Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Climbing and Dehydration

This last weekend was a little on the interesting side.
It started off fantastic- I had Friday off, meaning time to go out to Shovel Point and go climbing with a couple of guys that haven't been outside before. It was a nice easy day, staying on routes that were a little on the easier side since the guys haven't been on real rock. I enjoyed myself, jumping on routes I haven't done since I first started climbing outside. Plus climbing over Lake Superior is top notch no matter what.The day was very warm, but beautiful. Temperatures were in the eighties, with a little breeze coming off the lake every once in awhile. I was a bit on the warm side, but that comes with the territory of climbing outside in the summer. It was fun showing the guys how to set up the top rope, and we were all having a grand time.I even pulled out the needles and worked on the sock a little, just for kicks.I put sunblock on twice, and tried to drink water as much as I could. I only brought one Nalgene full out with me, but since I don't usually drink a ton of water anyway figured that would be enough.
As the afternoon wore on, I started to feel woozy and dizzy, and had a whopper of a headache building up. I tried to lay down on the cooler rock in the shade while the boys were switching the climbs, but that really didn't seem to help at all. When we finished for the day and headed home, it grew to a level where I was just nauseous. Right when we got in the car I immediately layed down across the backseat to fall asleep, hoping it would help my headache and the nausea go away.
We stopped in Two Harbors at Culvers as was tradition after climbing on the North Shore, and I ate a burger hoping that it would help settle my stomach. It didn't. If anything, it made it worse as now I had greasy food churning in my stomach. I downed a lot of water but it didn't feel like it was helping all that much.
Again I slept in the car to Duluth, but as we pulled into town my stomach finally rebelled probably two blocks away from my apartment. The boys didn't care at all, and made sure I got inside and properly hydrated, but I spent the rest of the weekend feeling like crap and recovering from what I'm guessing was a whopping big case of Dehydration sickness. As a CNA, Tyler recognized it and said I should probably go into the hospital, but I don't have good insurance for that at this point so I just bummed through the weekend.
Along with that (adding, probably, as it definitely didn't help) was the fact that I got mad sunburn on my back and shoulders even though I put sunblock on.
Oops.
Next time, I believe I will know better.
Next time- SPF 50, baseball hat, and two gallons of water.
At least I got a little bit of knitting in...

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