Those of you who know me personally are aware that I don’t have a lot of tolerance for high temperatures, especially humid high temps. I’ve done a lot of what’s recommended to help, but the bottom line is still this–I’m a lousy candidate for muggy, warm survival situations. Give me snow and ice any day instead, or else dry heat with cool evening temps. Hydration, electrolytes–no matter what, all of that is temporary. At some point, I succumb to the effects of heat exhaustion if I go through too many days of high heat without any cool relief. Come the big global warming, you’ll find me as high up on a mountainside as I can stand to be, probably seeking the last glacier for relief. If climate change turns to global cooling instead, I’ll be a happy girl.
Heat problems happened this past Friday. The temps hit the mid-90s on Wednesday, even on the Mountain, followed by two days where it was almost as hot. And muggy. Even worse in my south-facing classroom, where I couldn’t really open my door because of the noise and distraction from younger kids at recess for most of the afternoon.
Wednesday and Thursday were survivable, though the warnings from the ol’ bod started popping up on Friday morning with roiling gut, achy muscles, and general fatigue. But on Friday afternoon, as the room temps climbed toward 80+ degrees, I was struggling. I opened the door as soon as I could, but even that gave me and the kids little relief. I was simply grateful that my classes weren’t larger.
Still, I felt awful as I left work. I’d planned to go to the barn and ride Mocha, but realized that might not be too good an idea. I went home, self-medicated for the body aches with a couple of drinks after a good dinner…and ended up hurling it all back up. Fairly predictable, and it’s something that has happened in the past, even without the alcohol. It didn’t help that the house was hot because we’d had a contractor in to repair some dry wall, so the house had to be open to air out the smell while the mud dried. Even with ice packs on my neck I felt miserable and sick.
Saturday was pretty much a lost cause. I slept until noon, drank water mixed with sugar and salt to help my gut absorb it, but it wasn’t until 4 pm–about 24 hours after leaving that hot, muggy room–that I started feeling remotely human. Shortly after that I started writing, and got in about 1500 words. By Sunday I was sufficiently recovered, though tired, enough to clean up the room that had gone through dry wall repairs and move everything back, plus do lesson planning and write a little bit.
At least this is probably it for hot weather around here this year. Next spring, even if it is hot, won’t be so bad because of the angle of the sun. It’s only horrible in the fall (thank you so much Nasty Past Administrator who had the trees that blocked that sun cut down).
(And for those of you who’d offer advice, suggest ice pack head coverings, ice pack bandannas and the like–nope. All forbidden by dress codes for students which means I can’t do them either. And fans get subject to other issues of accessibility plus they don’t do that much for air movement. This is just a kvetching post, not a solicitation for advice.)
It wasn’t a completely lost weekend, for which I am grateful. Needless to say, I’m welcoming the coolness and wet today. It’ll still take a few days for the system to completely be happy post-heat, but like my rescue chrysanthemums that kept springing bigger and bigger the more I watered them this weekend, I’m coming back from the heat.
Winter is coming–and I’m one who’s looking forward to it.
