Pedal to Preserve (Pour On the Heat!)

Jeff and I biked Pedal to Preserve last week, a ride we've not done before. It was for a good cause, and I'm glad we did it, but boy, did we get BROILED. It was gawdawfully hot, and by the time we were done, we were DONE. Cooked. Toasted. Fortunately, we elected to do the short version, the 21-mile course. There was a 50-mile option, and up until today dawned, we actually contemplated doing it. Wowee. Good thing we didn't go longer, as it turned out.

The ride itself was a typical Lancaster County ride. We covered many roads we've been on in the past, of course, some of them we could probably do in our sleep. There were a couple of water stops -- mostly water, not much in the way of snacks. (That's OK; always, always carry your own, that's my motto.) Pictures? Of course!

Cows! Always my favorite subject:

MoooOOOOooo to you, too, madame! I am NOT La Vache Qui Rit! Rather, I am -- how you say -- très taciturn!!

Water stop:

Plowing the fields:

Amish wagon ahead; let's pass it!

Heading on down . . .

The open road.

Schule Weeg:

Now . . . I did mention something earlier, along the lines of "as it turned out." Well, here's what turned out.

The morning after the ride, Jeff came downstairs, after having slept in for a bit. As he moved past me into the kitchen proper, he said, "My lower lip feels funny, like it's swollen." I took a look.

Yikes! It was HUGE! "A LITTLE swollen?? How long has it been like this?" I demanded. "Oh, it was a little big last night, I think, but it apparently got worse overnight," he mumbled. "Why didn't you say something LAST NIGHT!?" I shrieked. "It didn't seem important."

Ok. Ok. Jeff's having an allergic reaction . . . but to what? He's decidedly un-allergic. Heat? Sun? Dunno. I called our doc, and got patched through to the weekend warrior-MD (not our regular physician). I explained the situation, and then passed the phone over to Jeff, who answered a few questions, wrote down a couple of things, and then passed the phone back to me. Short answer: it was probably some sort of allergic reaction, as I figured -- the solution was to take some Aleve, and go get some Zyrtec.

After showering up -- during which I discovered that Jeff had large welts all over his midsection in addition to a swollen lip -- off we went to Walgreen's. After more than an hour, we finally left the store with some Wal-Tec, Walgreen's generic version of the Z drug. (I will spare you the drama of actually buying the stuff: inadequate staff, being given the wrong drug, having to turn right around and return it, and reaming out the manager over the slooow service.) Twelve hours later, Jeff's lip was pretty much back to normal. I had him take Zyrtec (excuse me, Wal-tec) for a two more days. We both figured that was the end of that. Sun reaction, mystery solved.

Two days later, though, I noticed that Jeff would welt up a bit around the midsection after his shower, in reaction to the heat of the water. "Gosh," I thought to myself, "maybe it wasn't sun . . maybe it was the heat." It was a very, very hot day, after all. But why now? We've biked in extreme heat before. Then, something else clicked in my mind: maybe it wasn't just the sun or the heat. Maybe Jeff was developing a reaction to Zoloft, despite having been on it for 2 years. I told Jeff to email his psych. She immediately responded, confirmed it could be a developing allergy, and asked him to immediately discontinue Zoloft and come see her ASAP.

Jeff is now on Prozac. His doc said that the next time, it could be worse -- his throat could close up. Prozac's effective dose is many, many fewer milligrams than Zoloft's. So far, so good. It seems to be as effective, so far, and we're not seeing any weird reactions.

Hopefully, the next really, really hot ride will be uneventful, other than for the cold beers afterward.