A serious discussion about sun stroke

The heat begins to rise the moment the sun peeks through the Florida foliage.
I want to take 3 minutes of your time to talk about a serious subject:
Sun stroke.
My mom died from sun stroke. It was like Alzheimer’s happening over a period of one week.
As her brain swelled, she complained of a headache. You might say, “so what, we all get headaches.”
My mom was a teenager when the stock market crashed in 1929. She’d just entered adulthood when the food riots began in 1931, and by the time she turned 20, the Great Depression was at its peak.
The songs written during that time were meant to sprinkle tiny little sparkles of hope into otherwise dismal lives; songs like “Singin’ in the Rain,” and “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”
The 20-somethings of the Great Depression internalized 2 messages as they struggled to find hope:
- “Every cloud has a silver lining” and
- !!!NEVER COMPLAIN!!!
Mom went through 10 hours of hard labor and gave birth to a 5 pound baby butt first (me). She took pride in the fact that she never once screamed from the pain.
When my mother said, “I have a headache. I’ve never had such pain,” alarm bells started to go off.
She had been outside without a hat mowing the lawn in 100F weather during the course of 2 days. Her neighbor had warned her to stay out of the heat.
Mom said, “I love the sun.”
Looking back on her diary, that day wasn’t the first time she’d started showing signs that the sun didn’t love her.
There were times when the words she wrote were incoherent. She had passed out during the years she lived alone, but didn’t call my sister or me for help.
Never, never would she consider asking for help.
My mom experienced dehydration and confusion long before the last time she ever mowed a lawn. She ignored the warning signs.
During the week she was dying, she experienced kidney failure, Sundowner’s Syndrome, painful brain swelling, and entered a pattern of Cheyne-Stokes breathing (shallow quick breaths followed by spaces of no breathing) during the last 2 days of her life.
Why am I writing about this in the middle of summer?
(Can I say Duh????)
The smart person learns from other people’s experiences.
I went for a vigorous walk in the 99F weather during lunch hour a few days ago. As always, I wear a hat. After all, my mom wasn’t wearing a hat when she experienced sun stroke for the last time.
I’m good then…right?…right?…are you listening?!
I was walking out of the “oven” and back inside the “freezer” of an office when someone asked if I used sun screen.
“No,” I replied, “I just get used to the sun in increments.”
I had to stop and think about that. Isn’t it the same thing as saying, “It won’t happen to me?”
No, I don’t love the sun; I love the heat. But heat comes from the sun. What if the sun doesn’t love me, either?
That is a question every one of us needs to consider.
A good post, it raised alarm bells as only last week I found my 85 yr old Mother with her snowy white recently shorn hair mowing. No sun cream hat or sleeves in sight.
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Your mom needs to see this post. It could save her from a gruelling demise. One of the bits of information a geriatric specialist told us at the hospital was that older people don’t feel the signs of sunstroke coming on. That makes it even more dangerous.
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Excuse me while I make an urgent call…
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I’ve got to admit, I’m a bit flippant when it comes to respecting the sun. I don’t always wear a hat. I don’t often use sunscreen. I think both of these things might change after reading this.
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If I save a few lives writing about it, this post is worthwhile. Thanks for reading. 🙂
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Your words are important! I am a fair skinned redhead. I love the sun from afar.
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Good idea! Every person with red hair that I’ve ever met has fair skin and a need to stay out of the sun.
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Once upon a time, I picked the wrong side of a cherry tree first! (Who knew there was a right & a wrong side of a cherry tree?). And I got the morning sun on the back of my head. By lunch I was sleeping under the tree with the bullants. At lunch, my mum collected me and that was the end of cherry picking. Heat stroke with an AVM;Disaster!
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Hope you didn’t get seizures from it. A lot of people don’t survive sun stroke, or if they do, they’re never the same.
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Very good advice for people of all ages. I feel sorry for those that have to work outdoors. There’s a reason why roofers start at 6 am in hottest summer weather. Use common sense, check on your neighbors.
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Good advice.
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I am very sorry about your mother. Thank you for the warning. I hate the heat and sun, but my hubby always want to be out working on the yard and it scares me.
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When someone says, “It won’t happen to me, that’s scary.
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Wow, powerful; there was TV programme here in the UK this last week that looked at exposure to sun etc. The need for sunscreen and early warning signs for sun stroke. Thanks. Very timely, even though that’s a bloody awful way to get the message.
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Reblogged this on Crazy Little Redneck Goth.
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Thanks for passing this information along.
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