Day 3: Blood, Sweat and Tears

Today I cried. Which is hard to admit because I’m not much of a crier; I kind of get over everything quickly and I never like ruining my makeup. But, today I sobbed my tired little eyes out. 

I’ve done about 50 miles of walking within the last three days. My legs aren’t really sore and I love to walk, so the 50 miles aren’t the real problem. My big problem is my blisters. 

I got to my room and peeled my socks off, and then slowly my bandages. I looked at my feet and began to cry. It wasn’t because the blisters hurt, it was because I was just so frustrated. 

I have been doing everything right; my shoes fit fine, I’m moisturizing my feet, and I’ve been letting little blisters dry over night. Yet, I had four new blisters and two old ones were more ugly than ever. 

My heart was breaking because I could not believe that something so small and seemingly insignificant as skin could threaten my Camino. I didn’t have tendinitis, knee pain or sore muscles like most people do by now, instead I just had blisters. 

I calmed down, and sitting on my bed with the Swiss Army knife and medical supplies that my friend Peter lent me, fighting sleep, I began to cut away the skin on my largest blisters. They were too large to dry on their own, which I learned after I tried to leave them alone. Once the skin was gone, I was left with bright red patches of flesh.

Next, I moved on to my smaller, non-fleshy blisters and pulled a needle and thread through them. Threading through a blister allows it to drain because a thread absorbs the liquid inside. I felt like Raggedy Ann sewing my own self up. 

My feet look like Frankenstein’s, patches of open flesh and grey thread sewn through multiple toes. It’s time to call it a night and do it all over again tomorrow, because this is just a small bump in my otherwise incredible adventure.