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Hiking Spain: Zero Day, Trip To The ER

We are continuing to follow the journals of Century resident Terri Sanders as she hikes 500 miles across Spain this summer.

As Terri hikes from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, she will file dispatches from her journal and send pictures when possible for NorthEscambia.com as she hikes the Camino de Santiago — the Way of St. James — to the Atlantic Ocean.

Today, read about “Zero Day” and a trip to the emergency room.

June 7 and 8, 2010

Start; Narvarrete

Zero day

Everything was okay when I went to bed last night. It was around 8 and when I woke up again the lights were all out so I knew it was after 10:00 since the hostel closes at 10:00. I had the most awful case of indigestion and I took the Tums that I had stuck under my pillow before I went to bed. I usually do that so if I wake up with heartburn, I don’t have to rattle around in my pack for the bottle with the Tums in it. I went ahead and got up and went to the bathroom then came and got back up in my bunk.

After about thirty minutes I was hurting so bad in my stomach I got up again and went in the bathroom. I stayed in there on the floor hung over the toilet for the next 5 hours at least. I would throw up, try to lie down on the cool tile floor but no matter what I did I could not get rid of the excruciating pain in my stomach. It was close to daylight when I finally crawled back into my bunk.

I waited until hikers started stirring around and I saw Lou sit up. I whispered to him “Lou, I need to go to the hospital.”

He shot up the rest of the way out of bed and headed off to the bathroom. He said later that I scared the mess out of him. A real good laxative effect first thing in the morning, better than a cup of coffee and quicker too!

I explained to him what was going on and he went in search of the hostel manager. They loaded me up in his car and within minutes I was at the emergency room. It was exactly where I needed to be except that they spoke no English and I hurt so bad I couldn’t have spoken Spanish if I had of known any to speak. We slowly went through all the usual questions which took forever with the age barrier.

Given my age I guess they wanted to make sure I was not having a heart attack because rather quickly I had an EKG hooked up to me. No I didn’t have gall bladder problems, no I was not pregnant, no, I didn’t snort cocaine. I gave them a list of the medications I was on. The whole time they are talking to Lou like I wasn’t even in the room. They would ask him a question; he would turn to me and ask me the question. I would answer him, and he would relate the answer to them.

I got a shot for pain, two prescriptions, an EKG and blood work, with a final diagnosis of I had a mild case of food poisoning. All this set me back 174 Euros.

I was worried they were going to take my appendix or my gall bladder or give me a hysterectomy before I got out of there. The thing is, is that I would have probably gone along with it because I was in so much pain even though I have already had a hysterectomy!

I have a pretty high pain tolerance anyway, but nothing, not even natural delivery childbirth hurt like this. I have had food poisoning twice and it didn’t hurt anything like this. The shot began to numb the pain and they decided to let me go without doing any incisions on me.

Everyone had already packed up and left by the time I got back. I laid down on a bunk, Lou covered me up and the next thing I knew several hours had pasted and he was waking me up. We were moving into a more private room so I could rest and not be disturbed. I vaguely remember the doctor saying something about lots of rest and having no energy for a few days.

They tucked me back into bed with Lou assuring me he had gotten all of my laundry I had down last night and hung outside. I woke up 6 hours later and ate some scrambled eggs Lou fixed, then went back to sleep. By evening I was more awake but felt like a truck had hit me. I managed to stay awake and finish the book I was carrying. I didn’t have any kind of an appetite but managed to eat a tangerine. We had to make plans to try and catch up the missed days so if all goes okay and I am up to a bus ride we will jump ahead tomorrow.

Of course I feel horrible about this setting us back but Lou says quit worrying. It very well could have been him.

Mile 0.0