January 28, 2023
Not Madera Canyon
I’ve been looking for a suitable day for the Madera Canyon ride almost ever since we arrived in Tucson. It’s essentially a pass climb, with 2,500’ elevation gain that ends high in an oak forest at around 5,500’. I’ve taken this ride once with Rachael and twice on my own, and if the right day comes along I’ll do it solo again because it’s not really a climb Rachael remembers caring for enough to want to drive a half hour to get there. I’m not sure why - maybe it’s the ten mile gradual ascent through empty creosote and cholla desert; or the fairly rough surface to its narrow two lane dead end road. Or maybe it’s the 13-15% cliff toward the end of the ride when it suddenly rises up and enters the forest in the gap between Elephant Rock on the right and towering Mount Wrightson on the left, the highest point on the horizon when you look south from Tucson.
I like it though, and I’m especially keen to ride it in the Year of the Bird. The higher elevation oak forest is a different habitat that promises the chance to add a few more species to the list before we leave town in a few days. When I rode up here two years ago I still remember sitting on a picnic bench having lunch and watching the Mexican jays in the surrounding trees.
For the last two weeks straight it’s been too cold to consider this ride, but finally the right day has arrived. It’s a good ten degrees warmer today and the winds look mild and even favorable for the ascent. I’m in the car by 10:30, heading south to the Walmart parking lot where I’ll leave the car and enjoying listening to the jazz classics roll by on AZPM, Tucson’s all-jazz radio station. By eleven I’m on the road with the bike heading south on Abrego Drive, an upscale boulevard lined fine homes, palm trees and designer cactuses - some of them complex, wildly brachiated saguaros. I’m feeling good, enjoying the cacti and anticipating the climb and birding possibilities ahead, but disappointed to find that the anticipated mild tailwind is actually a fairly significant, cooling header that promises to make the climb more of a challenge than I’d been planning on.
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1 year ago
And then, the unexpected happens - possibly triggered by the cold headwind, toward the end of Abrigo Drive I sense I’m having a mild arrhythmia event, like the one I experienced just yesterday. Quite unusual to have them back to back like this. At the end of Abrigo I come to Continental Road and find a secluded place to lie down behind the fire station there to wait out the attack. Almost always, lying down like this quickly ends the event and it doesn’t recur again once I’m up and moving again.
Not today though - five minutes later it’s still going, and it becomes obvious that today’s ride will have to be canceled. I can’t be taking a twelve mile climb into the mountains like this. Disappointed, I hop on the bike, ride back to the car, and drive home.
Pretty sad, and at this point it looks like Madera Canyon is off the agenda for this winter. There’s more to this story though, or else I might not have even written this day up. When I got home again, the first thing I did was look at the label on my prescription, a refill I opened just five days ago. I found that the prescription was filled over a year ago, and has a discard date of nearly a half year ago. It’s something I have never noticed before - this medication has a fairly short shelf life, and also comes with instructions to keep it stored in a cool, dry place. Amazing - I’ve been taking it for well over a decade and never noticed these important facts. It’s likely that the drug has lost at least some of its potency by now.
So think of this as yet another public service announcement. Read the label on your medications! Also, it’s a new consideration for us to plan around for our itinerant lifestyle. I’m sure this issue happened as a result of our nine month tour of Europe last year. In preparation we loaded up on prescriptions, but never thought about keeping track to use them up in the order they were prescribed. I’m sure I went through two 90 day supplies that were newer than this one because I didn’t really think about it.
It also means we shouldn’t be planning on taking such a long supply in the first place, even if I’d cracked the bottles in FIFO order. We probably should be carrying a fillable paper prescription with us on extended travels so we can get more timely refills.
And in the meantime, don’t be concerned about me. I’m fine, but monitoring my activity level and working with Kaiser on getting authorization for an emergency refill down here. With luck it shouldn’t take more than a day or two.
Today's ride: 9 miles (14 km)
Total: 1,294 miles (2,082 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 7 |
Thanks for the gory details on the Madera climb, think I'll pass on that one. We like the view of Mt. Wrightson from the trail up to Josephine Saddle. Glad you're ok!
1 year ago
I had to refill a prescription when in France last summer. The first pharmacy I went to balked a bit and told me to try another. The second pharmacy was just down the street and filled it no questions asked.
1 year ago
I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it went. I had an email consultation with Kaiser this morning, and they shipped a 30 day prescription down to a pharmacy here. I just picked up the refill, so hopefully I’ll be back more or less to normal by tomorrow.
1 year ago
1 year ago
1 year ago
And you’ve %-checked one of my favorite meds too; and like other drugs, one that’s considerably less costly there than here. Salud!
1 year ago
I can’t remember if I blogged a PSA about Keith’s antibiotics in Spain in the fall. I was pleasantly surprised when I handed the pharmacist the prescription and she turned around, opened a drawer and handed me the goods. So fast, unlike at home. Instructions from her echoed the dentist: 3 times a day for 7 days. It wasn’t until Keith developed an alarming rash that we realized that while he needed 21 pills, I was handed a box of 30. The box was clearly marked, it just never occurred to us there would be more medication than he needed as that couldn’t happen in Canada. Keith had just finished 9 days of a 7 day course of antibiotics when he woke up with the nasty rash. We didn’t figure it out right away, although we knew the rash had to be associated with the antibiotics. It wasn’t until he said that it seemed like more than 7 days that the penny dropped. We learned a big lesson for the hundredth time. Never assume!
1 year ago