Heat

The last patient on the last day of my critical care rotation arrived at the ED by airbus. She was 21 years old, barely responsive, and accompanied by border patrol. The ED called us about 30 minutes later, once they’d stabilized her. We arrived in her room, and the ED resident recounted what had occurred. She’d required intubation and several rounds of CPR to achieve resuscitation. The situation had calmed for a moment, but then she started to convulse. They administered medications and her shaking stopped.

Your first summer on Earth was the hottest ever on record. I was admitted to the hospital during a cold, early spring, and by the time you were released from the NICU on Easter Monday, it felt like summer already. I had visions of spending full days outdoors, encouraging a love of nature from the very beginning, but it was impossible to spend time outdoors after 9:00 a.m. without both of us overheating.

The other day, our air-conditioner went out. We live in Austin, Texas, so the house quickly became an oven. Opening the windows and turning on fans didn’t help, since the outdoor temperature was over 100 degrees F.  The situation was not just an inconvenience—it required urgent action. We were able to get the air conditioner fixed, but it was expensive. We have resources. Others do not.

During a busy clinic, my eighteen-year-old texted concerns of sudden torrential rains causing flash flooding in our yard, with potential basement flooding. Centuries ago, our backyard was swampland. Now it is developed land and a flood plain.

“Heat advisory in effect 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.” The text from the city emergency alert system lit up my phone screen. A little while later, I saw a Facebook post from Denis Phillips, chief meteorologist for ABC News, telling Floridians this was only the second time in over 20 years that a heat advisory had been issued. I was scheduled to be the preceptor on a street medicine shift that night. My first reaction was regret at having signed up for an August “street run,” as we called it. My second was remembering that the run would be canceled without a preceptor—so, heat advisory or not, I knew I had to keep my commitment.

In 2023, given the variety of bottled water(s) that are sold not only in grocery stores but also in hospital and medical school vending machines, it may be hard for some people to remember a time when water, packaged in plastic bottles, wasn’t a reality. Oh, there was Perrier, San Pellegrino, and a few other brands packaged in glass bottles. But it was only after the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War—the Middle East operations known as Desert Shield and Desert Storm—that water bottled in plastic found its place on supermarket shelves and began to be purchased by consumers worldwide.

My husband is an air-conditioning contractor based in southeast Florida, where A/C is needed almost the whole year round. This summer has been particularly hot—the temperatures pushing everyone’s A/C units to their limits. He comes home soaked in sweat and arrived on the border of a heat stroke one day.

I am not a drinker—not of water, juice, coffee or tea, or alcohol. My children and physician constantly remind me of this unhealthy habit, stressing that my body needs fluids, especially water, to function properly. I hear them, but I do not listen. I have even ignored them these past several months when the temperatures have risen to the high eighties and often middle nineties.

Dear Pulse readers,

Many years ago, while seeking employment as a musician, I spent part of a summer in Minneapolis, a town I associated with cold winters but which, it turned out, also endured hot summers. My quarters had no air conditioning and I was sweltering, so I purchased a fan, which didn’t help much. For some reason, my place just wouldn’t cool off, even at night, and there were moments when I felt I might suffocate from the heat.