The next day, Monday morning, Mike refilled his water bottles as I tried to convince him that I was fine (despite the continued pain):
And then he was off!
As I drove home, however, the pain had reduced me to tears. Yet somehow I had still managed to convince myself that I was fine - I think it was the fever and dehydration talking, though I didn't realize it at the time. I called my mom for advice, and she told me in no uncertain terms to quit being so ridiculous and to call my doctor! After waiting TWO HOURS, my doctor's office called back and directed me to the nearest emergency room. Not Urgent care?, I asked uncomprehendingly. ER, they responded forcefully, now! My mom, bless her heart, started driving out to MN at that point, while I drove myself to Methodist Hospital.
Everyone at Methodist was really nice, although the triage nurse was another "character." She expressed surprise when I told her I had driven myself to the ER, given my pain level, so I explained to her that Mike had just started off on the SHT and hence I was on my own for the next three weeks. Her response, in a saccharin tone, was "Miscarriage is so hard! I know... I was there too. So maybe you just need some support right now!," implying that my pain was purely psychosomatic. Fortunately for her, I wasn't thinking clearly enough to be able to dignify that comment with any response.
Other than her, the ER staff were great. They got me in quite quickly, despite how busy the facility was, and they were all very caring. My official diagnosis was " acute endometritis," aka "childbed fever" in the days before hand-washing and antibiotics. The only weird thing at Methodist was that I was so dehydrated that it took the nurses three tries to get the IV in, and yet they never gave me any fluids in the IV - just antibiotics and painkillers. Huh?!? At least the pain of the IV attempts, as they rooted around trying to find a vein, completely distracted me from the pain in my abdomen! That's the only time that I wished I would have had an advocate along with me. But once the painkillers started working, I was beyond caring.
Eventually I got discharged to home, and my mom basically met me at the door. She was a wonderful recovery supervisor! She kept me fed (despite my lack of appetite) and hydrated, and ensured I was taking my antiobiotics and painkillers as prescribed. I have no problem taking antiobiotics throughout the entire prescribed course, due to my (rational) fear of inadvertently breeding "super-bugs" that are resistant to antiobiotics. But I do have a problem with taking any painkillers stronger than Advil, due to my (relatively irrational, I'll admit) fear of suddenly becoming addicted. My mom caught on pretty quickly, though, and started forcing the Percocet down my throat, at least for the first 36 hours. Thank you, Mom! (Big, big, thank you - for everything!)
And that brings me back to the title of the post, the SHT. Despite my reassurances (read: lies) that I was fine when I dropped him off, Mike had been worried sick about me. When he heard all that had transpired in his absence, he aborted his SHT mission. I couldn't pick him up alone (no driving while on percocet!), so my mom drove up to Beaver Bay to pick him up. At least she let me come along and sleep in the back. Now, if you look back at the SHT map, you'll see that Two Harbors to Beaver Bay is about 60 trail miles!! That's right, Mike had made it 60 miles in his 2.5 days of hiking! I feel terrible that he ended his trip on my account, but now we have an excuse to hike the rest of the trail together.
So that's the SHT story for 2009. Certainly not how either Mike or I had expected it to turn out, but it's been a very happy ending. I was happy to have him back to take over the "recovery supervisor" responsibilities from my mom, and he has been thrilled to have so much free time at home to read, relax, weed, watch TV, cook, etc. (I've especially enjoyed the marvelous meals he has made in the past week, including the super yummy home-made borscht he made yesterday!)
I would venture to say that the whole ordeal turned out just right.
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