SHORELINES

12 Shor e l i n e S | 2015 Vol :3 What he didn't know until over a year later, when he started experiencing agonizing pain, was that he had suffered a complete fracture through his L-3 vertebra that day, a break that would change his life. First came spinal fusion surgery from which he struggled to recover. Then came chronic pain conditions like neuropathy, which caused numbness and extreme burning in his hands and feet, and the syndrome fibromyalgia. Muscle inflammation. Joint inflammation. His adrenal glands shut down. Then there were the medications, 11 different kinds a day at one point. The pain and the prescriptions engulfed Clark. In the midst of the fog, he went to bed and stayed there for almost four years, struggling to rise, let alone walk, and subsisting mostly on Ensure milkshakes and a little Grape-Nuts cereal. Then came even more startling news. "My rheumatologist told me, 'This is only going to get worse,'" Clark said. "He said, 'I have you on 11 medications and with the narcotics, the thyroid medication and the adrenal medication, you have to keep increasing the dosage because you get used to it. So we're looking at liver failure in probably 10 to 15 years because the medications are so rough.'" Fortunately for Clark, his doctor had grown up the son of a missionary in Guatemala, and he told how he had seen people using herbs in place of medicines. He suggested that Clark look there for possible relief. "I think he was just trying to give me some kind of hope," Clark said. Still, Clark began reading ethno botany reports and by what even he describes as "dumb luck" found something that worked almost immediately. The third remedy he tried was from the bark of the pau d'arco tree and after using it a short time, he regained his appetite and his mobility, quit all his meds (without asking his doctor beforehand), and finally one day strolled into the doctor's office without a walking cane. Now, almost a decade later, he's one of just two dozen people known to have paddled the entire ASRT – along the way sleeping in a hammock under the stars; shooting at copperheads with his .38-caliber pistol; having his campsite flooded in the middle of the night when a dam was opened and being detained in handcuffs by sheriff 's deputies while they checked his ID and determined what he was doing. Still, it was the experience of studying herbs like the basswood – or American linden tree – the tulip poplar, Above: Photo by Bernard Troncale — Clark 's canoe journey down the Alabama Scenic River Trail took him 60 days. Opposite: Photo by Bernard Troncale — After suffering a debilitating car wreck in high school, Clark began researching herbal medicine. He used his journey on the ASRT to research herbal medicine and herbs found in the Southeast. "THIS IS THE KIND OF STORY THAT NEEDS TO BE AT THE TOP OF PEOPLE'S MINDS WHEN THEY SEE OR HEAR THE WORD 'AL ABAMA.'" – J I M F E L D E R , E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R O F T H E A L A B A M A S C E N I C R I V E R T R A I L .

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