So I contacted my doctor about the diabetes, and the doctor told me to find a VA clinic and get it checked. But I was in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, several days' walk from anywhere I could get out of the wilderness, so I planned to have it checked at my next hostel stop.

And that's when my blood sugar decided to take a nose dive. I spent the next several days trying to keep it stable enough to keep moving, only able to go as far as the next shelter; spells of dizziness, feeling weak and wobbly, losing my balance, stumbling, tripping, falling. Several times my vision started to go dark like I was going to lose consciousness. At one point, somebody found me huddled in my sleeping bag in a shelter in the middle of the day (hypoglycemia makes you feel cold) and wanted to call the forest rangers and have me medevaced out, but I told him no, I wanted to walk out.

So I did, but it took me five days. And as if that all weren't enough, exactly two miles from the pick-up point where I was able to get off-trail, I tripped, stumbled, fell, and wrenched my bad knee (which had been doing just fine), and had to walk the last two miles with my knee hurting. Now it's all swollen and stiff, and making a funny clicking noise.

So, as you've probably guessed, I'm done. <sigh>

But, on the other hand...

The truth is, that I was going to be out there exactly as long as God willed for me to be out there, and not one minute more or less. I planned a complete through-hike, but He had some other purpose, and I guess whatever lesson, or growth, or change He wanted me to accomplish was accomplished in the time I had. Same as last time: it seems patently obvious, looking at the convergence of factors working together to send me home both times, that it was His time for me to do so. The Lord's will be done.