Shingles in Utah

In my last climbing post, I wrote about my food planning for my upcoming climbing trip to Indian Creek, Utah. The trip didn’t quite go as planned. I got shingles on my head on day one. The next two months were somewhat of a black hole. After the five day trip I ended up in bed for 5 weeks, and it took another few weeks after that to get back on my feet.

In this post I write about the trip through the shingles filter. It was a good trip, but veiled in a lot of pain for me. In a subsequent post, I share some basic information on shingles. In this later post a year later, I share why I got shingles and what I’ve been doing to keep my immune system and nerve pathways healthy for the long term, to reduce pain and help avoid recurring episodes.

The food part of the trip was a bust – I lost my appetite with the pain in my head, and only ate about 1/3 of what I brought. I’ll leave food posts for future trips!

In a nutshell

Perusing the book on the flight

I went on a climbing trip to Indian Creek UT in April, and on day one of the trip, came down with shingles on my head. I spent the next 5 days in horrible pain, but decided to stay out in the desert and attempt to climb.

Why? A bit of stubbornness, a bit of ignorance (since remedied). Looking back after what I’ve learned over the past two months, I’d make different choices now.

After I came home, I spent the next 5 weeks laying in bed, unable to work or move about the house much: lots of painkillers; ibuprofen; antivirals; multiple doc and ER visits; a drug reaction; constant queasiness and inability to eat. I lost 10 pounds from fighting the virus and not eating, I read a whole lot of books, and slept more than Rip Van Winkle. I can’t complain about losing those ten extra thyroid pounds, but I don’t recommend the method!

Below is a synopsis of what I experienced during the trip. It’s mind’s eye remembering the experience in stream-of-consciousness form:

The trip

Day 1:

Fly in from Seattle to Grand Junction. The base of the back of my neck feels funny, like I slept weird on it. I massaged it on the flight. Arrive in Grand Juntion CO, rent car, drive to Moab UT, get food/water and some camping gear, and head out to the desert. Set up camp, drive back out to the crags and get 2 routes in. Bit of headache. Crash hard that night.

Ready to crush!

Day2:

Wake in desert heaven. Neck hurts a bit more, and I have a tingly feeling on the back, side, and top of my scalp. An older family member has had shingles on the head for two years running. My gut knew before I even asked my oncology-nurse climbing partner, “Look at my head. Do I have shingles?”
“Eiww… (pause). Yeah, looks like it. How did you know?” I just did.
“Well thanks for running your ungloved fingers through my virulent hair.”
“No worries, I had chicken pox.” Bless her heart for putting her bare fingers in my eiwwy hair the entire trip, to check on the progression of the sores! Please hug the next nurse you meet.

Sunrise on Bridger Jack Mesa

Climb a few routes. Awesome to be back in the desert. Headache starting. Shooting pain starting; each time, it moves from base of the right side of my skull all the way up the right side of my head to the top, including my right ear. Start eating ibuprofen. Blurry vision. Light sensitive eyes.

Me on Chocolate Corner

K on Binou’s Crack

K on Unnamed climb

11pm: Friends and their dogs from CO show up. My old housemate is an ALS paramedic and her buddy is an EMT. I get a laugh out of this because there was nothing any of them could do for me.

12pm: Lay in sleeping bag with shooting stabbing pain every 30 seconds, in-between which I listen to the glorious song of coyotes and wild turkeys out in the valley. The stars are in-your-face close and bright.

Stabbing pain every 30 seconds, off and on all night. As I lay there, I can feel each pulse of pain begin at the back of my neck, with a quivering of the nerve root. Like a warning bell, announcing the next stab to my head. Somehow I sleep a bit.

The coyotes come close.

Day 3:

Hike with the crew and dogs up to one of my favorite crags. Hot sun, in pain, pretty miserable, but determined to rope gun (set up climbs) for my friends and do this, damnit. Climb. Pain. Climb. Eat ibuprofen. Climb. Pain. Eat ibuprofen. Shooting, stabbing, electrical shock pain. Every 30 seconds. Felt like someone was stabbing an ice pick two inches into my brain. No pain between stabs, which is the only thing that made it tolerable at all. Really it’s the only reason I don’t run to Moab. Blurry vision. Light sensitive. More stabs. But somehow I keep laughing at things people say and do.

(photo: K. Oakley)

I lead one climb, during which the pain goes away. I realized it’s likely the adrenaline that dulls the pain. I remember this for the rest of the trip, and try to use it to help myself. My only periods of true relief are while I climb. Which is pretty funny, because climbing at Indian Creek is known for being painful and intense.

My old housemates making me laugh

At base of crags, break into tears and collapse on the sturdy shoulder of my old friend and housemate, when I realize that people who live with true chronic pain must have to fight constant despair, and the exhaustion that comes from worrying when the next insult will be. I tend to be erringly sympathetic when it comes to emotional things. I cry for them, and I cry because I’m so worn out by the constant fear of another stab of pain.

Is it getting hard to swallow? (yes, you can get shingles sores in your mouth).

Get Vicodin from very generous stranger at base of climb. He has hands of leather, and I want to study them like art. Decide not to eat it, as some members of my family have reactions to opioids. Sorry dude, I wasted your good drugs.

Friends press me to go to Moab, I refuse stubbornly. Sue: “If I go to Moab they’ll tell me I have to sit this trip out. They’ll give me mind-numbing painkillers which means I can’t climb. If I’m going to be sick and in pain, I’m doing it out here where it’s pretty, not in hot stinky tourist-laden Moab. And I’m going to climb, damn it!”

I know I sound ridiculous, but I am determined.

Sitting at the base of my favorite climb ever, I decide not to lead it. I just can’t. I hate to hang-dog a climb, and I know it will be a shit-show. Thanks to the friendly strangers who set up a toprope on it, I do toprope it, and get to the top despite myself. One small victory. And via that crowd we pick up our rope gun for tomorrow. And his cute dog, whom I almost brought home.

Soul Fire (photo: R. Stewart)

Guilt for putting my climbing partner and CO friends through this.

At the campfire that night, my friends make me laugh. You can see the stress on my face, though! Trying not to bring everyone down. And I found out that when a campfire spark hits the skin of your foot or hand while you have shingles, it instantly sends a jolt of pain to where the sores are on your head!

(photo: K. Oakley)

Day 4:

Pain is horrible; eating a lot of ibuprofen. Worry about what this will do to my autoimmune gut integrity (NSAIDS are really bad for that). Decide it’s worth every NSAID-laden, corn-starch infused tablet of relief. Friends still asking me to just go to Moab. Sue ignores them and grits teeth.

Lovely blooming cactus along trail

Friendly and cute lone climber with adorable dog from Day 3 joins us to climb today. He saves the day by setting routes (which was my job, as none of my parters were up for leading at Indian Creek).

Blistering heat and sun, which makes my visual light-sensitivity even more enjoyable. His nervous dog snuggles with me at base of climbs and makes everything okay. I am content to snuggle the dog and watch my friends climb one of the classic Indian Creek routes, Generic Crack. They really have no idea how badass they are.

I keep laughing when I can. I know it’s confusing for them—one minute I’m cringing and making I’m-in-pain sounds, and the next I’m laughing. Can’t explain, other than I’m making the best of it, and I’m happy to be in in such a gorgeous place, with awesome people and dogs.

I think my oncology-nurse climbing partner about bagged and carried me to the car—and Moab—about ten times over the past two days. Bless her for putting up with me.

Day 5:

Wake in amazing pain, blurry vision. All-over nausea, can barely think. As I pack up gear, I realize this is nothing: somewhere there is a climber on a high-altitude peak who has something serious like pulmonary edema, a broken leg, an internal injury, who still has to pack their damn bag and carry it out. I feel I am being such a wimp.

Pack up gear, show climbing partner a cool secret side canyon hike with Anasazi petroglyphs, take naked desert climber photos. Drive to airport in blur of pain. I even ask my partner to stop talking in the car.

Evening of Day 5:

Housemate picks me up from airport. I have him drive me straight to ER. ER nurses: “Ohhh,” when they look at my head. We laugh. I’m five-days without a shower, and the sores are pretty ugly. What you see here is all over the right side of my scalp, from the base of my neck up to the top of my head:

Pus-filled lesions behind my ear. Contagious!

Sores on scalp

Having had kidney stones, and seeing how much pain I am in, my housemate asks the nurse, “Which is worse – kidney stone pain or shingles pain?”

Her answer is, “You’d want to get kidney stones.” He grimaces. I feel selfishly vindicated.

How could such an apparently small set of sores hurt so much? How does one explain it? Since my shingles happened, I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve had them, and they all say there is no way to describe the type of pain. All I can tell you is that if someone you know has shingles and says it hurts like hell, believe them.

In a nutshell (I’ll write more about this later on), I learned I should have gone on antivirals within the first 72 hours, to decrease my chances of post-herpetic neuralgia (the after-shingles pain, tingling, and sensitivity that can occur). And the painkillers I did end up going on later did not in fact dull my mind, and I’d have been able to climb had I taken them in Utah.

Live and learn.

In a subsequent post, I write about shingles facts (no stream-of-consciousness, I promise!). In the future, I’ll share what I learned about keeping the immune system and nerve pathways healthy for the long term, to reduce pain and help in avoiding recurring episodes.

Crack cragging chicks and dogs