Hello, reader. How are you? I’m well–enjoying my retirement. But sometimes Ming gets dehydrated–it’s a problem for him and becomes my problem also. Maybe his brain shrinks–maybe something else goes wonky inside of him. But he needs to pay attention and wet himself. No, not like peeing his pants. Like getting his body to accept a buncha water. I’ve been thinking about how to recover from dehydration.
Spring is warming up here–heat affects how dehydrated someone can get. Ming has tummy trouble often; diarrhea a few times in a day can create dehydration. Ming goes hiking and sweats a lot. When he was young, he weirdly sweated mostly on his arms. Now he sweats on his whole body like a regular person. Also caffeine can be dehydrating, and Ming has caffeine all day because of the narcolepsy.
Once he’s dehydrated, Ming can get cranky and make poor decisions. His thinking is impaired. He’s talked about it with doctors–they do tests, monitor his liver, and tell him he’s ok.
Well, doctors are not going to help unless it gets critical. We would rather handle it ourselves at home, before he almost dies. So here are some ideas of how to recover from dehydration.
how to recover from dehydration
Drink more water.
Drink hydration fluid. Ming has some that comes in a packet that you add to water. It has salts, sugar, and some flavoring. Does it really help? I hope so.
Eat soup, a wet food. We have some soup from the store that’s in the pantry downstairs. I will make him some for lunch.
Drink smoothies, homemade or from a store.
Reduce caffeine intake and just rest for a day. It’s hard for Ming to rest–he likes to go go go as much as possible, interacting with people and feeling like he has a life from getting stuff done. But health is important.
temperature regulation ideas
Ming can tune out bodily messages. You know I have a theory that Ming has autism, not ocd. Autism can come with extra sensitivity to body things like temperature (that’s me), but also extreme insensitivity to them. Often he doesn’t notice how he’s feeling, which is hard for me to relate to. But here are some ideas for how Ming can cool down when it’s hot.
Wear shorts when he’s exerting himself outside.
Take off his pants in the room when it’s hot.
Eat frozen blueberries and popsicles when it’s hot.
Try to notice when he’s hot and turn on the fan.
aged
Ming is almost 60 now. Pretty weird, but it’s true. Getting aged is a sport for the lucky. Here we go, on the long wacky slide toward death. Wheeeee!
We should make the ride as happy as possible. I want pleasure, connection, learning, truth, and much wetness. Water is life. Water is sacred, within our bodies and without.
I don’t want to be like my parents. My mom tried to get my dad to do his physical therapy, get movement, and care for himself as he suffered indignities and felt a lot of pain. My dad would take pills that doctors prescribed, but not do much activities. Seems common but also a dude thing. Ming is non-binary–he is not a man, but he does lean dudeish at times.
The hubris is tiring to witness. You are mortal–you will die.
power
Our lives are our own. Some people like to hand over their power to doctors for fake safety. “There you go, doc. Can you hold my death fear? Great–thank you. Yes, everything will be ok. That’s worth the co-pay.”
I need to keep my power as I can. Doctors don’t usually help me. I tell myself, “Choose to rest before your body forces you to rest.”
Being hydrated is important to me because I need my blood to be the proper viscosity. I like to lubricate my fascia for less pain. I want my brain to be nice and wetness-plump. My digestive system needs water to work things through, and I want my filtering systems like kidneys and liver to have an ok time of it. Once a month, a bunch of menstrual fluid flows out of me. I mourn the loss of iron, but also I need extra water to do that uterine lining shedding work.
When I have allergies, I need a lot of water because I lose some blowing my nose. And I want my phlegm to be thin and easy to cough out. I don’t want fluid trapped in my sinuses, or phlegm to get stuck and lodged in my lungs or what have you, to gather bacteria or fungus and harm me. Feels important to keep it moving.
A nice perk of being hydrated is my vulva is lush and slippery, fresh as the healthiest ocean, full of little fishes, huge whales, sparkles of light, seaweeds, cephalopods we love, medium fishes, dolphins dancing, and tiny tiny life I don’t know about, like planktons and mini krill. Yes, my vulva should be wet most of all. I’ll drink to that.
