CO poisoning (what a world, what a world...)
CO, for those not in the know, is Carbon Monoxide, an odorless, colorless (undetectable to human senses) gas that is a common byproduct of low quality combustion. Because it binds to hemoglobin1 more strongly than O2, but has none of the wonderful chemical benefits we've come to expect from our oxygen supply, CO has the unfortunate habit of killing people.
So, story (2, even) time.
Rewind ~10 years2.
My dad and I drove down to Pittsburgh for sleeping bag weekend at CMU, to check out the campus and students. Good thing, too, seeing as I ended up going there. It was fairly uneventful, and we headed back to Boston reasonably early in the morning.
I'm driving. Some time into the trip, I start getting sleepy. I don't see any reason for it, so just try to shake it off.
Except staying awake gets progressively more difficult as the drive continues. I turn up the AC - no effect. I hum. Nothing. Getting desperate, I try sleeping in shifts: first the right eye, then the left eye. Not as effective as I'd hoped3. Okay, perhaps I can sleep during blinks. Blink. Blink. No, not working. And that last blink was a bit long, don't you think?
Hmmm.
Truck in the lane ahead of me and to the right. Okay, no problem. Bright, sunny day, easy to stay the course.
Truck suddenly jumps through space, and is now immediately to my right.
Okay, even to someone half asleep, that seems like a bad thing.
Wait, what was it my Bio teacher said a couple of years back? Something about CO poisoning? Sleepy? In car?! Window!
I roll down the windows.
Holy fucking tapdancing Ra. I don't think I was ever that awake in my life. Did that just happen?
I prod my dad, waking him. "Hey, were you really really sleepy just now?"
He replies in the affirmative.
Damn.
So why does this come up?
Forward to last weekend.
We're heading back from AX 2006, from LA to SF. It's mid-afternoon, weather is fine. Entirely different car, different people (well, aside from me).
And I start getting horribly sleepy. At least I recognize it fairly quickly and open the windows, which makes the initial attack go away.
It's a lot more unclear, though. The symptoms are intermittent after that with all three of us. (We've also not gotten enough sleep over the last few days.) Problems seem to start up when we turn on the AC, so we're driving in the sweltering heat with the windows open, but even with that, paranoia sets in after a while. Am I getting sleepy? Or am I just tired? Let's pull over and see if there's a car CO detector at this Target. No luck.
Anyway, we made it back okay. Going to have to get the car checked out. And going to see about getting a CO detector for the car. Sigh.
Oh, and prolonged CO exposure can damage the heart and brain. As if my endurance didn't suck as is.
Other than that, it was a decent trip.
1 The tiny bits inside your body that carry oxygen to other tiny bits inside your body.
2 Holy crap, has it been that long? I started college in '97, so this must have been that spring. Yikes. Getting old...
3 In case you haven't noticed, reasoning ability deteriorates somewhat with CO poisoning.
So, story (2, even) time.
Rewind ~10 years2.
My dad and I drove down to Pittsburgh for sleeping bag weekend at CMU, to check out the campus and students. Good thing, too, seeing as I ended up going there. It was fairly uneventful, and we headed back to Boston reasonably early in the morning.
I'm driving. Some time into the trip, I start getting sleepy. I don't see any reason for it, so just try to shake it off.
Except staying awake gets progressively more difficult as the drive continues. I turn up the AC - no effect. I hum. Nothing. Getting desperate, I try sleeping in shifts: first the right eye, then the left eye. Not as effective as I'd hoped3. Okay, perhaps I can sleep during blinks. Blink. Blink. No, not working. And that last blink was a bit long, don't you think?
Hmmm.
Truck in the lane ahead of me and to the right. Okay, no problem. Bright, sunny day, easy to stay the course.
Truck suddenly jumps through space, and is now immediately to my right.
Okay, even to someone half asleep, that seems like a bad thing.
Wait, what was it my Bio teacher said a couple of years back? Something about CO poisoning? Sleepy? In car?! Window!
I roll down the windows.
Holy fucking tapdancing Ra. I don't think I was ever that awake in my life. Did that just happen?
I prod my dad, waking him. "Hey, were you really really sleepy just now?"
He replies in the affirmative.
Damn.
So why does this come up?
Forward to last weekend.
We're heading back from AX 2006, from LA to SF. It's mid-afternoon, weather is fine. Entirely different car, different people (well, aside from me).
And I start getting horribly sleepy. At least I recognize it fairly quickly and open the windows, which makes the initial attack go away.
It's a lot more unclear, though. The symptoms are intermittent after that with all three of us. (We've also not gotten enough sleep over the last few days.) Problems seem to start up when we turn on the AC, so we're driving in the sweltering heat with the windows open, but even with that, paranoia sets in after a while. Am I getting sleepy? Or am I just tired? Let's pull over and see if there's a car CO detector at this Target. No luck.
Anyway, we made it back okay. Going to have to get the car checked out. And going to see about getting a CO detector for the car. Sigh.
Oh, and prolonged CO exposure can damage the heart and brain. As if my endurance didn't suck as is.
Other than that, it was a decent trip.
1 The tiny bits inside your body that carry oxygen to other tiny bits inside your body.
2 Holy crap, has it been that long? I started college in '97, so this must have been that spring. Yikes. Getting old...
3 In case you haven't noticed, reasoning ability deteriorates somewhat with CO poisoning.