Today my friend Malia and I planned a hike. We planned to get an early start to avoid the heat of the day. For various reasons that didn't happen and it was 9 before we got going. We both had hesitations but kept them to ourselves. Trust your gut! First for me was the heat. Second was that I had little hiking this winter because of the asthma that did me in last month. But I took plenty of water.
To make a long story short we persevered even though we both, to ourselves, had thoughts of turning around. You know I'm beyond caring about the hike when my camera goes in my backpack!
Malia did better than me. I need to talk to her tomorrow (today now) about how we ended up with folks at a cg, I don't even know where. Obviously I lost time. They called 911 and an ambulance came out. I walked, with their help, to the ambulance. Nice guys! They wanted to take me to the hospital. I wanted to come home. Because I was improving, they accepted that, after I signed the paperwork refusing the hospital. So I travelled back to the rv strapped in and hooked up to blood pressure and a couple other things.
Malia just got to ride along. They told her she had to keep an eye on me.
Turns out they believe I fell victim to heat stroke, exacerbated by my legs weakening because they hadn't hiked enough. I've been drinking lots of water and napping/sleeping since we returned.
My moral... Listen to your gut feelings. We shouldn't have gone at all. Both of us, individually, had points we knew we should turn back, but kept quiet. The first time one of us felt that, we should have done it.
And Peaches is a trooper. Normally we'd go for a walk after I arrived home. I got water and laid on the couch, eventually moving to my bed. A few hours later, past even her dinner time, I managed to walk her a short walk. We came back, I threw dry food into her bowl instead of making her dinner. I headed back to bed and as soon as she ate, so did she, for the night.
And I'm going to nap more now. Sweet dreams and pay attention to your body and your gut feelings, not just with hiking, but with all you do!