It happens to the best of us, especially when you travel full time. You are going to get sick or hurt while on the road. Sometimes it may just be a light cold or maybe you ate some bad food, other times is could be something more serious like an injury from a fall from your bike or a climbing injury. Thankfully, my trip has thus far been free of major injuries, knee pain here and there and a little nerve damage to my left hand. But on more than one occasion I have come down with a sickness that has had me in various states of unease from a light cold to the flu for four days over my birthday.
The first time I got ill on this adventure was way back in the Yukon, I had spent a few days resting in Whitehorse after a couple of weeks without a rest day. On the morning I was to leave I could feel the symptoms of a cold coming on, but being super human and amazing bike touring lady I thought I could ride through it. Turns out that was a bit of a mistake. I barely made it 50 kilometers to a proper campground by a lake where I spent the rest of the day being quite English drinking tea and reading Virginia Woolf. The woman camping next to me gave me two lemons for my tea and eating pleasure and I saved one for the following day. I woke up feeling worse than the day before, but still determined to make forward progress and managed to make it to another proper campground some 60 kilometers away. I rolled in feeling dreadful; feverish and exhausted I made camp and the decision to take the next day off and just rest. I was really banking on the rest day curing all since I didn’t have enough food to stay any longer. Thankfully the rest, tea and lemons helped and I was able to continue onward and upward to the next town to get food. This experience taught me a valuable lesson to really listen to my body and not try and push through illness because it just makes everything worse.
And have I listened to this lesson I learned so well in the subarctic? For the most part yes! I was able to stay healthy throughout the remainder of Canada and it wasn’t until I was biking through the cold and rainy states of Washington and Oregon in November did I get my next taste of illness. I decided to treat myself for my birthday, a hotel for the night to get out of the relentless rain and dry out my gear. I slept incredibly well in my bed and woke up around 5 am with the strong urge to run to the toilet, what a great way to wake up. As I was in the process of sitting down on the toilet I grabbed the bin and put it in front of me for the vomit that was destined to arise like lava out of a human shaped volcano; except this volcano was erupting on both ends. The entire day I was unable to eat anything save for a few nibbles on saltine crackers. By the next day I was able to eat whole crackers in a reasonable time, and the third day I was eating proper food again but still too weak to ride anywhere. I felt the effects of the flu for days to come barely able to put up any serious distances during my daily rides.
After that bout of sickness I have been mostly healthy, only minor things here and there. And thankfully so far I haven’t had any issues from the food or water I have been eating and drinking along the way. And one would think I was tempting fate some times with the water I have drank but so far it has worked out, and anytime I am truly unsure of the source I purify it through my filter.
When it comes to injuries the worst was early on when I was struggling to use my left hand on virtually any task aside from steering and braking. Due to the fact I am missing half of my elbow my left hand doesn’t sit properly on the handlebars and it was applying lots of pressure to a nerve in my hand. The damage was thankfully reversible and the muscles and dexterity have returned to my hand thanks to the wonderful people in the Occupational Therapy department at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.
One thing this trip has taught me is knowing when to push through something or when to rest and wait it out. There is no blanket statement that holds true in all situations depending on but not limited to you location, amount of supplies, severity of illness or injury, weather, time of day and so on. The best advice I have for you is to get to know and listen to your body, if it tells you to stop then do that. But if that’s not possible then apologize profusely while you push your body to the limits and beyond until you get to a place you can stop and recover and know that your body will make its displeasure known.