Leon – June 7

Well, in spite of the doctor’s assurance that all the tests were negative and Brian could get back on th Camino, she gave us a prescription for Azithromycin “in case it was pneumonia”. And that it was. He was in very bad shape leaving the hospital. (Seeger, here’s a picture of the ambulance that took Grampa to the hospital. )

We took a taxi back to the hotel, but there was a protest March in Santo Domingo circle and we had to walk about 1/4 mile to the hotel. Brian struggled up to our new room & I went out to find a farmacia to fill the Rx and for Paracetamol she told us to get for the fever. Temp was now up to 100.6 and he was coughing a lot. The staff at Hotel Paris was super. Leticia called & made arrangements to get our packs from Astorga. Victoria brought hot soup from the kitchen, plus ice to put on his head and some aspirin. Yesterday he mostly just slept. Temp was still high but the Paracetamol helped bring it dow. Debi was a big help emailing helpful info. The hotel was sold out for tonight & so we’re all the others around the area. I did give a brief thought to the Paradox tha Martin Sheen & friends stayed in in the movie, but at €165 per night that was a bit much! When we’d been at the hospital we’d seen a hotel across from the hospital. I was able to make reservations on line. I also figured that if things got worse we were right there. I called Miriam Winston, Brian’s cousin in Ireland that we are going to meet in Sarria, along with her son Ronan. It was really good to talk to her. She is a public health nurse with many years experience. She was very reassuring & told us it generally takes 48 hours for the antibiotic to kick in. And she was right on! He is doing much much better today. Talking, even joking, and finally ate his first meal in two days. So thank you all for your prayers. Thanks to St. James, the Virgin Blanca (pictured below from the Cathedral) he is on his way to recovery. We won’t make any decisions until tomorrow, and he won’t do any walking for at least a week. We are booked in here tonight & tomorrow night, at least. We thought about renting a car and driving along the Camino the way our friends Ellen & Arne did for their honeymoon. But we will probably either bus or train for the next week and reevaluate day by day. They say the Camino is never what you plan & ours sure hasn’t been, but you still have wonderful experiences & meet wonderful people. It’s all part of the Camino!
I took a lot of pictures of the Cathedral which I’ll do a separately, but here is the White Virgin who is known for her miracles.