Health- bletch
Today was bone melting hot... it got up to 108 and the heat index was hovering in the 120's so there was no way I was going to step foot out of this house and it's life giving AC even though I should have headed to the ER at one point.
I am heat intolerant, meaning that I cannot handle temperatures over 70 degrees and humidity without suffering from some pretty scary reactions. First I will turn purple (not pink, not red but deep and dark), my blood pressure will soar into the hypertensive crisis range (250/150), my heart will race, stutter and slow uncontrollably and I will not sweat so my temperature will soar to dangerous levels. It does not take a long exposure for this to happen... simply getting from the door to the car is enough to trigger it and though I would have recovered by the time we got to the ER I can use (90 miles away) by the time I got from the car and into the ER itself I would be having a full reaction again and the reason I was actually going would be ignored.
I hate (and I do not use this term lightly at all) the Summer... from the first hot day of Spring to the first cool day of Fall I am a virtual prisoner even on the rare days that I feel like I have enough energy to do anything.
It does not help that I am in chronic dehydration (still struggling and often failing to get in at least 20 ounces of fluid) and entering that oven of a world beyond the door could tip me over the edge from just bad dehydration to life threatening dehydration.
What I would not give to have a 'normal' life... or even my milder days of my youth when I would suffer from the heat but could still do things and recovered so much quicker.
So many of my friends are also battling dehydration this summer... going to the ER and suffering through failed stick after failed stick as they try to establish a line to give them fluids, begging for 'ports' to be implanted so they can have access to fluids without the hours of failed jabs of the needles at scarred and collapsing veins.
I have been stubborn and pig-headed because I have been rebelling from going to the ER... I know the horror that awaits, the failed attempts to start a line... the noise... the bright lights... the uncomfortable beds and the fact that I hate beyond measure Hospitals because it never fails that they insist I take a pill (I can't) or drink barium (I can't because they do not make one that has no artificial sweeteners) or they try to force pain medication on me (I am allergic to all narcotic pain killers) and they get so fixated on trying to find a pain killer I can take (that and pumping me full of benedryl for my tape and other allergies which makes me edgy) that they simply throw their hands up and I leave with no help and a lot of bruises.
So... instead I am hibernating in the dark at least until the worst of this heat wave passes before I reconsider going to the ER (come on, you should know me well enough by now to know that I will find another excuse not to go by then... but I am open to suggestions for new innovative excuses because my old ones are getting a bit tattered, lol).
**UPDATE ON THE BLOG FROM THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2011**
I called the reporter that wrote the news story mentioned in the blog and have been able to write an e-mail to the family giving support. They go back to court on the 26th of July and need all the help they can get. I also sent the information to Nancy Grace (HLN) and called CNN's news tipline and talked to them and they are interested in covering the story and getting the word out that what the parents are being accused of causing are actually the symptoms of Gastroparesis. I have also contacted the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law and asked them to help the family (they only have a voicemail, but I left all the information I could and contact information for them and hope they can help). I will post updates on the bottom of my blogs as I hear them but encourage you to also help get the word out because THIS is the reason that Awareness is so very important.
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