May 28th, 2018
I wouldn’t put the date on a general post like this, normally, but my next comment will make sense if there is a date stamp on it. I planned on putting a disclaimer, which I will, that took up enough space to avoid someone reading something they did not care to read, but the current theme I am using places the whole post and not just a summary. That being said, I plan on going into some detail that not only is very personal but also possibly graphic in nature. If you feel you do not want to read this for it may offend you or may reveal too much about me, please move on. I intend to write about more travel exploits soon to catch up from the previous as well as new ones. Thanks for understanding.
(This started Sunday, March 25th)
I already planned to stay in a hotel in Mississippi for an extra day to evaluate my spending and make plans for the next few days as my planning method was not working very well, and my bill from the Key West trip showed on an app making it more present than it had been. Trying to be spontaneous and getting to the next location wasn’t working when trying to make reservations through my laptop (I like to keep PDF receipts, and this was the best way of doing it). When I was on the road, my internet speed was super slow, and I will go into detail when I recount the stories of the few days prior to this set of events in another post. I also discovered the glare on my laptop was blocking all viewing making it take longer to figure out where my mouse was to click a button. No matter what angle I tried, I could not see anything except a black screen.
Exhausted from my last day of travel and defeat from lack of accomplishment of what my aim was, I checked into the hotel in Hernando, Mississippi, got situated, and tried to take a nap. It was a Sunday and it seemed nothing was really opened and trying to get anything accomplished was just wasting my time. I turned on the TV they had in the room and it had over 1000 channels, mostly repeating themselves, religious, infomercials, in a foreign language, or some combination of the latter. I settled on a movie and with Lily beside me on the floor, I took a nap. This place was much nicer than the one I stayed at the night before because it had accessibility and room for me to bring Lily’s crate in if I needed to, but she was being good, so I let her roam the room making herself comfortable. She let me know when she wanted out, but other than that, she was quiet.
I called my sister earlier in the day to discuss damage from rain because it had stormed at home, and she was checking on my house when I was gone. I had a leak that concerned me and needed someone there to see what was happening. After the call, I fed Lily and went to sleep for the evening (I guess as I have no purchase record for food, and I only use plastic for this purpose). I might have eaten leftovers from the course of the trip.
The next morning, Lily woke me, as usual, saying she was hungry. I took her for a quick walk and then fed her. In the process of the walk, I noticed a pain in my groin area. After Lily was taken care of, I took a shower and investigated what was causing this discomfort. Because of its placement, I was not able to see anything clearly. There was a mass, I was able to feel in between my thigh and my “reproductive organ located in the lower abdominal area.” It was extremely painful and touching it hurt like hell. That didn’t stop me from investigating, as this wasn’t there the night before and I had no idea what it was. Curiosity was getting the better of me in a way that made me do stupid things. I felt what I thought was a scab and I picked it. I was in the shower with running water, so it would all go down the drain. After doing that, thinking this was just a boil, I squeezed. I wasn’t able to see much of what was there other than a raised area of skin that was possibly discolored. The lighting in the bathroom was also poor leaving an ochre hue on everything.
There I was in the shower, squeezing this lump on my inner thigh-ish, and not knowing what would happen. I like to think I have a high pain tolerance, but through the course of this ordeal, I think I want to reconsider. As I squeezed, the pain grew, as it does, and green streams of thick goo wormed out. I did this three times before the curiosity subsided and my squeamishness kicked in. I may have thought I had a high pain threshold, but I never stopped being squeamish. As I proceed past the second time and was doing the third, I was starting to get nauseous. At that point, I stopped. I finished whatever I needed to do in the shower and headed back to the bed and tried to be in a position with the least amount of contact between my leg and my groin.
I stayed that way for a few hours until a friend of mine called. We spoke for a little over a half hour and I did not mention what was happening. I did mention possibly changing my plans and taking a shorter route to Alaska as the cost of gas alone at that day’s prices was going to be over $2000. For that, I could have flown there and taken a cruise during a good deal. We ended the call because I was getting hungry.
As my hungry grew, I got Lily into the car, and then forced myself into the driver’s seat, sitting, creating pressure in the area of pain. I drove in circles in close proximity to the hotel to look for something that I could eat that was something unique, but quick as I had Lily in back. I opted for Sonic just to get something in me and over ordered so I did not have to go out again until the next day. When I returned I did look up my next adventure possibilities, but the pain was getting to me.
I attempted to call my insurance agent about getting health insurance through them, but they had closed for the day. It was only four in Orlando. I didn’t realize they closed so early.
At this point, I had looked up how long it would take to get home. I saw it was 12 hours. That seemed a reasonable amount of time to drive in one sitting just to get back to my comfort zone and deal with this thing in my inner thigh area. I would call my doctor and then deal with it from there. Wincing from pain as I shifted to get comfortable, I went to sleep again. This time for the night.
The next day, I had packed and had Lily ready to go as soon as the front desk was opened. The pain did not change, so my next destination was home. In 12 hours, from then, I would be in a more familiar area that I could take care of myself, or if needed, someone could help me because walking was a pain, and sitting was worse.
The drive was mainly uneventful other than Lily trying to choke herself by placing her head on the crate to get next to me and cutting off the air from her throat in the process. The only other point of note was the speeding ticket I got. I was driving behind people that were slower than another car. I followed the faster car, and they were still outpacing me. A cop passed me with their lights on, and I saw the person I was following get pulled over. Another cop showed a minute or two later that also had their lights on. I switched lanes from the right to the left to get out of their way, and they switched to the right as well. I then went to the right and they followed. I did the left-right one more time (turn signals were used every switch) and they continued to get behind me (from a distance). At this point it was obvious they were aiming for me, so I pulled over. I had two concerns: how will they react to Lily, and how soon can I get this over with because I was in pain? Lily didn’t seem to bother them and the whole transaction was fast. He told me I was speeding, I politely said OK, and took the ticket on his return. He said he cut me a break. I’m intentionally not going into detail because I might incriminate myself. NOTE: I did not say the guy I was following was speeding or I was going the same speed as him, just that he was faster than me and we were faster than the rest of traffic. When I got the ticket, I did a quick check to see how much it was, and I did not see a price listed.
At this point, I was back in my time zone and realized that I read the time it would take to get back without considering the actual travel time and the time zone change. That being said, it was actually a 13-hour trip. I only got out of the car one more time to walk Lily and get gas. She did not want to do anything, so I waited until I got home to let her out in the front yard. Once I was home, in the comfort of my bed, I went to sleep with plans to call my doctor the next morning.
I had hoped this would not be as long as it seems it will be, so I’m breaking this into parts. I will tell the doctor stories tomorrow.
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