I weighed everything and, for once, decided not to push it.
I heard people jogging by on the path beyond the tall grass. The weather forecast had said it would be very hot and clear, but the sky was a yellowish white, with a deep orange sun. Soon I began to smell smoke. Obviously, the smoke from one of the brush fires was being blown southwestward, over Vancouver. It got thick for awhile and then thinned out a little bit.
I put on my last pair of socks, glad that I'd waited until after the feet were treated, but delayed putting on my boots. Being planted to the ground, I got drowsy again and fell back asleep around 8:00 am. I woke again at about 10:00. I really needed to get going if I could. My stomach felt a bit better.
I packed up slowly, not wanting to re-trigger any hernia issues. I had a new way to fold the tarp now. Instead of getting it down to a narrow strip and then folding it against itself, I folded it in squares. This eliminated the thickness of rolling over itself. That may be hard to understand, but the point is that it took up less space now, and allowed me to pull it out for use in just sitting, without completely unfolding it.
I took some shots of the sleep area...
Where I thought there was something in the bushes.
The nest. It was very bumpy. I would have to find a better spot on this night.
My entrance and exit.
My stomach was feeling much better now. The extra sleep had helped. But, I was at a loss for what to do to get online. Before I did anything I would need to charge the laptop. On my walk around town the day before, I'd looked long and hard for ACoutlets. There were none that I could find. I hadn't had the time or energy to search for a Starbuck's. It was unavoidable; I would have to walk around until I found one, or the library.
I walked back down St. John's, getting the feeling that that would be my new commute route in this town. My feet felt so much better. I had handled the situation well in those early morning hours. It was great to have new socks on too. I remembered that McDonald's was supposed to be located on Fourth Plain Boulevard, and held out a very slim hope that they might have outlets. So, I took a left on Fourth Plain, and then traveled east for only a couple blocks. There was McDonald's. For the heck of it I went in and checked for outlets. It was the same situation as the Hayden Island site--all set up for internet, but there were blank plates on all the outlets. Shit!
I ordered a small ice water, but was really hungry, especially smelling all that food, and seeing people eating. I had to leave, but took a picture of my distance from the day before...
I had walked about 20 miles the day before.
As I explored in the smokey air, I took some pictures of this new (for me) town...
Wall mural.
Smokey air.
Neat architecture that was mimicked in different styles around the town.
Chalk art had been raised to another level on the sidewalks all around Main Street.
Check out these chairs! My old roommate Jim Crosby would have scoffed them up.
So many positive affirmations.
More great architecture seen in a house design on Fourth Plain Boulevard.
Normally, I would have been frustrated by not finding Starbuck's (which, if you think about, is the least likely thing to not be on every corner in the state of Washington!), but psychologically, I had no more room in my pea brain for feeling the energy of negative thinking. I'd resigned myself to whatever was going to happen on this day, not happily, but satisfactorily.
Crab apples.
Advertisements not seen in my home state of Maine.
Wisely, I rested a few more times. This would be my third day without a meal. I was outside a Subway, just gathering energy, when a kid about 18 years old came out and asked me if I wanted the other half of his sandwich. He laughed when he saw the look of amazement on my face. I eagerly accepted and enjoyed it thoroughly. About 10 minutes after I finished eating, I felt that familiar pressure, pushing on my belly, and endured the passage of the food by the hernia. It wasn't quite so bad as the apples had been. Healing there (even if temporary) was on its way.
I was especially careful to not bend over when picking up my pack, and knelt instead. That helped too. I knew I was on the mend. But the dull ache lasted another couple of hours, until it began to get dark again. By the time I had just about given up in my search. I decided to go all the way up Main Street (something I hadn't done yet), and lo-and-behold, right where I needed to get back onto Fourth Plain, there was Starbuck's. They closed at 7:00 pm, and the time was now 6:45. Once drained, my laptop will not turn on until it has charged for about 15 minutes. I went in and asked nicely if I could get a water and charge my computer. The girl was very accommodating and said it wasn't a problem.
By the time they closed the power was almost enough to turn on the machine, but not quite. I laughed again, my unhappy laugh, folded up the laptop, sighed and slipped it back into my backpack. At the very least. Now I knew where Starbucks was. That gave me hope for the next day.
I made my way back to the sleeping spot, but looked around for a less bumpy place to lay the tarp and found one about 50 feet away from where I'd been the night before. I won't put up a new graphic map of this spot, since it is so close to the original.
After arranging my stuff on the ground, I slowly bent down to sit, before climbing into the sleeping bag. My stomach didn't hurt at all now. Even pressing on the area caused no discomfort. Things were returning to normal (whatever normal was). I sat and thought for a few more hours before turning in. Sleep came quickly and this time it was filled with dreams...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.