It Might Get Messy

So pretty much the sum of Haymitch’s advice to Katniss Everdeen on her first trip into the Hunger Games arena is “find water”. And his first gift, in her second trip, is a spile to tap the trees for drinkable sap. This is because humans can generally survive quite a while on minimal calories, but essentially no time at all absent adequate hydration. 


A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, two of us had a daily job of fighting our way several kilometers out onto an exposed and fairly remote tidal marsh in southern New Jersey to build cages that would exclude clapper rails (part of an experiment to determine how a relatively nontoxic mosquito larvicide was suppressing fiddler crab populations, see [1]). One particularly hot day, our return involved substantial slogging through really deep, warm, sticky anaerobic mud at low tide—several thousand meters of it. By the time we made it out of the mud and into floatable water, my compatriot was badly dehydrated. To the point of no sweat, serious headache, double vision, etc. Somewhere between heat prostration and heat stroke, with a dose of we-finished-our-jug-of-water-7-hours-ago-and-have-been-slogging-in-the-hot-sun-ever-since. And we were, at that point, still a good 45 minute boat trip away from our rented research cottage and at least a half hour from the nearest occupied spit of dry land. Not a good situation.


So we remembered all the survival advice we could piece together. Don’t drink salt water. Don’t drink urine. And that was pretty much the sum of our resources. We settled soon-to-be Doctor H into the shadiest side of the boat, and I slopped out and started opening the oysters that lined the banks of the tidal creek (remember Rule #1—never go anywhere without a knife!). They were pretty moist. Salty, but not nearly as salty as the sea water sloshing back into the bay. And for some reason they were cool. After slurping a dozen or so, STB Dr. H started to feel better. Another half dozen, and he thought he could survive the trip back. We hightailed it to the cottage, and I sped out for an X-large pizza with fresh garlic (specialty of the local shop), 12 pack of cold beer, and a couple gallons of store-bought lemonade. Next day, the only aftereffects was the distinct smell of garlic wafting out with STB Dr. H’s now re-started sweat.


I bring this up because somehow my ability to consume solid (ish) food seems to be returning. I’ve been to lymphedema therapy twice in the past week. Therapy consists mostly of massage, and I have a weird low-budget horror movie looking face mask thing to wear at night to help work the loose lymph from my swollen jaw and throat back into the shards of my functional lymphatics where the surgery scars stop under my ears. I’m not certain whether or if so how that therapy might be doing it. But the last couple days, I’ve eaten some ice cream filled with cakey stuff (chunks of Oreo cookies), and today nearly an entire one-egg egg salad. Now, of course, I’m too stuffed to move, since I also did a heavy hike today in the heat and needed to rehydrate. Which I did with thick chocolate milk (not fresh-in-the-field oysters). 


But this is a big step. I can eat stuff without choking on it. It still balls up in my throat, but it seems to dissipate after a while, and it doesn’t hurt the way it did a few weeks ago. I haven’t been diligent with my oral exercises, having cut back on them since my jawbone got so fragile. But I have to get back to them. This may be a true step-in-the-right direction. I had lunch earlier in the week with a very dear and very long-time friend I’d long lost contact with. She had a salad, I had a latte. 


Next time we’re out, I’m hoping I’m having a salad as well. Have a good week, everybody! Check out a few photos and other referentia over at http://docviper.livejournal.com/, don’t miss the first chapter of the urban ecosystems book at http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/, and this week’s installment of PeopleSystems and Sustainability at https://www.aehsfoundation.org/ . Most of all, keep in mind that spring is pretty much here. We’ve walked away from one more winter, my friends. Not bad, under the circumstances. Not bad at all.


Notes


[1] Ward, D.V., B.L. Howes and D.F. Ludwig 1976. Interactive effects of predation pressure and insecticide (temefos) toxicity on populations of the marsh fiddler crab Uca pugnax. Marine Biology 35:119 – 126.