We slept well, but I woke up still not feeling great with a cough that makes you feel all of your insides will come out.  I finally decided that I was ready to go to an urgent care, but the only one in Moab said that it didn’t open until after 1:00pm, and we needed to be out of there that morning.  Hopefully I’ll find one that will work with our schedule a little better.

We had a long drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and we wanted to stop by Capitol Reef National Park on the way, so we headed out early. 

Capitol Reef was about two hours into our drive, so a great stop on our way to the North Rim.  When we reached Capitol Reef, we saw signs indicating that large rigs weren’t able to drive on the scenic drive there, so we started looking for a place to park the RV while we took the Pilot on the scenic drive.  All of a sudden, I was treated to the sight of fruit trees. 

I was so excited to see something so green growing fruit!  We saw several orchards of various kinds before we decided to pull over on a little side-pull off.  We thought maybe that was a decent place to leave the RV for a little while since we hadn’t seen any signs indicating where was a good place to leave it nor signs indicating that we couldn’t park there.

We hopped into the Pilot and headed to the Visitor Center.  There, when I showed my National Park Pass, I asked about leaving the RV where we did.  The ranger indicated that we may get a ticket leaving it there.  When I asked where we could park it, she didn’t have an answer and just apologized.  Unfortunately, we decided to forgo the scenic drive, pick up the RV, and keep driving down the highway through the park.  It was beautiful and a disappointment that they didn’t have a setup for parking larger rigs like many parks do.

After leaving Capitol Reef and taking a look at the map (I absolutely wouldn’t travel without a map – they are so much more valuable than just having a GPS), we decided that we could swing into Bryce Canyon National Park on our way to the North Rim. 

We arrived, parked the RV at a special lot for large rigs, and drove the Pilot into the park.  At the Visitor Center, we decided that we wanted to do the Queen’s Garden hike in conjunction with the Navajo Loop trail.  It takes you down into the canyon, where you hike around in the bottom for a little while, and then hike back up.  Despite not feeling my best, I thought I could handle the hike and the difficult trail back up.  This was the same trail we did in 2015 at our first national park stop with kids in backpacks.  It had been an awesome trail!

We grabbed our water backpacks, snacks, and ponchos and hiked down into the canyon.  The temperature was amazing – cool but not too cool, and of course, without that humidity that we are accustomed to in the Southeast. 

The trail is just under 3 miles total, and we had 0.6 miles of that that was hiking back up.  We started out well, taking breaks as needed.  We were keeping an eye on Alex and encouraging her to stop when she needed to.  After several stops with breaks, we noticed that she didn’t seem to be doing well – and then of course, she passed out.  We did all the normal – lay her down, elevate her legs, rub her legs to get the blood flowing more toward her heart and head.  It was several minutes before she finally came to. 

After she came to, we kept her lying down, gave her water, let her rest for a while.  When we finally tried to sit her up, she passed right back out.  Not a good sign. 

Eventually, some of us started hiking further up the trail with Charlie, Annette, and Isaac staying with Alex.  I kept my eye on them while I was going up the switchbacks, but they weren’t making much progress.  She’d walk a few feet and pass out again.  A very helpful Good Samaritan (Paul) and his wife stopped and helped Charlie and Isaac carry her up portions of the trail.

However, I eventually turned a corner that we hadn’t been able to see past and realized that we still had quite a ways to go up.  Needless to say, I went ahead and called 911, knowing there was no way she was coming out of that canyon on her own two feet, and we weren’t going to be able to carry her that far. 

After a ranger and two medics came to check her out (deciding that her vitals were all good – she just couldn’t stay conscious if she sat up), the rescue team arrived with a unicycle stretcher type thing.  They loaded her up and got her out of there, got her into the car, and we were FINALLY on our way back to the RV. 

She was never injured at all – just a flare-up of her POTS due to her pulse getting too high and probably dehydrated despite her efforts to stay hydrated (she has to work extra hard at staying hydrated compared to a normal person).  By the time we made it back to the RV, she was staying conscious but shivering from being chilled. We tucked her into a bed with lots of water, a snack, and whatever she needed to be comfortable.  We then headed off to our campground near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. 

A big “Thank You!” to all of those who prayed for her on Facebook.  I really didn’t want to alarm anyone; we weren’t alarmed at all.  A special thank you to Paul and his wife, the ranger, EMS, and rescue staff at Bryce Canyon.  I know this is something they train for and probably have to do all too often, but we really appreciated their attitudes and willingness to be educated about POTS and let us make our own decisions regarding not transporting her to the hospital.  This is just another day in the life with Alex and POTS!

Rebecca