"We need a medic over here. It's Elsie. Yes, I said it's Elsie."
You know, it's a given that our division at work is expected to work the first Saturday of every December when our community has the annual tree lighting event. But requirement aside, it's a fun place to be. More fun when the weather cooperates, but still fun. Especially since this year one of the guys brought his propane heater, and we also had a "wall" to block the wind coming in.
We collected the toys and canned goods donations (which even with the poor weather and smaller attendance was still substantial). We were up and down, able to sit and warm our tootsies in between drop-offs.
The event came to a close, and after packing up, I headed to the parking lot with a co-worker. Well. There was a bit of a decline, and I found myself having to take it a bit slower since my calf muscle was jumping around a bit. I told co-worker, you might want to get the car and just pick me up here. Before I could get it all out, Mr. Charley Horse jumped up and caught my attention.
Now, if you've had a charley horse, you know how painful that muscle spasm is. Poor co-worker, she really snapped to when I grabbed her shoulder and gripped for dear life! To make a long story short (only a few minutes, but felt f-o-r-e-v-e-r), it was no time and some of my guys were there. I could hear it going on the radio "that's right, it's Elsie". Then there were some more of my guys and a medic. Fortunately by then the spasms were easing up, but the medic was great in doing a deep rub into the muscle for relief (thanks, Steve). And thankfully we were able to disregard calling an ambulance.
The last tree-lighting event of my career, and I made it a memorable one (for me at least). Wouldn't you know.
What caused this you say? Generally it's from letting yourself get dehydrated, maybe low on potassium. And looking back over the day, I didn't drink enough water. At home I try to keep Gatorade on hand, it helps to drink it right after the episode. Yes, I've had Charley visit me before, though it's been a few weeks since the last time he called. Back off, Charley. I don't like your visits.
Has Charley been to see you?
1 comment:
Hi Elsie,
That sounds really painful. I don't have problems with Charley but my husband did. He started drinking a bottle of G2 everyday and that seems to have helped him a lot. He hate's when Charley comes to visit. He usually shows up in the middle of the night uninvited and wakes all of us up when my husband jumps out of bed (cussing) yelling I mean. Hopefully, he's gone for good!
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