Day 46

There were a lot of ups and downs today, mainly emotional. The day started great since it's Papi's 25th birthday, the forecast looked great and the 19 miles we had to the Partnership Shelter looked flat. You can order pizza to the shelter since it's so close to a road in Marion.

I stopped by my favorite Privy on trail which is at the Trimpi Shelter. It has my favorite graffiti I've seen on trail with the quote, "I don't need trails legs, I need a trail rectum"

Patches was grabbing some water when he found 3 PBRs left in the cold water source. We both drank one and he saved the other to give to Papi later.

At the Meadow, I went to take a picture and in one of the wind gusts, a foreign object entered my right eye. I'm not sure what it was, bug, stick, dirt, sand etc. it really irritated my eye and I had to drop my pack and try flushing it with my water. After 15 minutes with no success, I had ran out of water. I put my pack on and started walking to get to the next stream which was a mile away.

I could barely see since my right eye was so irritated, and rapidly blinking. It felt like something was stuck. After a while I made it to the stream and tried to flush it more. I was unsuccessful and had to keep walking. I eventually found a large river and completely submerged myself to try and fix the eye.

The cold water did help, but I still couldn't really blink my right eye without pain/discomfort. Another thruhiker, Joey, let me try some eye drops but that didn't help either. I still had 9 miles to go to the shelter and it was already 1:30 so I knew I needed to get going. I managed as best I could for the next two hours, and took lots of breaks to try and help my eye. I resorted to dampening my buff and keeping it over the eye to relieve the discomfort.

I had figured out that I still had full vision, but when my eyes were looking to the right of me or directly in front and I blinked, it felt like something was scraping my eyelids. If I was only looking out of my left peripherals, it was pain free when I blinked. I spent the rest of the day, hiking looking out the side of my vision.

I eventually caught up to Frogger(From Maine) and his brother Ralph who joined him that day. They tried to troubleshoot, offered more eye drops but nothing worked. I jokingly told them that what I needed was an eye patch, and Ralph asked if I wanted the one in his first aid kit! He took it out and gave it to me, and it was almost instant relief. It really just helped remind me to keep my eyes to the left and it was more tolerable. I was in a much better mood after this since now I looked like a prate.

I hiked glissfully for the next few miles and rolled into camp around 5:00pm which is pretty late for me. Tama Papi Hiccup were very surprised and nervous seeing the eye patch. They also tried to troubleshoot, but nothing was working. I was considering going into town via a shuttle to get to an urgent care when Papi told me to pinch my upper eyelid and try to pull it over my lower lid. I did my best, but couldn't quite accomplish that, but it did dislodge the foreign object enough and I regained full range of motion in my right eye.

I instantly felt loads better and Hiccup's Pizza order showed up! She got us 6 pizzas and four 2Ls or soda. We shared it with Frogger, Ralph, Patches, Tama, Papi, Dance Move and See you Tomorrow.

We've seen See you Tomorrow, a lot of trail, since he's day hiking/yo-yoing all his miles. He drives trailhead to trailhead, and hikes out and back to his car, never camping. We first saw him on day 3 and have seen him most days since then until recently, since he had to take some time off. He bought a tent and a bigger backpack and is going to start hiking south from Damascus. He hasn't been able to get every single mile so he's going southbound to hit the ones he's missed so far. He's going to flip flop and hike south from Maine in July, so it was bittersweet to finally spend time with him since we won't "see him tomorrow" anymore for a long time.

Very thankfully my eye no longer hurts and I no longer have to spend a town day in Marion sitting around the Urgent Care.