Curious_in_NC
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A million times, THANK YOU! You provided an excellent explanation! I saw the PM photos with a very untrained eye, so if you’ve seen them I trust your observations. There has been discussion about both his finger joints in the Georgia photo and the one where he appears to be holding or rubbing his right foot. So, this explains both in my opinion.
I don’t want to go too far off topic, but this reminds me of something that happened to me. So much of Denim actually reminds me of myself, and I’ve often thought about how easily I could have been in his shoes (no pun intended )
Anyway, I’m probably not much younger than Denim was and in relatively good shape and health. When I was about 30 years old I became the most physically active I had been all my life; physically demanding career, large landscaping chores at a new home, and lots of time in the gym. I’ll equate it to the year Denim spent on the trail.
Much to my surprise I was actually causing great damage to my body. It wasn’t something I felt a great deal and certainly not something that could be seen on the outside. I was born with bilateral cervical ribs and the type of activities I was doing was causing thoracic outlet syndrome. It basically began to feel like a pinched nerve in my shoulder/arm, if you can imagine that. Not really a pain but more of an uncomfortableness.
Long story short, it took awhile for doctors to properly diagnose me and by that time I required major surgery. That surgery turned into another and within a year I was physically disabled. I had lived 30 years almost completely symptom free and once I aggravated the condition, it rapidly progressed into something very serious. Had I not undergone the course of treatment I did, the symptoms would have remained fairly tolerable and eventually become life threatening. Had I stopped treatment midway, I most likely wouldn’t be here today.
I guess the point of me sharing this is to put into perspective what might have happened to Denim. Maybe he was diagnosed or just starting feeling unlike his normal self and decided to go on this adventure. He may not have known the damage he was doing to his body and if he did, he may not have wanted to accept it. He also may have written the symptoms off as just a result of the hike, not something he needed to seek treatment for.
Being as young as he was, and an otherwise healthy man, it’s easy to imagine him brushing the aches and pains off. Lord knows I tried to.
The pain he would have felt in his foot, as you describe it, seems immense, especially for a thru hiker. I do wonder if it became unbearable in the end and he tried “waiting it out”, possibly thinking taking a load off for awhile would alleviate the pain. Maybe that’s why he stopped there in Florida. I remember times when pushing through my “pain” was more tolerable than coming to a stand still. I felt it more then. Maybe that’s what happened to him in the end.
I know this will not bring us closer to knowing his identity, but I think we’re all just a little bit curious about how such a thing happened.
Interesting story. Glad you recovered from it. I read up on TOS and ran across a related condition commonly known as "Backpack Palsy" and often associated with military recruits carrying heavy loads. I can't say that there is evidence that MH suffered from this but if he did it would be another reason for taking a pause in hiking in Florida.