[Gocamino] An abbreviated Camino...

[Wes & Rita]

Here's our tale of a (near-tragically) abbreviated Camino.  So many people responded to my questions over the year spent planning our Camino and have shown a kind interest in our journey that I wanted to share with you our experience (with an important few words of warning!).

We left Massachusetts on September 8, 2008.  Wes and I arrived at the Madrid airport and had an easy time following Glenn's instructions on the metro to the train station.  We caught a train to Pamplona and shared a taxi to STPP with another peregrina.  We arrived early enough to have a beautiful walk around the old town and a picnic dinner on the tiny balcony off our room at the lovely bed and breakfast Sil had recommended (Errecaldia, just outside the old town wall at the top of the hill).  The next morning we headed off and it was beautiful -- and so exciting to join and be joined by the other peregrinos.  Then...

It seems that Wes had developed a blood clot on the flight from Boston to Madrid.  He didn't feel it until that first day walking over the Pyrennees.  He couldn't catch his breath on hills that were less steep than those we'd been walking at home.  Apparently the clot had traveled to his lungs -- only we didn't know what was happening!   To make a pretty scary story short, on the third day he was willing to acknowledge that something was terribly wrong and we turned around and walked back to the last town.  There, a wonderful woman at the first place that was open called a taxi for us, we returned to Pamplona and took the train back to Madrid, the metro back to the airport, and finally got seats on a flight to DC (the only flight we could get) still not knowing about the pulmonary embolism!  The next day we flew to DC  and stayed overnight at my daughter's, then flew back home to Massachusetts the next day.  

We saw a cardiologist (we thought it might be his heart, his blood pressure, we didn't really have any idea)  in Boston the day after we got home and found out what it had happened -- a pulmonary embolism.  The doctor said Wes was lucky to be alive.  The short of it is the clot broke up on its own over the next several weeks and Wes is back to himself, even back to running.  But, we both were so sad to leave the Camino.  After all, this was our second attempt -- the year before I put my back out and we had to cancel the week before we were to leave.  We both said, We're going back! and we are planning to do that in April (not to wait till September, we can't bear another full year).  

So lessons learned:  First, when taking a long air flight, GET UP AND WALK AROUND!  It doesn't matter what age you are (you can be 18 or 80) or your physical condition (you can be a couch potato or a runner -- like Wes) you need to move about on long plane trips.  I had a friend to whom this had happened on a flight from LA to the east coast but I never really thought much about it.  Now that it has happened to us, we hear lots of stories about other people having clots on long flights.  Yikes!

And second, the camino, at least the first few days on it, was everything and more than I'd dreamed.  We are counting the days till we set out again and now we finally have fewer weeks till we leave than we've passed since we got back.  And this time we will give ourselves a little more time so we can be sure we'll be able to walk the entire distance.  And we will start in SJPP again so that Wes can enjoy the first few days this time.

I never dreamed that it would be such a challenge to get started on the Camino!  But now we are focused on our return -- the third time's the charm, right?  But to repeat one more time:

On long flights, GET UP AND WALK AROUND  -- frequently.  And Glenn suggests taking an aspirin before a flight -- sounds like a good idea to me.

Buon Camino

Rita