Bishop, the second visit

And so it was, we made our second appearance at the Bishop Hostel. Which was in its own way hilarious because they were all joking that we would be back before we left the first time, to which we had assured them we would not. And naturally, since I hadn't been able to eat due to nausea for the past three days, I immediately went to get myself this absolutely delicious smoothie sold by a coffee shop just around the corner. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go down as easily as I had hoped. This was my first hint that something wasn't right.
And it wasn't. Things got worse really fast. Every time I ate something I had immediate and intense searing pain that left me incapable of standing up without almost blacking out. And it only kept getting worse. So I decided to go to the hospital...which long story short did not turn out to be very helpful. And so things continued to get worse. And so I went back to the hospital. Once again, not helpful. They didn't diagnose me with anything and sent me home. Three days later I literally couldn't handle eating anything but crackers and water. One bite of cracker, followed by three gulps of water to help the pain. Trying to eat other things, like refried beans for example, would result in me being instantly on the floor feeling like someone was driving a knife through my chest; often tears were involved.
And then I discovered I could handle protein drinks, like Ensure. No kidding, I cried I was so happy. For the past week I had been able to get less than 500 calories in me a day which included absolutely no vitamins, fats or proteins. Within one day of drinking several Ensures and Muscle Milks I was on the mend. And now I am 100% back to normal! Yay!

But, backing up a bit. I'm leaving out the adventure aspect.
If you recall from an earlier blog, Nick and I had two friends who were renting a cabin at lake Tahoe for a week. This was definitely still happening. Also, my friend Stephanie had decided to drive up to see me. Stephanie and Amanda are two of my close friends from college who were hiking the Appalachian Trail (aka the AT). They had recently decided to get off the AT due to many factors and complications, and were both going to drive from the east coast to the west coast to come see me. But then Amanda decided she was going to be lame and go back to Texas. However, Stephanie decided to still be awesome and drive over! So she did, and she got to me the day after I got down the mountain. At this point Snake Charmer was still around (concerned I wasn't showing signs of getting better). But upon Stephanie's arrival he decided I was in good hands and that he wanted to get back on the trail. So the next day Nick, Snake Charmer, Stephanie and myself all piled in to Stephanie's new car and drove up to Mammoth (to drop Snake Charmer off) and then up to lake Tahoe to our friends cabin.

The cabin was huge and awesome, complete with a hot tub! Our friends Tess, Teal, Gizmo, Dirtnap and two new people were all there! As well as Tess and Teal's two adorable dogs Pearl and Luke (and another one named Gruff). Unfortunately I was pretty much at the peak of my misery. I could only down crackers and water and therefore did not have enough energy to walk for more than ten minutes much less go for a swim. Despite this, Stephanie and I did still walk out to the lake and chill in her hammock for a bit....until it started to rain on us haha.

But despite my disappointment about not being able to fulfill my dreams of being happily aquatic for a week, I was surrounded by wonderful friends who were taking excellent care of me and having a great time. How can you not be happy when hanging out with such good company?And eventually, as mentioned earlier, I figured out I could drink things like Ensure, and that made life considerably better. But, the time came when we had to go. And after making some arrangements, Stephanie and I drove up to Oregon to go stay with my Aunt Laura until I was 100% better.
The drive up was wonderful. Stephanie and I stopped in at the Capitol building and also at a beautiful sea-side dock on the way up. Oh! And we got to see those giant statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe.

"What happened to Nick?" you may be asking. Excellent question.
Shorty before I got Sick, Nick had started talking to me about wanting to get off the trail for a while. He has family in San Fransisco and a friend in Northern California that he wants to go visit. So we had talked about it and decided to go have a great time at Lake Tahoe and then go our separate ways. And that's precisely what we did. Therefore Nick is currently in San Fran and Stephanie and I are in Oregon.

And Oregon in awesome. We have been to the beach several times and done a lot of sand boarding. Tomorrow we plan to go kayaking and if it rains we'll detour over to the aquarium and museum (heck, we might do that anyways). 

On Thursday we are going to leave my Aunt's house to go spend three days exploring Portland and tackling an eight mile day hike that takes us to an array of gorgeous waterfalls. And then I'm going to get back on the trail. I don't know precisely where yet, but definitely after lake Tahoe and past all the highest peaks. I truly never want to experience AMS ever again. And certainly not whatever mysterious thing I just went through after where I couldn't eat anything.