Small Update, Next Maildrop and Medical Mishap

We are in town tonight ... Once again, our trail angel, Fire Chief (Fire Marshall's dad) met us on the trail! He did this for a few reasons, but mainly because we are hiking right near Fire Marshall's Alma Mater, so we had to make that pit stop! It was actually perfect timing and if you read through this entire post, you'll find out why ...

First though, our next maildrop. As usual, this is not a request for care packages or notes, but if you feel the need, here's the info:
Patrice and/or Justin La Vigne
C/O The Barn Restaurant
7412 Lee Hwy
Rural Retreat, VA
24368
Please hold for SOBO Thru Hikers - ETA Sept. 23

PS-there will be another maildrop before Deal's bday on Oct. 6 ...

In other news, we are at mile 1382.5! Central Virginia has been beautiful! Seriously, as soon as we left Shenandoah, the rain stopped (or maybe it was my rain dance) and hopefully it won't come back for awhile. The climbs have been more difficult in this section, but the views have been so worthwhile!


















And now for the medical mishap. After 1300 miles, something was bound to happen and hopefully this will be the ONLY issue, as opposed to a copperhead bite, which happened to a fellow SOBO in front of us this week.






Here's what happened. On Friday, we were hiking up the
Priest, our first mountain over 4,000 feet since New Hampshire. We all had our iPods on to power us up. All of the sudden, I saw what I can only describe as a bee on steroids come flying at me. By the time I could react, the insect landed on my eye and stung or bit me! Immediately, I felt immense pain and burning and started freaking out. Deal couldn't find a stinger, but could tell I got bit. We now think it was an Asian Giant Hornet that bit, but not stung me (don't google it though because what you'll read is VERY scary!).






That night, I was in a little bit of pain, but the swelling around my eye wasn't too bad.






The next morning was another story. My eye was pretty much swollen shut!






I started taking an antihistamine and we went on our merry way to hike 17 miles. Deal & Fire Marshall tried to hike in solidarity with me by keeping one eye closed. It lasted all of 10 seconds ... But A+ for effort.

Halfway through our hike today, my eye wasn't looking any better and we knew we could go to the doctor when we got to town, but we called our "family doctor" (DocDoc/Rachel) and she advised me to quadruple my dose of the antihistamine (I was only taking 10 mg) and add a steroid (which we do have on hand luckily). The inflammation has definitely decreased! So thank you DocDoc for saving us $300 and saving us the trouble of sitting in an urgent care center for hours. Don't fret people, if this doesn't improve, I will go SEE a doctor! But I think the meds are doing the trick!






And the boys gave me a new trail name ... Sloth.

Location:E 29th St,Buena Vista,United States

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