Make Lemonade

Yes, I know it’s been nearly a week since my last post, but I have a good excuse:

I’ve only had the use of my left eye since Saturday, and until yesterday, my right eye was in quite a lot of pain.

(Skip to around 1:23, please.)

Saturday’s hike was Doubletop and Graham mountains – both bushwhacks, though I started out for a short bit from the trail at the base of these two mountains.  I summited Doubletop and struck off for Graham.  Graham was truly a mountain-climbing experience:  there was a lot of snow on the ground and the climb was steep.  Lots of hands-and-feet work – in the sport, I suppose we’d call it “technical” (though not to the point where I really needed ropes and ice axes).  My snowshoes stood me in good stead for the whole trip.

About a hundred yards or so from the summit of Graham (on the way back to the trailhead), I got popped in the eye by a tree branch, and the day’s fun ended.  I spent the last mile and a half or two miles of the bushwhack with my right eye closed and in quite a lot of pain (see above), stopping every hundred yards or so to wait for the latest wave of acid-burn pain to wash over my eye, and/or attempting to flush out whatever debris might have still been stuck in there with water from my near-frozen water bottle.

At the end of the day, the flushing process didn’t really do more than take up extra time and possibly numb my eye – the NP at the emergency room later told me that there wasn’t anything in my eye:  that an abraded cornea feels like there’s something there, though.  I prefer to think that my body responded to my vocal request to “just digest the fucking thing, if you’re not going to flush it out (I’m sure there’s some protein in there somewhere).”

In the spirit of gratitude, this was also running through my mind.

The nice thing about the whole experience was that I was able to stay in the moment (though they were not exactly the moments in which I preferred to be) and not panic.  I stayed off the near-frozen river, as much as the land wanted to push me in that direction, and I didn’t freak out when it started to get dark (that’s exactly why I carry a headlamp).  My legs carried me the last couple of miles back to the car, and I checked my map and compass regularly, in deference to my underdeveloped sense of direction.  And at no point during the whole ordeal did I wonder why god or the universe or the mountain was doing this to me.  I just accepted the state of affairs as it was and made lemonade.  Not too bad for a one-time vice president of the pessimist society.  There’s no anti-Ted conspiracy; sometimes things just suck a little more than other times.

The 8 (or so) mile drive from the trailhead back to a main road where I could flag down a cop was pretty nerve-racking, but not nearly as bad as the 40 miles from the hospital to the Thruway.  Once I got just about to the Thruway, I called my parents and asked them to come rescue me – there was no way I was going to be able to make the 2 hour drive back home with only one eye not in excruciating pain and only able to see about 40 yards anyway.  It was exactly like the worst times I’ve ever driven drunk.  I am SO glad that’s no longer part of my repertoire.

Mad props to Ed and Betsy Wallace for effecting the rescue.

Sunday and Monday were spent in and out of consciousness.  Mercifully, I don’t remember much of those days.  I do, however, remember my mother bringing me coffee and food.  Thanks Mom.  <3  =D

I saw the opthamologist on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.  He put a bunch of drops in my eyes and a patch over my injured right one both days – the patch comes off Thursday and I’ll be responsible for the application of the drops and cremes after that.  My next appointment is Friday and the doctor said I can go back to work on Monday.  Work has been pretty cool about the whole thing – I’ve never missed this much time before (though I’ve been working a bit via blackberry and cell anyway).

I now have 8 mountains to climb in my winter peakbagging extravaganza (over 5 trips), and five weekends in which to do so before March 22d.  My plan was to get a bit ahead of schedule by hiking on Monday as well, but, well, that’s fucked.

So now I’m looking at Thursday and Friday off.  I’m sorely (no pun) tempted to hike one of those days, but I don’t know that I want to be off the air blackberry-wise for that long.  I’ll be out there this Saturday, though.

I drove a bit during the day today, but that wasn’t as much fun as it usually is.  I should be good once this damned pirate-patch is off.

So now I’m looking at two days of unrequested down-time.  I really should clean my desk.

Tagged as: Bushwack, Catskill Winter Peaks, Doubletop Mountain, Graham Mountain