Asking for help has never been easy for me. I’ve gotten better at it over these last few years of backpacking, in part because it’s the only way I was able to achieve my goal. For instance, without the help I received on the Florida Trail with people shuttling my car around so I didn’t have to hike with a full pack, I’m not sure I would’ve kept going for 750 miles with a broken foot in an orthopedic boot on crutches.

Asking for help in my non-hiking life still doesn’t come easily. When sitting with the pain of my dissociative Littles, I became aware that asking for help as a child was dangerous. Even as a two-year-old I knew not to ask my mother for help for fear of getting injured by her on top of what was already going on. By the time my father died when I was 13, I knew I had no one in the world to help me. As I now sat with those memories and feelings, I processed how sad and painful that was and saw how it had led me to live a life trying to do everything on my own. I realized it was okay to ask for help and that I had to work on not feeling so bad or guilty about asking. This came at the perfect time for me because I soon had to pick up my phone and put out an SOS for help.

I had once again put my Snowshoes on and walked around my house to shovel the new snow off my kitchen porch. It was then I discovered the supports for my stove pipe had broken, and the stove pipe was now in danger of falling down. This felt like a real crisis to me because if I lost my stove pipe, it would be expensive to replace it and until it was fixed, I would have no source of heat. I didn’t think I would be able to climb up a ladder with the way my foot was so I checked with everyone I knew to see if I could get help.

While waiting for a response, I set to work shoveling the deep, packed down snow that was in front of my solar panels so I could get to the ladders stored underneath the panels. Given the state of my painful ribs, this was not an easy task, but I did succeed.

In September, when I returned from the Pacific Northwest Trail and my jaunt up to Alaska, I met Lindsey and her father Jim. They were interested in thru hiking the Long Trail and had gotten in touch with me over the Internet. Upon my return to Vermont I met them and gave them information about the trail. I have been really touched that since then they’ve been offering to help me out. I was really honored when Jim and his friend Mike showed up to fix my stove pipe.

Marveling at how the hiking world is still sending me angels, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when that stove pipe was once again secure and I could build a fire in my woodstove. While pondering how just a metal band and two small metal bars are enough to secure that stove pipe in place, I thought how sometimes just the smallest bit of support can make a big difference in someone’s life. I renewed my resolve to always choose kindness even when my actions didn’t seem very big in light of the situation.

Having a really painful, newly skin grafted foot has made it easier me to ask for help. As I prepare for my first surgery at Mass General Hospital, I’m aware I will once again be relying on friends for help as my foot heals. I’ve been told it usually takes between four and eight of these surgeries so I’m hoping I can get past feeling guilty and unworthy of asking for help. I’m trying to learn that even if I keep getting hit with difficult events, I can do things to make my life feel easier. I’ve spent much of my life helping people who were older than I am and it was a bit of a shock to realize that I’m now one of those old people.

The surgeon has documented in my chart that my goal is to get back to hiking. My hope is that I can do two or three of these surgeries spaced about six weeks apart and then try to do some hiking on the North Country Trail (NCT), which is the last of the eleven national scenic trails I have to hike. Depending on how the foot does when I start that journey, I can either call it quits on the surgeries or do more if it still needs it. The surgeries are going to burn thousands of small holes into my grafted scar to release the tension and increase the flexibility, especially for my ankle. Hopefully this will also decrease the stabbing pains in the foot. The surgeon has agreed to do it with a local anesthetic so I’m hoping my recovery will be fairly quick. If I can get my ankle moving properly and the foot less painful to walk on, I’ll try to make some headway into the 4800 mile North Country Trail.

The NCT begins in North Dakota and ends in Vermont, but my plan is to extend it to approximately 6000 miles. I want to connect the western end of the trail to Glacier National Park and extend the eastern end to West Quoddy Head Maine. Because I hiked the Pacific Northwest Trail from Glacier National Park to Cape Alava in Washington state, if I then add these distances to the NCT I will have walked from the western most point in the continental United States to the eastern most point. Ideally this would take me about three years if I don’t hike in winter, but with my foot it could be four or five years before I get it all finished. Hopefully my aging body will hold up!

While the NCT is the longest of all the national scenic trails, it will not have as much elevation gain and loss and I’m hoping I can get to it soon. So while I’m asking for the help I will need and preparing myself for some increased pain after these surgeries, the first which is March 12, I’m also beginning to prepare for my next hike, whenever that might be. Doing so gives me the boost I need to get through these painful surgeries.

As I am learning to ask for help from others, my internal Little parts are learning to ask for and receive help from the rest of me/us. Just as a good parent might buy a present for a child in the hospital, I took my Littles to REI and they’re all excited about having new hiking boots to replace the ones that burned. As I face yet more days of forced inactivity, I look at my new boots and dream about the places they will take me.

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