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| Hot. Very Hot. |
Most patients squeezed themselves into the clinic's Thursday schedule in attempt to avoid going outside in >100 degree heat. That meant Thursday had 14 patients on schedule. Friday had 9 patients, only 5 of which showed. By noon it was 102. All but one patient of mine came in the morning, so I had a break from 12:30 until 3:00 p.m. Despite the heat, I wanted better food options than those offered by nearby delis and decided to traverse the sixth of a mile to Whole Foods. The so called "air" was more of a translucent viscous molasses. Didn't affect me too bad on the way out, though it hit hard by the return trip despite moving slow, having all pants legs and sleeves rolled up and sticking to as many shadows as I could. At least some good pineapple was wrought from my efforts.
By 3:00 p.m., when my only afternoon patient arrived, it was 104. This was Ms. C, the bariatric patient I previously described. She had 15 minutes to cool down and settle before we began, but to no avail. Two feet from the wheelchair and we were worried about a cardiac event. She declined the wheelchair, opting to maneuver the remaining 3 steps to sit on the high-low mat. Pulse-ox was down to 92%, heart rate in the 130s. Took a couple minutes, but her vitals normalized and we got her some water. She is already asthmatic (as well as many other things prone to bariatric patients), and the air quality had zapped her. From then on we only stood for a couple minutes at a time and shifted weight slowly between each foot. The Dominican and Puerto Rican patients we saw in the morning laughed at the heat, but they did admit that the air quality and humidity were somewhat more than they were used to.
I didn't have the stomach for hardly any food unless it was watermelon, pineapple, grapes, or something equally as fluid filled. My consumption for the day included: small iced coffee chased by 2 glasses of water, 1 liter orange flavored seltzer, 1 liter of gatorade spread out into 3 liters of gatorade/water mix, pint of fresh pineapple, 5 pounds of watermelon (weight before eating and thus including the rind), 12 ounce can of Sanpelligrino limonata, and another 1 liter of water. Other food: cranberry orange scone, 1/2 cinnamon raisin bagel with ~Tbsp of peanut butter and salt, 1/8 pound deli turkey meat rolled with 2 ounces of cheese. C'est tout. The cheese -- which had been refrigerated, mind you -- started sweated after 2 minutes and melting after 5 minutes exposure to the air. I've taken to 10 minute showers as cold as I can stand immediately before leaving the apartment and, more importantly, immediately before going to bed. I barely towel off and keep the fan blasting on me.
The kittehs are dealing somewhat better than I expected, taking shelter on the bathroom floor and a few other "cooler" locations. Every so often they reappear, mouths agape and panting fast. I rub them down with ice cubes until they can't stand it, leave them with a look reminiscent of junior high boys who care about their hair for the first time and use too much gel to make it spikey with day-long endurance. Sadie tolerated the ice pack for ten minutes (see above), Merus for a mere two.
The online course of Clinical Decision Making is finally over as of yesterday, which means I no longer have mindless work to complete over the weekend. Today was my regular teaching appointment in Queens, followed by laundry, cleaning, and more leisurely planning of upcoming patient treatments/patient related research. Weird to think that I am still a student, my "job" is actually an internship with only two weeks remaining, and that classes will start up in a mere five weeks. What to do with myself? De-stressing for the first time since January will be key. But let's take this one weekend at a time.
Many New Yorkers are at a beach or will be heading there tomorrow. I cannot handle public beaches when in season. Too many people. Too much trash that ends up floating in the water with you. Occasionally you see human deposits floating in the water as well. Makes me think there's much more in there than is obvious. Eeeeeew.... There was also a four alarm fire on Wednesday at a sanitation plant off the Hudson River around 135th street, and in shutting things down to control the fire a not insignificant amount of unprocessed sewage was released into the river. The Hudson, Harlem and East River all have warnings against swimming, kayaking or any other water activity until further notice. A few beaches downstream received "recommendations" to not go in the water though officials stated it is not a mandate. But the fire did not make any headline, even small, on the NYTimes website. I heard about the fire and resultant water contamination through WNYC (local NPR station), but I have not seen it anywhere else, which is kind of creepy.
Instead of beaches I had been planning for the last two or three weeks to finally head up to the Hudson Highlands or Harriman State Park for my Sunday long run. Tomorrow should only be 93 degrees or so, but once out of the urban heat island (what many refer to as a "heat dome") and into the forest such summer weather is remarkably more tolerable. I need genuine climbs and descents (from 500 to 1200 feet above sea level), I need to be away from pavement and city smog, I need terrain that challenges you in a way that removes expectations other than to merely keep moving forward. A dip in one of the lakes might be nice, depending on where I go. Planning to use a hydration pack as well as a handheld water bottle, the electrolyte drink that actually works (rather than the used during the July 4th mess of a "race"), lots of goo and a couple of bars, bug spray, and a camera for show and tell. Even just thinking about it now makes me happy.
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