Mistakes were made
I went to the food bank today.
I just missed the bus I'd intended to take, and decided that I could walk the 12 blocks faster than waiting for the next bus (Mistake #1).
I was actually only half a block from the stop when the bus went by. Not bad, considering all the pauses to rest I'd made.
I'd brought along my pulse-oximeter so I could check my heart rate and oxygen levels. Good idea. I mostly kept it below 140 except when thing fell apart (later)
I walked the 3-4 blocks from the stop to the food bank without too much trouble. Though I still had to rest a few times.
Finally got there and while there were cars lined up for blocks, there was only one person ahead of me on foot. Which is good because they take the one foot people in a seperate queue from the cars.
After a bit, I got called up. two boxes of stuff, and three packages of frozen stuff (a huge thing of frozen chicken patties and another huge thing of frozen, cooked chicken chunks (like for fajitas), and a "small" bag of frozen pollock). And then I made the second mistake. They offered me this large box of milk (at a guess it had several gallons inside. The mistake was that I took it, even though I still had milk at home.
Then I made my third mistake. I didn't go thru the boxes and thing things out (there were indeed things I could have given back) so not only was I overloaded, the load was pretty awkward, ever with the folding grocery cart.
I struggled to haul it along (there's no sidewalk) and about halfway back to the bus stop a wheel broke. I struggled along a bit longer (basically 10-20m stop and rest, repeat). I finally gave up and called a cab. Took me three tries to get the number right.
The heat was getting to me (more than I realized until I got home). Finally the cab showed up. At the wrong spot, but within sight. a guy that had offered to help me managed to get the can driver directed to me.
I had to load everything myself. Ugh. Fortunately it only cost $7.
I had to unload stuff myself too. I was making the second trip back to the cab, to find that he'd unloaded the last two things and was leaving.
I was not doing well, but managed to get everything inside and then struggled upstairs to my apartment and sat there for a while waiting for my heart rate to drop. Sometime in all this, my heart rate hit 160 at one point. :-(
Finally grabbed the electronic thermometer, suck it in my ear and discovered my temp was 102. Eeep. Between the air conditioning and fluids it came down.
I made several trips with *light* loads after it got lower (but still not back to normal). Well spaced trips. It took me over 2 hours to get everything upstairs and the stuff that needed to go in the fridge put away.
Other stuff can wait. I'm now at the point I can lay down with a fan blowing on me.
I'll worry about replacing the cart and putting the rest of the stuff away later.
I've now added the thermometer to the things I'm gonna carry when out in the heat. This entry was originally posted at https://kengr.dreamwidth.org/1119863.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I just missed the bus I'd intended to take, and decided that I could walk the 12 blocks faster than waiting for the next bus (Mistake #1).
I was actually only half a block from the stop when the bus went by. Not bad, considering all the pauses to rest I'd made.
I'd brought along my pulse-oximeter so I could check my heart rate and oxygen levels. Good idea. I mostly kept it below 140 except when thing fell apart (later)
I walked the 3-4 blocks from the stop to the food bank without too much trouble. Though I still had to rest a few times.
Finally got there and while there were cars lined up for blocks, there was only one person ahead of me on foot. Which is good because they take the one foot people in a seperate queue from the cars.
After a bit, I got called up. two boxes of stuff, and three packages of frozen stuff (a huge thing of frozen chicken patties and another huge thing of frozen, cooked chicken chunks (like for fajitas), and a "small" bag of frozen pollock). And then I made the second mistake. They offered me this large box of milk (at a guess it had several gallons inside. The mistake was that I took it, even though I still had milk at home.
Then I made my third mistake. I didn't go thru the boxes and thing things out (there were indeed things I could have given back) so not only was I overloaded, the load was pretty awkward, ever with the folding grocery cart.
I struggled to haul it along (there's no sidewalk) and about halfway back to the bus stop a wheel broke. I struggled along a bit longer (basically 10-20m stop and rest, repeat). I finally gave up and called a cab. Took me three tries to get the number right.
The heat was getting to me (more than I realized until I got home). Finally the cab showed up. At the wrong spot, but within sight. a guy that had offered to help me managed to get the can driver directed to me.
I had to load everything myself. Ugh. Fortunately it only cost $7.
I had to unload stuff myself too. I was making the second trip back to the cab, to find that he'd unloaded the last two things and was leaving.
I was not doing well, but managed to get everything inside and then struggled upstairs to my apartment and sat there for a while waiting for my heart rate to drop. Sometime in all this, my heart rate hit 160 at one point. :-(
Finally grabbed the electronic thermometer, suck it in my ear and discovered my temp was 102. Eeep. Between the air conditioning and fluids it came down.
I made several trips with *light* loads after it got lower (but still not back to normal). Well spaced trips. It took me over 2 hours to get everything upstairs and the stuff that needed to go in the fridge put away.
Other stuff can wait. I'm now at the point I can lay down with a fan blowing on me.
I'll worry about replacing the cart and putting the rest of the stuff away later.
I've now added the thermometer to the things I'm gonna carry when out in the heat. This entry was originally posted at https://kengr.dreamwidth.org/1119863.html. Please comment there using OpenID.