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Inverness woman trekking the US Pacific Crest Trail from Canada to Mexico, to raise funds for Highland charity Mikeysline, is set to resume challenge after hospital stay





Shona Macpherson
Shona Macpherson

AN Inverness woman is preparing to resume an unsupported 2650-mile trek in the US after receiving hospital treatment, including a blood transfusion.

Life coach Shona Macpherson is walking the Pacific Crest Trail from the Canadian border to Mexico while raising money for suicide prevention charity, Mikeysline.

Earlier this week, the 42-year-old was on the verge of flying back to Scotland after doctors advised her to seek specialist help for severe anaemia.

But thanks to help from a friend who is research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her insurance company, she was able to seek a second opinion which revealed iron deficiency – and could be remedied.

Ms Macpherson, who has been walking up to 20 miles a day since embarking on the trek in July, now hopes to resume the final 900 miles of her challenge from today.

“It seems like a waste of an opportunity not to continue,” said Ms Macpherson of Ballifeary Road.

“Walking this trail is an amazing experience and there’s still so much beauty ahead of me including the John Muir Trail, the Heigh Sierra and Mount Whitney.

“It’s an adventure of a lifetime and I feel I’ve been given a second chance. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.”

She was admitted to the accident and emergency department of Mammoth Hospital in Yosemite after she noticed she was becoming progressively slower, feeling sick and breathless.

After being told her haemoglobin levels were half of those of a normal person, she was given two units of donated blood and advised to go home.

She subsequently contacted a London friend, who specialises in iron deficiency anaemia, and having taken iron supplements is now recovering.


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