Log 26. November 2008 Dehydrated to the Bone
I opened my eyes and glanced up at the ambulances attendant,whose sombre Indian features hovered over my face back lit by a reflective shiny metal ceiling as he stuck oxygen tubes up my nose, and then raising my arm wrapped the pressure pad to take my blood pressure. In the back corner Deb sat asking how I felt and telling me to lie still as we bounced down the rough road to Carriaco. Slowly the evening started to come back to me as I tried to sort through the information overload figuring out what was happening and how I had come to this.
The first week at Medregal we had sorted through the boat reacquainting ourselves with what was on board and what had to be done. By the start of the second week we had started to get into the serious job of grinding down the fibreglass in all the problem areas. This is probably the worst boat job and one that most boat owners would avoid by using hired labour. But having been compromised with the first few contractors on our boat we have since done the majority of work ourselves. You really don’t have much choice once you leave the cornucopia of boat services in North America or the comfortable cash flow of permanent employment. Add to the mix, that sooner or later you will find yourself in some sort of dire strait where the only way out is through your own resourcefulness. So practice makes perfect. All of that plus the simplest of truths, I like to work on my boat. Here the challenges you are confronted with include brutal heat by 8am and bugs, mostly small no see um types that bite without being noticed until you are scratching yourself raw. So added into the mix is some sort of toxic bug spray lathered on in generous amounts. By 9 am with a quick break for breakfast (everything here is late, a la French) the wind starts up and moves the bugs but the heat is on you. I was wearing coveralls to protect myself from the grinding dust which is insidious getting into everything, and trying work in short bursts. There was a sense of urgency since we were still hoping to make our friends intended departure date. By the third day I was feeling kind of lean and my body was starting to send all kind of signals. But we were making good time and since denial seems to be one of my strong points, we pushed on.
Friday night’s menu was a beef ragout. Evenings here are a study of culture clash. Even with most of the hotel business being the yachties either at anchor or in the yard Jean Marc sticks to the French regime of later dinners and that isn’t yachtie culture where most boaters are sun up to sundown types. It’s unusual to see any form of life on a boat after 8pm with most retired for the night to their bunks to read. The golden rule of preserving precious battery amperage may have been the chief evolutionary factor in creating this lifestyle. The stereotype of sailors ashore engaging in epic bouts of drinking and carousing couldn’t be further from the truth. We had agreed to try and work between 6 and 11 am but soon found ourselves reaching longer into the day with lots of stops for showers and air-condition breaks. You are constantly soaked. Looking back I can now see the role of the air conditioner played in this. By taking so many breaks and by running the unit flat out we weren’t helping the body’s cause because while cooling I was being desiccated. Usually around 6:30pm people would head to the bar for a pre dinner drink and wait for supper. I had forgotten to take my medication that morning so totally unthinking I took my Lipitor, Ramipril, lose dose aspirin and my shot of insulin and hi ho hi ho off to supper we go. I usually spread my meds out from morning to night and being an insulin dependent diabetic generally have a good sense of the dos and don’ts. Well supper was late that night not making an appearance till after 8pm. Total time lapse between meds and dinner was an hour and a half. Not being a drinker and seeing dinner was late I had a couple of rums thinking that would keep my sugar up. Body had a different idea though. My best guess was between the coveralls, dehydrating air conditioner, not drinking enough water and a stupid choice on meds and insulin combined with a sudden hot meal was nothing but a prescription for la la land. Being hungry and impatient I vacumned the meal and almost immediately I told Deb something was not right and I was headed for the room. I made it to the stand up and first step stage and instantly was down for the count. In a space of thirty feet I managed to pass out three times. With a ten minute rest between attempts evidently telling everybody I was good to go, I would stand up and collapse again. I was told I was out for around twenty seconds each time. Coming to I felt like I was following Georges voice(Avalon 5)coming out of a deep sleep into some kind of déjà vu where I could see Georges face above me saying ” buddy come on talk to me”. He later told me he was just about to start cracking ribs during second pass out. By the third pass out the performance was getting tired and Deb and Mary ((Avalon) finally took over, ignoring me and telling Jean Marc to call the ambulance. Three of them carried me to a waiting jeep where I was just coming to when I heard Jean Marc telling the drivers,” amigos, no gringo, Canadian”. That in itself explains the mood and situation here. Half way to Carriaco the jeep having driven through the washout section of road deposited me with Deb into the waiting ambulance. At the hospital I was taken off and wheeled through a crowded waiting room and put into a surgery beside a moaning youth who was evidently suffering from kidney stones a very common complaint here. The doctor who attended was young and I suspect Cuban, came into to diagnose me in between delivering two separate births. Lucky for us Yolieda, Jean Marcs better half was waiting to help translate. She was stuck in town visiting her mother unable to get home either because the road was washed out. The hospital was very clean and small, lots of ceramic, with soft institutional green paint and vinyl covered mattresses. The doctor did the usual tests and evidently my blood pressure and sugar count had dropped off the map. He at first thought it was my diabetes kicking into hypogylecima but since I had upchucked my ragout on the second pass out I explained to him that this wasn’t likely since it happened first and I explained the cocktail of heat, the meds and the working with the scratch and itch . They kept an eye on me for an hour checking my pressure which was slowly rising again back to towards normal and moved me down the hallway to an empty dorm. Yolieda was kind and brought us blankets from her moms and Deb took the bed next to me and that was all for the night. In the morning we got up waited for Yolieda and then tried to pay the bill but no one would take any money. Yoleida told us on the trip back I was the third person that year to succumb to dehydration with the other two being older and spending a much longer time in because of complications with hearts and whatever. We then started the haul back to Medregal. At the yard Jean Marc came out to greet us and the first thing I told him was his ragout was dangerous!
To be continued....