Start: Holiday Inn Express, Fort Montgomery, NY
We are very happy that we took that second zero on Sunday! Brian had some chaffing on his thigh, but by Sunday evening, it had become inflamed, hot, and extremely painful. It was so bad, we decided to go to the emergency room. Had we hiked out on Sunday, it would have been a very long, painful hike to get to a road crossing to get to the ER (not to mention there were some severe thunderstorms on Sunday that even made the hotel lose power!!). It turned out that he had an abscess on his leg that required the doctor to make an incision to drain the infection. Basically, some bacteria had gotten into the chaffed area and created an infection. I had the pleasure of watching the procedure. I felt TERRIBLE for Brian... It looked very painful!! Once the doctor drained it, he packed the wound with an antibiotic dressing. He directed Brian to come back on Tuesday in order to have the dressing removed and said no hiking until then. He also prescribed Brian some very strong antibiotics.
We spent the last two nights at the hotel and Brian has been taking his medication. We went to the hospital today and had the dressing removed. We will be hiking out tomorrow. We will have to make sure we keep the wound clean. A few times a day, we will have to boil water to put a warm compress on it to encourage the infection to continue draining.
The plan is to hike about 10 miles tomorrow, but then we know we need to put in some big mile days after that. Hopefully, we don't have to deal with any more injuries! We are incredibly antsy to get back out there!!!
End: Holiday Inn Express, Fort Montgomery, NY
Peace Be The Journey
~Flicka
Joanie, sorry to hear about the setback with Brian's leg. I know the two of you are probably dying to put some trail behind you again. Don't go out there hell bent on several twenty plus days. I know that Brian will be glad to get out again just to get more than ten feet away from you for more than a minute. Poor man must be gifted with patience.
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