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The Constant Reminders

That's me, on Mt. Katahdin in Maine, the end of the Appalachian Trail
That’s me, on Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern end of the Appalachian Trail.

My feet are the only constant reminders I have from hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine four years ago.

They are bigger now. I had worn a size 10 street shoe all my adult life; now I’m a size 11.  And they constantly remind me of the hike because I have almost no feeling the middle three toes of either foot.

I ran into trouble on the second day of my hike when I got lost coming down Blood Mountain in an ice storm, in single digit weather, and ended up with frost bite on several fingers and one of my ears.  Feeling returned to my fingers in a few months, but not to my toes.

I made another serious mistake with I tried to hike all the way to Maine, about 4.5 million steps give or take, with two pairs of boots.  The first pair began to break down after 800 miles* or so. I should have replaced them immediately, but I didn’t.  I kept going.  I ignored my feet, which also began to come apart from hiking in bad boots.

When my boots came apart I didn't replace them soon enough.
When my boots began breaking up I didn’t replace them soon enough.

At Snickers Gap, VA, mile 1003.5,  my friend John Dancy picked me up and took me to an REI store near  Washington where I bought a new pair.

But the damage was done, my feet were torn up.

For several weeks I got up at 5 a.m., ate, packed my equipment, and then spent half a hour doctoring and bandaging my feet. I would drain the blisters with a needle, pour alcohol on them, apply Neosporin, then gauze, then Moleskin.  Then I’d wrap them with stretch tape to hold everything in place.  By 6:30 I’d be on the move.

After my feet got well I took these photos to show my wife, Donna, that I was all better.

My blisters had healed with I took this photo, and I had stopped banding them.
LEFT FOOT: My blisters had healed and I had stopped bandaging them.
RIGHT FOOT
RIGHT FOOT: Dirty, but good as new.
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I lost several toenails, almost everyone did.

So was it worth it, the thru-hike in exchange for permanent numbness in six toes?

Absolutely .

NOTE: *It was 2,189.2 miles from Georgia to Maine.

Coming Monday:  The IRS Plumber

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He Smelled So Bad

I was trading stories with an old friend who had been a nurse at the hospital at Central Prison in Raleigh and he told me this story.  My friend was off the record, which meant I couldn’t report it, couldn’t identify and interview the inmate and the doctor and put the story in the newspaper I worked for, The News and Observer.   But I can tell you the story he told me.

*  *  *

My friend said an inmate was admitted to the prison hospital with a leg injury that required an operation.  

The state was not able to get what you might call the best doctors in town to operate on inmates but, at least, the doctor  who operated and put the inmate’s leg in a cast had a license.

After the operation the doctor sort of forgot about his prison patient, he didn’t come back to check on him.

A few days later the leg started smelling, bad, my friend told me.  He said he called the doctor and told him he needed to come right away and see about the man’s leg, but the doctor didn’t come.

Other patients in the small ward at the hospital began complaining about the odor —   the guy’s leg smelled like a week-old dead chicken. They complained so much the nurses moved them to another ward.  

The odor got worse, so bad the nurses began wearing gas masks.

Finally, one of the nurses threatened the doctor: He absolutely had to come and find out what was wrong with this guy — or else. The “or else” must have gotten his attention, because he finally showed up.

Maggots
“Maggots’ excretions soothe inflamed wounds,” an  AAAS article said, promoting healing.

The nurses wheeled the patient with the rotten smell back into the operating room, the doctor cut the cast off, and a gazillion maggots fell out on the floor.

NOTE:  Actually, maggots are good for some wounds, according to an article in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Paul Gabrielsen wrote:  “Maggots are efficient consumers of dead tissue. They munch on rotting flesh, leaving healthy tissue practically unscathed. Physicians in Napoleon’s army used the larvae to clean wounds. In World War I, American surgeon William Baer noticed that soldiers with maggot-infested gashes didn’t have the expected infection or swelling seen in other patients. The rise of penicillin in the 1940’s made clinical maggots less useful, but they bounced back in the 1990’s when antibiotic-resistant bacteria created a new demand for alternative treatments. In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved maggot therapy as a prescription treatment.”

Coming Friday: The Constant Reminders