Friday, May 13, 2011

Status Update.

Hey everyone!
So trip to the doc's went alright. The idea of Diabetes is off the table now (thank god!), and I am just waiting for some blood work results to come back.
I have formulated a possible plan of action. The hike will no longer be a thru-hike attempt. Such a thing really is beyond the scope of successful ambitions for myself at this point. Rather, I will be breaking the hike up into sections that will be attempted in consecutive hike seasons. I will be spending the next few weeks here at home doing day hikes and walks to build up stamina with two goals in mind: First, is that in two weeks time I will be doing the Skyline To The Sea Trail just to make sure I am ready to head back out to the PCT. Second, is that shortly after the Skyline To The Sea, I will head up to the high sierra around the Tahoe area and begin heading north from there.
Then the following season I will start tackling the rest of California.
I have had to reassess my approach and goals these last few days. I have been asking myself the big question of, "What needs to happen to ensure a long term success?" note that I did not ask, "What I would like to do..." But rather, "What needs to happen..."
And right now there are certain things that I don't necessarily like, but that need to happen in order for all of this to be successful.
I will post more updates as they become apparent.
-Cody
p.s. Again any feed back is highly encouraged and appreciated. Just send them to frankswalk@gmail.com

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Setbacks and Slight Changes

Hey everybody.
There have been some minor setbacks. As you know from the counter I left on May First. What some of you don't know is that I ran into trouble shortly after starting. I apologize for the break in information, but here is a complete telling of what happened:
One of the main symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis is the body's inability to retain sodium. If you are the athletic type you know the value of sodium as an electrolyte. Without electrolytes one can suffer a condition called hypotonic dehydration. That is exactly what happened to me.
On the second day of the hike I was drinking plenty of water and covering ground. At around 11:30 in the morning I replenished my water reserves at a spring (using water filter of course) and hefted on my incredibly heavy pack (56 lbs. I know because we weighed it at the hospital) and continued on my way. Shortly afterwards I began to feel sick.
Now when I say "sick" I use the term in a loose way. Loose in that I can not adequately describe exactly how I was feeling beyond saying; nauseous, tired, short of breath, numbness in my extremities, and incredibly fatigued. I knew that something wasn't right.
As I continued on my way the feeling of illness and not being right continued to intensify. I looked at my map and picked a spot a few miles ahead as my next rest point, at which time if I was not feeling better I would call for help. I never really got the opportunity to make that decision, my body made it for me.
As soon as I arrived at my checkpoint (which was at the crossing of the trail and a county fire road) my legs collapsed under me and I began to vigorously vomit. Even though I had eaten, I was primarily vomiting very sour water. At this point I became very cold despite the 90+ heat and started to shiver uncontrollably. I knew that I needed help. As luck would have it I did have slight phone service and so I called 911.
On call to the county sheriff, there was some confusion. Even though I knew where I was on my map, it seemed that the sheriff could not find my location on his map (it later turns out that the county fire road has three different names on three different maps...), so they sent the helicopter out to find me.
The next few hours are very dreamlike for me. The helicopter had to make six passes over my general location before they were able to spot me waiving a red bandana as a signal. By this time the winds had picked up to a point where they could not safely make a landing. They were able to locate the road I was at however, and radioed the location to ground crews. I had just about passed out when I was awoken some twenty-ish minutes later by the sound of a big forestry truck and a sheriff come to my rescue.
I was loaded into the sheriff's SUV and taken down the mountain (I was at roughly 2,979 feet) to a waiting ambulance. Then by ambulance to Kaiser in San Diego.
I was treated for hypotonic dehydration in the emergency room, and then just sort of turned loose into the streets of San Diego. At the time it looked as though I would have a ride out to a spot further out on the trail where I could begin again, but that fell through. After two days of trying to figure something out down in San Diego it became apparent that the best course of action would be to return home temporarily and figure out a new strategy. It seems that I had bitten off more than I could chew.
So here is where we are currently: I have an appointment with my doctors today for a full physical, as well as to get checked for diabetes (seems that the shock to my system was so great that I may have actually given myself diabetes), and after hearing their conclusions I will go from there. What I would like to do is to start again but further north in the Sierras, and go from that point on into Canada. Then return next season and start at the same place but work southwards. But this is still up in the air. What is certain is that I am going back. Even if it takes me multiple seasons, I will complete the PCT.
My goal is long term success of the mission. Even though I had wanted to thru-hike the whole thing, it seems that with my condition I should focus more on what it will take to complete the hike in the long run.
If in the event that I am not given the okay to return to the trail this season, and the hike needs to be put on hold, all money in the hike fund will be split between the two non profits as planned.
I apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment that this might have all caused. Believe me, it doesn't make me happy that this is how things are unfolding. Yet as I have always found in life, things don't always unfold how you want them to. But they do unfold how they are going to unfold, and it is all we can to do to just roll with it and make the best of it.
I thank everyone for their support and am as always welcome to input and suggestions from everyone.
Wish me luck.
-Cody