Date: 2006-03-14
From: Unicoi Gap (Hiawassee Inn)

To: Unicoi Gap (Hiawassee Inn)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

I don't know what to do. It's 2:30 in the morning. My Sudafed and Tussin cough suppressant have worn off. It feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest. I can't stop coughing, and it hurts to cough. I want to take more Sudafeds and cough syrup, but now wonder if I should just go to the doctor this morning rather than hike. If I go to the doctor, would it be better NOT to have taken medicine that might mask symptoms? I coughed up some phlegm. Does this mean the cold is breaking up, and that I'll be fine if I just get out and hike?I don't want another zero day. I want to get back on the trail.Last year my knee. This year my chest seems to be caving in with the mother of all colds. Why can't I ever get past Hiawassee?I need to sleep and I can't keep coughing like this. It hurts my throat and chest too much. I'll take another slug of Tussin and another Sudafed and see how I feel when the alarm goes off at 6:30.It is 6:45 and there is no way I can hike today. I stayed awake for a long time coughing and feeling sorry for myself (Oh, why me?).I did fall asleep though, and Ron knocked on my door just before 6:30. I feel awful and, even as numb as I can be, I know hiking today would be incredibly stupid. Almost as stupid as not going to the doctor yesterday afternoon.I probably sound like a pitiful whiner, but I have to say that I am not used to being sick, and am not usually a graceful patient. My usual method of dealing with it is to ignore it, and if it gets too bad to ignore, to hole up like a wild animal, snapping at anyone who approaches. I dragged my butt down to the office and told Ron I wouldn't be hiking today. I tried to slink back to my room, but he gave me a 16 ounce glass of OJ and an equally large cup of coffee, and said to go back and rest, that he'd take me to a clinic when they opened.There are certain lodgings along the trail that the hikers gravitate to. So far I have only experienced two, The Hiker Hostel and the Hiawassee Inn, but I can see why hikers flock around these places. Last year I saw Josh and Leigh at the Hiker Hostel helping out Mike (Big Papa) who had bronchitis, and Ron has been a true angel for me two years in a row.This whole experience is foreign to me, but I can understand why people hike the trail more than once, and why thru-hikers revere it as they do. It is more than just a footpath in the woods. It is a micro-society.Tinker and Brian took zero days, but both are gone now.***************************I guess I'm stuck in Hiawassee for two more days. I went to a clinic today, and the doctor isn't sure what I have. A swab test for flu came out negative, but with this test a positive is a definite, not so with a negative result. Three out of ten people with the flu will test negative. Mostly he is concerned with pneumonia. My oxygen levels are good, but he said hikers have stronger constitutions than most of his patients and that generally something is really wrong before they seek medical help. I told him that, yeah, if I thought this would go away by itself I never would have come in.The upshot was that I had chest x-rays taken, and the results won't be available until tomorrow.Even so, I'm still weak. I was huffing up the small hill from the hospital back to the motel. But I have two prescriptions, and maybe by tomorrow I'll be okay. Either way, tomorrow is the last day I'm staying here in Hiawassee. If I'm still sick, I'll slackpack a day or so, but all my hiking buds are halfway to Franklin by now.Ron made some chili and invited me for lunch. He put some cayenne pepper in to help me, as he said, sweat out some of the sickness. He also gave me a handful of vitamin C pills, and saying I needed fluids, tried to give me a half gallon of juice. Wow. I took a large glass of juice, but I have Gatorade in the room and a couple of sodas. Besides, he is giving me more stuff than he is collecting in rent! He offered to slack me tomorrow for six bucks. That involves two round trips of about 25 miles each up the mountain in an Aerostar van. That won't even cover his gas. We did a weird kind of reverse negotiation in which he came up to ten dollars.But I may just get out and start hiking tomorrow. I am supposed to wait to hear if I have pneumonia or something bad, but with my cell phone I can call from Tray Mountain or Kelly Knob. If I have pneumonia, I'll come back for treatment from Dick's Creek Gap.