Day: 37 Miles: 0 Trip: 341.5 Started: Erwin TN Destination: Bed!
For the last 70 or 80 miles I have been seeing lots of warnings around shelters of people getting a nasty stomach virus that causes people to vomit from both ends for about 24 hours. After my long day yesterday into Erwin I was feeling pretty good and had some food and slept well. I had planned on leaving right away the next morning, but by about 9am I was starting to feel a little queasy. I was afraid the virus had finally caught up to me. I had heard horror stories about people on the trail riding it out in their tents or in a shelter, but I was still in town and wanted to take the opportunity to have a pharmacy around if I needed one. It turns out I had it pretty bad. I did not want to stay at the hostel and be around lots of other people so I checked in to the Super8 motel and by 11am it was in full swing. I should have been pretty hungry by then, but the mere thought of food made me want to vomit. By 11:30 I was in bed and tried to get some sleep. I woke up several times and managed to drink two glasses of orange juice and some water, but the thought of food was still pretty telling and by the time I knew it it was 3am. The next day I was feeling a little better, and had some breakfast, but immediately had diarrhea. I ended up staying another two days. One to continue to recover, and another to do all the things like re-supply that I did not get done. On the morning I left, two doctors and the county health official stopped by to take count of the number of infected at the hotel. They were doing a study to determine the severity of the bug in the county. Evidently it was starting to show up at many hospitals and nursing homes as well. An article about it is available here.
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