Day 18

Friday April 24

Spence Field shelter

Mile 182.7

Last night was rough. I had uncontrollable chills and shaking for a long time. I wore my jacket to bed and finally got warm after a few hours. Getting in and out of the sleeping bag was painful. No easy way to do it in a shelter and my leg just made it worse.

Finally got up around 8 and packed up my stuff. It was still cold and my down jacket was very nice to have. Glad I didn't send it home.

Started hiking about 8:30 and was moving so slow. It took me almost 2 hours to cover less than 3 miles. Very easy trail yet I just couldn't go fast.

Met the ridegrunner right after leaving the next shelter. Asked me where I stayed and hour my hike was going. I told him about my leg and he recommended going down to cades cove to the ranger station. He drew me a map in the dirt if I wanted to do that. I decided to try and make it to Gatlinburg.

Moved on and right around noon made it to the next shelter. I was hurting bad and trying to decide what to do. A British hiker stopped by and also thought I should have it checked out. Finally a day hiker came up to the shelter and immediately told me to get it looked at. He was a doctor and that decided it for me. I was looking at the trails trying to figure out which way to go to get to cades cove. Nobody had a park map and the at guidebook doesn't show where side trails lead to.

Luckily for me the day hiker had come up from near cades cove and for me the way back. I would have taken the completely wrong trail and gone the wrong direction, away from help. Right before I set out another hiker showed up and he had a map. Confirmed the other trail was the right way to go. I would have been so lost if they had not shown up.

The day hiker, Andy offered to drive me to the nearest med stop. He walked down with me and drove me into Maryville, tn. We finally found somewhere to go after 3 places didn't work out. They looked at my leg and said that it was infected and needed 10 days of antibiotics and to stay off it for a while. Got a shot as well to speed things up.

After that Andy took me back to his house and him and his wife cooked dinner for me and let me stay the night. Very nice people and I have been truly blessed today.

Will be getting picked up tomorrow and going home for a while. I will have to see what the future holds for me at this point.