Sudden change in plans
Well, the best-laid plans do go awry. I last posted on Wednesday. On Thursday, my new friend Allison and I started the day with a park ranger talk. We walked down the nature trail near my campsite, learning about the geology of Big Bend. In the afternoon, I headed to the Chisos Mountains (the highest area of the park) to hike the Windows Trail. The drive into the mountains was lovely. It's cooler up there, but it was still pretty darned hot. The trail I took is all downhill at the beginning, which means, of course, that the return is uphill. I had a couple of liters of water with me, but it was still a difficult hike. The birds were amazing though, different from those found far below near the Rio Grande.
I decided to stop after about 3/4 down the trail, because I was hot and knew I had the long climb back out. Surprisingly, the return was not as bad as I had expected—I probably could have made the whole hike. I still had a liter of water left at the end, and I was drinking freely. I decided to return on Saturday, when it was supposed to be 20˚ cooler, to do the whole hike, but, of course, that didn't happen.
I stopped at the store on the way back and did a load of laundry, and, while the clothes were washing, I treated myself to another $2 shower. Allison and I had plans to go to Dugout Wells in the evening where she had seen elf owls a few nights earlier. I got back to camp and ate dinner, then we headed to Dugout Wells right before dusk. The owls were very cooperative and adorable! Besides 4 elf owls, there was a western screech owl hooting away. BTW, the western screech owls don't sound at all like our eastern screech owls, which are have an almost scary screaming call (google it!). The westerns have a tiny little hooting sound. Appearance-wise, the two species are similar, but definitely not alike in their calls! Here are a few elf owl images. They're not good, because the light was extremely low by the time they started coming out of their burrows and calling.
Oh, I almost forgot. We saw our first tarantula on the road at Dugout Wells, a Texas brown tarantula. Surprisingly, I saw very few creepy-crawlies in Big Bend. There were not a lot of insects either.
Friday morning, Allison and I went back to Dugout Wells for another ranger talk, this one more about the ecology of the desert. From there, we headed to the border crossing to go to Mexico for lunch. Of course I had been a few days earlier, but Allison hadn't been yet. Also, we wanted to ride burros to town—the group I had been with before had wanted to walk. It was very hot on Friday, around 100˚F by early afternoon. Anyway, we got rowed across, then each paid $10 for the round trip burro rides and the guide. My burro, Ramona, had a foal who stayed right with us. Unfortunately, my stirrups were too long and I stupidly didn't insist on getting them shortened, so the ride was not particularly comfortable. However, my ride was much better than Allison's, as her burro stumbled about halfway to town and dumped her over its head. She was okay, with an arm scrape and, a couple of days later, some serious bruising on her side. We dismissed the burros and the guide and walked the rest of the way to town.
Allison's fall was quite scary when it happened, as both of us were afraid that she'd been seriously hurt. She was filming the ride with her phone and caught the whole event. By the time we got to lunch, we watched the video and found it hysterically funny. I think both of us are still laughing no matter how many times we watch it, particularly the end with the guide had handed her her still-filming phone, and she matter-of-factly looks into the camera and says, "I fell off my burro." She didn't actually fall, as the ass (as we started calling it) dumped her. Anyway, here's the video, if you are interested.
After walking all around the town, we ate at the second restaurant in town, the one with the view of the river. The owner was quite disturbed by Allison's scrape, and brought out medical supplies to clean and bandage it. Lunch was yummy, enchiladas with salsa verde this time.
We then walked back to the river and from there to the border station. After reentering the US, we sat outside to check our email, etc., since this place had the best internet in the park.
And, everything changed. I had a message from a friend at home to call in when I could. Jake was in the hospital with what they thought was a stroke. I was able to call and talk to him. He was having left-sided weakness and had driven himself to New River Medical Center. When I called, they were about to transfer him to Lewis Gale Hospital in Salem, where they had a neuro bed available. Allison very kindly stayed with me as I made phone calls and had a minor breakdown. I was very glad not to be alone at that moment.
I went back to my campsite, threw my table and chair into the car—everything else was already in the vehicle—and headed out of Big Bend. Long story short, I drove 1768 miles between 3 PM on Friday and when I got home at 7 PM on Sunday. I did stop for the nights, and got some sleep, but it was a long haul. My Subaru decided to be difficult and throw an error code about a third of the way into the trip. It was still driving fine, but the error (coolant bypass valve range/performance) shut down a lot of the safety features of the car (rear radar, EyeSight, etc.), and that shut off the cruise control. So, I drove home in manual mode. I hadn't realized how important cruise control is for interstate driving!
I got home to joyous dogs. Jake's brother had come up and stayed at the hospital with Jake for the whole time, coming to the house to take care of the dogs before going back to the hospital. That was another huge plus, as I knew someone was with him—it is so important to have an advocate when you are in the hospital!
So, as to Jake, the stroke-like symptoms were due to a mass in his brain. They put him on steroids and his symptoms have resolved. He's feeling pretty well now (Tuesday afternoon). The doctors think that the tumor is probably his old friend, B cell lymphoma, but we need biopsy results to be sure. We had good news today, as they did a whole body CT and didn't find anything else—apparently we're only dealing with the single tumor. Per the oncologist, that will make management much easier. We are waiting for them to do a lumbar puncture, which is supposed to happen this afternoon. The hope is that there will be cells in the CSF that can tell us what the tumor is. The lumbar puncture was supposed to be yesterday, and now they say this afternoon, but we won't know for sure until they come to get him. (They did the whole body CT scan last night at about 9 PM!)
Once they do the scan, we'll have a 2 day wait for cell typing, if they find cells. If they don't find cells, they will do a needle biopsy, but they have to wait 2 weeks for that. The steroids are great, and they made him feel much better, but they mean that it's much harder to get cells for a biopsy. The neurosurgeon is confident about doing the biopsy, but doesn't want to do it until the chances are highest that he'll get cells. So, the soonest the biopsy would be scheduled would be May 15th.
I was hoping we would get out of here today, but since they haven't taken him for the LP yet, I doubt we will. He will do out-patient rehab once he's out, to work on his balance, etc. As far as the tumor, everything depends on finding out what it is. If it is cancer (which everyone thinks it is), we will be managing treatment with Blue Ridge Cancer Care in Blacksburg. I've learned a little about treatment options, but until we have more info, we can't make any more decisions.
My car is still filled with camping gear. I've taken a few things in when I've been home, but I have a lot more to do. I guess I'll have to clean out the front seat to get Jake home, so that should be next on my list. I'll post updates on Facebook, as we get more information, but if you're not on FB, don't hesitate to reach out for news.
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