Stages 3-6: Martigny, Thursday July 26 - Monday July 30
I was up as soon as it was light, as if by my own force of will I could physically transport us to medical succor. We shoved our things in our bags, sucked down coffee, left our suitcases at the hotel door for luggage transfer on to Arolla, and were at the train station by 8:30 for the ten-minute ride to Martigny.
We walked straight to the Pharmacie de la Gare to ask the ladies what to do. They sent us to Vigimed, an urgent care place, where it seemed that Chris would be released with just a change of antibiotics – perhaps doxycycline – when the doctor saw his blood tests. “The news is very bad, my friend,” he said, and next thing we knew, we were walking to the hospital. (The doctor reassured Chris that the doctor at the Martigny hospital was one of the world’s experts on these infections, “even though she is a woman.”)
Within the hour, Chris was on a gurney in the emergency room with IV amoxicillin dripping into his arm. I was on the phone with Alpine Exploratory, getting our bags delivered to the hospital instead of Arolla and rearranging our arrangements yet again. The doctor said two nights in the hospital, so I had them cancel both nights in Arolla. We would rejoin the trek in La Sage, I told them.
I realized with dismay that I’d have to call our health insurance company. That was a grim moment. But by 2 pm, the guarantee of payment had come through, our bags were at the hospital front desk, and Chris was installed in a double room with big windows and lots of fresh air and natural light.
Just as I thought everything was getting settled, I discovered that there were visiting hours – and they were about to end. I was banished.
But! We must carry on. I found myself a seventh-floor single room in the hotel across the street from the hospital – a romantic garret in which to wait out our separation and cry myself to sleep. And though Martigny and the hospital were strange and sad at first, we both got used to our new lives.
Our schedules revolved around Chris’ IV drips - 8 a.m., 2 p.m., 8 p.m., 2 a.m. Thursday morning til Monday afternoon (yeah, that’s four nights, not two), Chris sat in the bed while nurses brought ice packs. The doctors would visit in the morning and make pronouncements – your blood looks better. Maybe you can go today! No, actually, now you have a fever so you can’t go.
The fevers came and went. Chris slept. I watched two seasons of The Crown. He watched endless Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. (The hospital wifi was excellent; the summer patient population being fairly geriatric, we were probably the only people using it. I imagine it gets heavy use during ski season.) He could leave the hospital, so we went out to get salads at the Migros food court or pizzas in the town square.
I ate my solitary diners at Steakhouse Martigny. The owner’s husband had spent a month in the hospital with an infected arm, so we were kindred spirits.
We’d hoped to leave Saturday to make it to Arolla in the morning and resume our walk. That was not to be. Chris was feverish all day Saturday, the day we should’ve walked from Arolla to La Sage.
By Sunday, the day we were supposed to walk from La Sage to Cabane de Moiry, he was feeling good, but no one gets released on Sunday. He spent the day basically as an outpatient, returning to the hospital only for his 2 p.m. drip.
We explored the town - starting with Barryland, where there were St. Bernard puppies!
Martigny is lovely, and everyone there was very kind. If we had to stall out for a hospital stay, it was a really nice place to do it.
