Not so bright
Got up early-ish to get Xuan ready for her flight to Mexico. She was flying out at 1:45pm so we had to be there for 10:45pm according to American Airlines. We got the last of her things packed and we headed out the door. Stopped in at Timmy's grabbed a coffee and hit transit. We were on the Canada Line part way to the airport when my phone rang. It was Tomi. Apparently she got dizzy in the shower, passed out, had a face to ehm.. tub meeting and had been lying down unable to get up for about an hour and a half. "Do I need to be calling you an ambulance?" I asked more than a bit concerned. "I dunno, do you think I need to?" Uh... ya think? I love my sister, don't get me wrong but occasionally she says things or does things that baffle me. TOday, I will give her a pass because she may not have been thinking straight with the head injury. I told her I would get to her as soon as I was able to and in the meantime, between the two of us, we needed to find a way to get her to the hospital or clinic since she didn't want to call an ambulance. I fretted the rest of the way to the airport calling as many people as I could think of without success. When we got to the airport I got Xuan through the check in as fast as possible and left to check on my sister. Not exactly the way I wanted to say goodbye but I didn't have much of a choice. I hope Xuan will be ok. I hope she has fun.
As I made my way back towards Tomi I phoned her to see how she was doing. She had managed to get in a cab and get herself to the clinic nearby. She said she was nauseous, dizzy and in pain. Well, at least she made it to somewhere to get some medical attention. I found out later that she had actually been talking to one of her friend's husband but hadn't asked him for a ride becuse she thought it would be too much trouble. Again, I'll give her a pass for head trauma causing irrational thought but it did make me shake my head a little. It took me the better part of an hour to get to the clinic but when I finally did I found her curled up on one of the waiting room chairs. So, the diagnosis was that the migraines may have been caused by the lights in her place. The brightness was causing her migraines and with her, a loss of blood pressure causing low blood flow to the brain. Couple that with a hot shower and presto, bingo, tim-berrrr city. She was advised to swap out the lights in her place for something not so bright and intake some more salt to increase her blood pressure. We made a quick stop at the Safeway to grab her some Gatorade to replenish her electrolytes and sodium levels and headed back to her place. When we got in, I started looking at all of the lights in her place. They weren't halogens but they were 13 Watt CFLs (equivalent of a 60W incandescent bulb). I made a runner out to Home Depot to pick up some 40W incandescent bulbs and a couple of dimmer switches. Armed with two bags of stuff I made my way back to Tomi's including a quick stop in at Mickey D's (them fries should have lots of salt).
As I set to work replacing the lights in her place I discovered there was something odd going on with the wiring in her place. When I replaced the lights in her room, only two of them would light up. At first I thought it was the bulbs but the bulbs were fine. The only thing I could conclude was that the light sockets were made for the lower wattage CFL bulbs. To make matters worse, when I tried to shut the power off so I could install the dimmer switches I discovered i could only do it if I shut the power off in the entire house. Not just her unit. Guess how I found out? Her landlord upstairs called down as I had one of the switches half taken apart. I wound up having to take everything back and trying to find the lowest wattage CFL bulbs I could find which turned out to be the 5W (equivalent to 25W bulb) CFLs. I swapped out just about all of her lights with these 5W bulbs and it made a noticeable difference even in the daylight. I spent the rest of the day at Tomi's making sure she was ok and doing some things around the house like taking Doug the Pug for a walk and stuff.
As evening fell I noticed even with the new bulbs, it was still quite bright in Tomi's house. We started to do a count of the number of lights she actually had in her place and much to our amazement she had 20 lights inside her space. In a space not much bigger than 600 sq. feet that was… ridiculous. I think my mom and dad's five bedroom house may not even have that many lights. No wonder she was getting a migraine it was probably like staring into the sun. i didn't switch out her closet light and we discovered it was so bright when we closed the closet doors, the light emanating from the spaces in between made it look like the Poltergeist movies. We laughed and took some pictures of it. Nutty. We spent the rest of the evening watching a movie before Ian came to pick me up. I told my sister I would check in on her in the morning.
Ian and I closed out the night having Moons Over My Hammy at Denny's What a day. I have to say being able to hang out with Ian has been great. I know he's been bugging me to move here for a long time. If nothing works out overseas maybe I'll stay. We'll see.
Reason to smile today: Ian describing to me his reaction to meeting someone whom he thought was quite shallow,"Oh my God. Deep like fry pan"
Something I learned today: Lights that are too bright can be hazardous to your health
As I made my way back towards Tomi I phoned her to see how she was doing. She had managed to get in a cab and get herself to the clinic nearby. She said she was nauseous, dizzy and in pain. Well, at least she made it to somewhere to get some medical attention. I found out later that she had actually been talking to one of her friend's husband but hadn't asked him for a ride becuse she thought it would be too much trouble. Again, I'll give her a pass for head trauma causing irrational thought but it did make me shake my head a little. It took me the better part of an hour to get to the clinic but when I finally did I found her curled up on one of the waiting room chairs. So, the diagnosis was that the migraines may have been caused by the lights in her place. The brightness was causing her migraines and with her, a loss of blood pressure causing low blood flow to the brain. Couple that with a hot shower and presto, bingo, tim-berrrr city. She was advised to swap out the lights in her place for something not so bright and intake some more salt to increase her blood pressure. We made a quick stop at the Safeway to grab her some Gatorade to replenish her electrolytes and sodium levels and headed back to her place. When we got in, I started looking at all of the lights in her place. They weren't halogens but they were 13 Watt CFLs (equivalent of a 60W incandescent bulb). I made a runner out to Home Depot to pick up some 40W incandescent bulbs and a couple of dimmer switches. Armed with two bags of stuff I made my way back to Tomi's including a quick stop in at Mickey D's (them fries should have lots of salt).
Ian and I closed out the night having Moons Over My Hammy at Denny's What a day. I have to say being able to hang out with Ian has been great. I know he's been bugging me to move here for a long time. If nothing works out overseas maybe I'll stay. We'll see.
Reason to smile today: Ian describing to me his reaction to meeting someone whom he thought was quite shallow,"Oh my God. Deep like fry pan"
Something I learned today: Lights that are too bright can be hazardous to your health
PS Gent is Ian
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