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Apr. 26th, 2008 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i_idIt all started Thursday. I opened at work, which was okay. Except for the bleeding people. I hate being bled upon at work. He didn't mean to, though, and it got cleaned up. No harm, no foul.
Skedaddled home, got ready for kayaking class. My car's been iffy, so the plan was to leave it at Freddy's and take the bus out to the lake. The plan proceeded great, at least that far. It was a nice bus-ride, though a little too twisty for knitting. Very pretty country out there.
I was early for kayaking class, so I talked (what else) kayaks with my instructor. Apparently, George Dyson lives and/or works in Bellingham these days! I may have to stalk him a little bit.
But true to form, I was cold before I even got in the water. We were doing self-rescues, so after the brief lecture, we went about throwing ourselves out of our boats. It's a crucial skill, really. Not terribly difficult on a mostly calm lake, but there's a lot of little step and it's something you absolutely have to know how to do. First, the wet exit. You're upside down in the water, skirted into your boat. Pull the skirt, fall out, get your head above water, all without ever letting go of either boat or paddle. Problem is, the water in Lake Whatcom is 40 degrees just now.
Next step is to right the boat. By this time, I was shivering so hard I couldn't answer the teacher's questions. Get both hands under the lip of the cockpit, give a great kick, and heave upwards at the same time. The faster you flip it, the less water scoops into the kayak. That was the easy bit.
Getting back in requires some special equipment. Your paddle, which you've never let go of, and a paddle float. You work the blade of the paddle under the tight deck lines behind the cock pit, and put the float on the other end, inflating it. Now, you have an outrigger! Hooray! My lips were blue.
Then, with another great kick, you heave yourself up on your aft deck. Keep an eye on your outrigger float, or it's likely to go sailing over your head as you roll over again, because the outrigger only supports you in one direction. Enter the cockpit backwards, then roll over while keeping your weight towards the outrigger. Ta da, you're in! All to do now is get your spray skirt back on, and pump out as much water as you can. This is actually a really good thing, because it warms you up like mad.
If you have body mass with which to generate heat faster than you're losing it to wet skin.
I don't.
Once we were all back in our boats, the plan was to warm up again with a long paddle down the lake, but I was beginning to lose time. I'd stop paddling for just a moment and startle aware again with my instructor knocking on my boat to wake me up. From what he told me, I'd been drifting downwind for ten minutes, not paddling, not reacting to shouts. I was almost to shore. I couldn't feel my hands, despite my grossly expensive paddle gloves (Note to self: return these), or my wool-clad feet. He chased me ashore and sent me to the showers, for the second week in a row.
No hot water in the showers, but there was a magnificent air dryer. I stood under it for nearly half an hour, slowly changing into dry clothes, every scrap of dry cloth I had with me. By then, the rest of the class was coming in, and I scrambled to find a ride home, instead of waiting an hour for the next bus. In doing so, I forgot my coat, something I didn't realize until they'd dropped me off at Freddy's and left.
I keep my car keys in my coat.
Realizing this, I wept and screamed a bit, tried to get quarters with my atm card, which wouldn't scan, and eventually sucked it up and walked to Karl's. I still couldn't feel my feet, but his house was warm and his car was warmer. Karl is my hero. He drove me back out to the lake, but the place was abandoned and locked up tight, with my coat inside. More weeping on my part. They'd closed at seven, we were fifteen minutes too late. My only option was to come the next day, but they weren't to open until 2, and I worked 10:45-7:15. I called Roxanne to try and get leave to come in at 4, giving me time to battle the buses there and back, but Fridays are freight days, and the crew needed me too badly to afford me the time. Instead, I came in early and took an obscenely long lunch to go retrieve my things.
That part, at least, went smoothly, though I did not find the geocache I aimed for, passing the time between buses. "Under a fern near a broken stick," is not a helpful hint in Washington's storm-tossed, ferny woods.
But I got my car back, got my coat back, even got my bus pass back. (Only to leave my purse at Boomer's on the way home, but I went straight back for that and they weren't closed.) So that was Friday.
And then today. Started smoothly. I opened at 8:45, carpooled with Shayna, as usual, and it looked like it was going to be a good day at work. Then, crouching to pick up a box of candy I'd dropped, sudden chest pain. It started fairly small, twinges under my collarbones, my ribs. But by the time I was back at my register, checking a customer through, it was building. By the time Kaitlyn was up there, it was sharp enough on each inhale that I didn't want to breathe, to move. Sharp enough I was nauseous with it.
So we called the ambulance. I don't think that's an experience I want to repeat. No one was able to come with me, so I ended up very scared in the ED at Saint Joe's. The other two guys in my room were both fresh from vehicle accidents, strapped to backboards, groaning, and bleeding, so I didn't get any attention for a while. When I did, my doctor was a grown-up JD (think Scrubs). He prodded me here and there professionally, asking me about the pain. Bone? Muscle? Here? There? If I poke here? It was worst along the sides of my breastbone, and against my floating ribs, stabby pains. Hokay, hokay, so he sent me off to X-ray.
Chest x-rays are a procedure that leaves you feeling very vulnerable. ._.
BUT, preliminary examination of my films showed that I have great lungs, clear and doing all the things they should. Not a murmur of periocarditis either, which was brought up because the pain got worse when I leaned forwards. Actually, it got worse whenever I folded my body to sit or curl.
So, the eventual Dx was a sprain of the sternum. They gave me some naproxen IV for the pain, dilute and washed down with a few syringes full of saline, and then a scrip for more, and discharged me. Karl came through again for a ride back to Rite Aid, where I'd left my car, and I dropped off the scrip, got lunch, and came home.
And that's it for this week. I'm done. I'm not getting out of bed again until Monday.
Skedaddled home, got ready for kayaking class. My car's been iffy, so the plan was to leave it at Freddy's and take the bus out to the lake. The plan proceeded great, at least that far. It was a nice bus-ride, though a little too twisty for knitting. Very pretty country out there.
I was early for kayaking class, so I talked (what else) kayaks with my instructor. Apparently, George Dyson lives and/or works in Bellingham these days! I may have to stalk him a little bit.
But true to form, I was cold before I even got in the water. We were doing self-rescues, so after the brief lecture, we went about throwing ourselves out of our boats. It's a crucial skill, really. Not terribly difficult on a mostly calm lake, but there's a lot of little step and it's something you absolutely have to know how to do. First, the wet exit. You're upside down in the water, skirted into your boat. Pull the skirt, fall out, get your head above water, all without ever letting go of either boat or paddle. Problem is, the water in Lake Whatcom is 40 degrees just now.
Next step is to right the boat. By this time, I was shivering so hard I couldn't answer the teacher's questions. Get both hands under the lip of the cockpit, give a great kick, and heave upwards at the same time. The faster you flip it, the less water scoops into the kayak. That was the easy bit.
Getting back in requires some special equipment. Your paddle, which you've never let go of, and a paddle float. You work the blade of the paddle under the tight deck lines behind the cock pit, and put the float on the other end, inflating it. Now, you have an outrigger! Hooray! My lips were blue.
Then, with another great kick, you heave yourself up on your aft deck. Keep an eye on your outrigger float, or it's likely to go sailing over your head as you roll over again, because the outrigger only supports you in one direction. Enter the cockpit backwards, then roll over while keeping your weight towards the outrigger. Ta da, you're in! All to do now is get your spray skirt back on, and pump out as much water as you can. This is actually a really good thing, because it warms you up like mad.
If you have body mass with which to generate heat faster than you're losing it to wet skin.
I don't.
Once we were all back in our boats, the plan was to warm up again with a long paddle down the lake, but I was beginning to lose time. I'd stop paddling for just a moment and startle aware again with my instructor knocking on my boat to wake me up. From what he told me, I'd been drifting downwind for ten minutes, not paddling, not reacting to shouts. I was almost to shore. I couldn't feel my hands, despite my grossly expensive paddle gloves (Note to self: return these), or my wool-clad feet. He chased me ashore and sent me to the showers, for the second week in a row.
No hot water in the showers, but there was a magnificent air dryer. I stood under it for nearly half an hour, slowly changing into dry clothes, every scrap of dry cloth I had with me. By then, the rest of the class was coming in, and I scrambled to find a ride home, instead of waiting an hour for the next bus. In doing so, I forgot my coat, something I didn't realize until they'd dropped me off at Freddy's and left.
I keep my car keys in my coat.
Realizing this, I wept and screamed a bit, tried to get quarters with my atm card, which wouldn't scan, and eventually sucked it up and walked to Karl's. I still couldn't feel my feet, but his house was warm and his car was warmer. Karl is my hero. He drove me back out to the lake, but the place was abandoned and locked up tight, with my coat inside. More weeping on my part. They'd closed at seven, we were fifteen minutes too late. My only option was to come the next day, but they weren't to open until 2, and I worked 10:45-7:15. I called Roxanne to try and get leave to come in at 4, giving me time to battle the buses there and back, but Fridays are freight days, and the crew needed me too badly to afford me the time. Instead, I came in early and took an obscenely long lunch to go retrieve my things.
That part, at least, went smoothly, though I did not find the geocache I aimed for, passing the time between buses. "Under a fern near a broken stick," is not a helpful hint in Washington's storm-tossed, ferny woods.
But I got my car back, got my coat back, even got my bus pass back. (Only to leave my purse at Boomer's on the way home, but I went straight back for that and they weren't closed.) So that was Friday.
And then today. Started smoothly. I opened at 8:45, carpooled with Shayna, as usual, and it looked like it was going to be a good day at work. Then, crouching to pick up a box of candy I'd dropped, sudden chest pain. It started fairly small, twinges under my collarbones, my ribs. But by the time I was back at my register, checking a customer through, it was building. By the time Kaitlyn was up there, it was sharp enough on each inhale that I didn't want to breathe, to move. Sharp enough I was nauseous with it.
So we called the ambulance. I don't think that's an experience I want to repeat. No one was able to come with me, so I ended up very scared in the ED at Saint Joe's. The other two guys in my room were both fresh from vehicle accidents, strapped to backboards, groaning, and bleeding, so I didn't get any attention for a while. When I did, my doctor was a grown-up JD (think Scrubs). He prodded me here and there professionally, asking me about the pain. Bone? Muscle? Here? There? If I poke here? It was worst along the sides of my breastbone, and against my floating ribs, stabby pains. Hokay, hokay, so he sent me off to X-ray.
Chest x-rays are a procedure that leaves you feeling very vulnerable. ._.
BUT, preliminary examination of my films showed that I have great lungs, clear and doing all the things they should. Not a murmur of periocarditis either, which was brought up because the pain got worse when I leaned forwards. Actually, it got worse whenever I folded my body to sit or curl.
So, the eventual Dx was a sprain of the sternum. They gave me some naproxen IV for the pain, dilute and washed down with a few syringes full of saline, and then a scrip for more, and discharged me. Karl came through again for a ride back to Rite Aid, where I'd left my car, and I dropped off the scrip, got lunch, and came home.
And that's it for this week. I'm done. I'm not getting out of bed again until Monday.
