Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3Day - Day 2

After the awful day I had on Friday, I was looking forward to a better day on Saturday; and then Jen and I turned on the weather channel. Rain until midday expected. It wasn't raining as we left to head toward camp/breakfast, but as soon as we were under the tent with our breakfast, down came the rain. What a downer. If anything, I needed sunshine, or no rain, to be encouraged and energized to get out and walking on my tired, sore feet. I had brought along two of my larger ziplock bags I used to pack my clothing with, and put them over my shoes. I headed to the medical tent and asked for tape (to put around my ankles) - they kept asking me if I wanted sports medics to do the wrapping, and I had to keep explaining I simply needed two small pieces to go around my ankles.

As usual, Jen and Claudia took off in front of the team (they have a faster pace). I stuck back with Dawn and Angie for most of the morning. As I was walking, my right shoe bag wasn't staying as well as I had hoped. Luckily, I brought some extra twine in my fanny pack in case something like this happened. I was able to secure the bag to continue covering the top of my foot. My feet stayed dry.

The rain let up earlier than anticipated (yay!) and the humidity set in. Can't have it both ways, I suppose... and if the previous day is any indication, I'd much rather it be humid and hot than raining.

Saturday was spent walking through Mount Prospect. I don't know if it was due to it being a Saturday or that residents of Mount Prospect are great people (or a combo of both), but we had a LOT of support during our walk. There were many families, boy/girl scouts, cheerleading teams, etc out on the route handing out water, food, candy, and my favorite - popsicles! There were people set up with tents with music, there were people with misters offering to mist people off as they walked by. I never really knew how important having people to cheer you on was. It doesn't even matter that I didn't know them. The fact that they were there was so encouraging and made me want to keep going. The police and fire department were all wearing pink shirts as they helped direct traffic as we crossed busy streets - it was pretty neat!

Around lunchtime, we stopped at a pitstop for an extended period of time to tend to our blistered feet. Mine were worse than I wanted to admit... but throughout the morning, I refused to take off my bags on my feet, out of fear that they wouldn't go back on and continue to keep my feet dry. I was NOT going to go through what I did the previous day of walking through wet shoes all day. I'd rather be in pain and build blisters, apparently.

We ate lunch and started walking the 3 miles toward the next pitstop. About 2 miles into it, I decided I needed to stop walking. I was in just too much pain. I didn't rewrap my blisters as well as I should have and I couldn't take a step without feeling the pain.

I noticed one of the crew members on the side of the road standing with another walker. I immediately walked toward them and asked if they were waiting for a sweep van (these vans took you to the next pit stop). The van was on it's way, and I had no doubts that I wanted to get on it. My first goal of walking the entire day on Friday had already been realized, I was ok taking a van a couple of miles to tend to my feet. As mentioned in my previous post, this was the best decision I made all walk. Dawn and Angie continued to walk and mentioned that we'd meet up at the pit stop.

I arrived to the medic very quickly. I head over and ask them to take a look at my left foot. I remove my sock and the bandages I had on them and asked what they could do. The medic tending to me was shocked and mentioned that I had the worst blistered foot he'd seen all day. I had one large blister on the inside part of my heel and about 4-5 of them all on top of themselves near the ball of my foot under my big toe. I also had a couple of small blisters forming on the back of my 2 smallest toes.

The medic decided the blister on my heel was too big and needed to be lanced. An audience formed. Someone offered to take a picture of it. He stuck it with something pin-like and fluid came shooting out. It took a couple of gauze pads over the course of about 5 minutes to completely drain the blister. HOW GROSS.

He rewrapped the lanced blister area, decided to leave the 4-5 as is (as he'd have to poke me multiple times and couldn't be sure that he'd get them all, which would end up being more painful). I got up, walked around a bit, and felt immediately better. I was ready to go and walk the remaining 10 miles for the day.

Dawn and Angie returned before I was finished being bandaged up and wanted to take a break. This ended being good for me, because I needed to stretch after being on the medic bed for so long.

Dawn and Angie's families were at the last cheering station that day, so we made our way toward them. By the time we reached them (about 15 miles into the day), Jen and Claudia texted to let us know they were finished (the second day was 19 miles). We ended up hanging out at the cheering station for much longer than I was prepared for (45 minutes!!), so, once again, I got tight.

We took another sweep van to the final pit stop, which was only about 1/2 mile away. Once there, I was ready to walk the final 3.5 miles back to camp. Dawn and Angie were not. I wouldn't have minded walking myself at that point, but I was afraid I'd be the last walker to camp. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but they do this big cheering line and flag raising for the last walker when they walk into camp. I would have been way too embarrassed and didn't want to risk it... so, against my wishes, I boarded the final sweep van back to camp.

(Turns out the last walker arrived well after we had finished dinner, almost 3 hours after I would have gotten back had I walked it on my own).

I rationalized it to myself that I wanted to ensure that I'd be able to walk as much as possible on Sunday, since it'd be the best day of the walk, as we'd be walking along the lake down to Soldier Field. I had also talked to Angie (breast cancer survivor and walk veteran) and she told me there was no shame in taking a sweep van and more people should take advantage of the option.

We (Dawn, Angie and I) ended up hanging out at camp for a while on Saturday night after dinner, while Claudia and Jen went back to the hotel. I sort of wanted to get the feeling for the camaraderie of camp and it was a fun time sticking around...but was happy to get into the cab and head back to the hotel for a hot shower (without lines) and a bed all to myself.

Day 3 was coming, which meant seeing Matt at the first cheering station (8.5 miles in on Sunday) and the finish line looming in the distance...