Canlis Glass

Fresh Halloween Ikura

I believe the words gotten out a bit that I hurt myself yesterday, so here it is. Yesterday was scary but today I’m fine, almost 100% in fact.
2 days ago I started in on a project in the hotshop that was scheduled to run 2 days in a row:
Sunday 2-10pm
Monday (yesterday) 9-5pm
Day 1 went well, I had minor hand cramping at the end of the night but nothing unusual for a hot day. In the middle of the night I had another indication of dehydration in the bathroom, but ignored it. Yesterday we were back in the hotshop for day #2. Around noon, again my hands started seizing up. My forearms followed. Unusual but not unbearable. I stretched, drank more water and kept going. Soon thereafter I had a few close calls with fainting which I’ve never felt before. I sat down breathed through them and felt good enough to keep going. With about 2 hours left my arms started seizing up and the cramping got substantially worse and had traveled up to my biceps. I also started feeling confusion as to what I was making. With an hour to go everything started going south quickly. I dropped the piece on the floor and handed the blowpipe to my assistant. I didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t know how to signal for help due to my confusion and lightheadedness. All I knew was I needed to get out of the heat of the hotshop. I recall trying to tell someone on the crew to follow me, but I don’t believe I could say anything as I walked out of the shop. Once I sat down I started vomiting heavily. That’s when my stomach started cramping. Around the corner I could see Brandyn still working. I couldn’t get his attention vocally so I clapped and waived him over. At that point luckily for me he saw what was happening and it was all hands on deck. It was clear my state was declining quickly. As I was being walked outside to the park shade I recall temporarily losing vision. Blinding white light is all I saw for about a minute. Once I was laying flat on the grass/dirt, water and ice were poured over me as shoes/socks were removed. This is when the real cramping and spasming began. The pain was in what felt like every single muscle from my jaw line down to my toes. The pain itself was indescribable, and certainly the most I’ve ever felt. Movement of any sort magnified the pain. Whenever one cramp would trigger unbearably I’d have to move/roll around to relieve it, which would trigger other muscles to spasm. It was a challenging time rolling around in grass, dirt, vomit, and pain waiting for fire and rescue. Thankfully they showed and I made it to the emergency room. I couldn’t bend any part of my body to sit normally, so I was being pulled backwards in the chair fully stiff covered in grass sweat and mud with no shoes and heels dragging on the pavement. Even my fingers and toes were stiff. I felt like a jazz dancer. I recall a discussion between doctors about whether I came in off the streets or not. The black soot all over me (from the hotshop) was a real concern to the doctors oddly enough. Nonetheless, they cut off my clothes attached me to a bunch of stuff and filled me with all that lovely IV fluid.
Thank the good lord for that moment.
From that point on it was smooth sailing. I got out of the hospital today and am home now enjoying electrolytes and no pain aside from sore muscles.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you Brandyn, Sayuri, Ben, all my family that helped out, some medics, and the knowledgeable nurses and doctors at Swedish.