Oxygen deprivation.
My grandmother got out of the hospital yesterday, and as my parents were in Pennsylvania doing paperwork to go about buying the house they intend to spend retirement in, it was my assignment to spend the day (and evening) at my grandmother's apartment. First to wait for her to be brought home in an ambulance, and then to stay with her, checking for signs of a diabetic coma.
My grandmother is on a continuous oxygen feed, by prescription. As a result, she leaves all the windows of her apartment closed, year round. Making matters worse, the apartment has electric baseboard heat, rather than forced air heat. So the only airflow at all (other than through her oxygen hose) was when the apartment door was open.
Three hours after I arrived, I noticed how stuffy it was getting, so I opened all the windows as far as they would go. But with the computer room's window sealed shut around the air conditioner (which was itself taped up and sealed for winter), it wasn't enough.
After the fourth hour, I lost my appetite. After the sixth hour, I started getting lightheaded. By the tenth hour, my hand-eye coordination was starting to go.
If my father hadn't gotten back into town (and called to tell me he was on the way to pick me up) when he did, I would probably have passed out on the bedroom floor, and who knows what would have happened next.
The only bright side is that during those first two hours, before my grandmother got home, I got a good bit of writing done. But it would have been nice to have had my brain working enough to continue...
My grandmother got out of the hospital yesterday, and as my parents were in Pennsylvania doing paperwork to go about buying the house they intend to spend retirement in, it was my assignment to spend the day (and evening) at my grandmother's apartment. First to wait for her to be brought home in an ambulance, and then to stay with her, checking for signs of a diabetic coma.
My grandmother is on a continuous oxygen feed, by prescription. As a result, she leaves all the windows of her apartment closed, year round. Making matters worse, the apartment has electric baseboard heat, rather than forced air heat. So the only airflow at all (other than through her oxygen hose) was when the apartment door was open.
Three hours after I arrived, I noticed how stuffy it was getting, so I opened all the windows as far as they would go. But with the computer room's window sealed shut around the air conditioner (which was itself taped up and sealed for winter), it wasn't enough.
After the fourth hour, I lost my appetite. After the sixth hour, I started getting lightheaded. By the tenth hour, my hand-eye coordination was starting to go.
If my father hadn't gotten back into town (and called to tell me he was on the way to pick me up) when he did, I would probably have passed out on the bedroom floor, and who knows what would have happened next.
The only bright side is that during those first two hours, before my grandmother got home, I got a good bit of writing done. But it would have been nice to have had my brain working enough to continue...
remy:
Too bad you couldn't put a baby monitor in the room with her and spent the day outside, where you could breathe.