Day 22: Cromwell to Queenstown

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Part 1: Midsummer Morn

"O, do not tell the priest our plight,
For he would call it a sin,
But we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring summer in."

I wasn't, of course, though I did talk to Jim from 2 a.m. to 4. Throughput here seems to be better at night.

"And we bring you news by word of mouth,
Great news for cattle and corn!
Now is the sun come out of -- er, into -- the south,
With Oak and Ash and Thorn."

I spent this Midsummer Day sitting in the lounge at Pinot Lodge, waiting to be taken to the bus stop at 3 p.m.. It was a peaceful, quiet day. I reread *The Two Towers*.

The owner showed up fifteen minutes early, bless her, so I didn't have to panic over how I would get to the bus stop if she didn't come. The bus came a bit early too, so it's a good thing she did.

There were two Queenstown buses, the regular one and an overflow bus. I'd been booked on the overflow bus, so I had plenty of room. The driver stopped at a cherry orchard near Cromwell so we could all buy our Christmas cherries; I bought a reasonably-sized box for $4 and an apple for 17 cents.

I spent $15 on a Super Shuttle to get me to the YHA; I'm not sure whether it was a good idea or not, as it was only three or four blocks, but the bags are so terribly heavy. I shall have to get them to the Great Sights bus myself on Thursday.

Part 2: Alarums and Excursions

This Queenstown stay was to be my first night in a YHA dorm, as opposed to a single room. I had three very companionable and reasonable roommates, who were nice enough to let me have a bottom bunk after it became obvious that I was physically unable to climb into the top bunk. In fact, they even let me have the bed that didn't have a bunk. (It was a five-bed dorm, with four people in it that night.)

Everything was going fine, until, just after 9, one of them came in and made clear that they had been making a habit of keeping the windows open at night. I had actually had the heater on, because the predicted low outside was barely 50 degrees. (12 degrees C) When I'm well my lungs can stand 50 degrees, though even then I wouldn't want to sleep
in it, but when I'm ill they need much more warmth.

Well, after a few moments absolute panic, I headed for the reception desk to switch to a single -- only to learn that the reception desk had closed at 9. Jim urged me to spend the night in a lounge, and I tried to, but the lounge and kitchen closed at 10.

I went back to bed, put on my silk winter underwear, my winter coat and my breathing mask, and hoped that all of the above would keep me safe.

I woke up at 3 a.m. almost unable to breathe, with costochondritis blasting my ribs like fire. The first thing I would normally do about this would be a breathing-treatment with albuterol, but my treatment machine is pretty large and bulky and I'd left it at home. The second thing would be a long, hot shower, but since there were no common bathrooms that I could find, only ensuite rooms and dorms, I couldn't do that without waking my roommates up.

The third would have been turning the heater on and standing next to it and trying to breathe, but the heater was next to the open window and that would have done more harm than good, even if the others wouldn't have been angry about the heater being on.

So I went out into the halls and eventually found a chair next to a pay phone. I huddled in the chair for two hours, talking to Jim and trying to breathe normally despite the pain in my chest, because if I stopped breathing normally and breathed shallowly (as the pain urged me) I'd get pneumonia.

I searched frantically for a motel for the night, or for tomorrow night. Everything was well over $100. Then I searched for the 28th and 29th, the other days I'd be in Queenstown, and everything was even worse -- well over $150.

Finally, at 5 a.m., a drunk who had lost or forgotten his door code started pounding on the
outside door and howling, "Let me in!" "Let me in!" A staff member came out to see to him, and I asked her when reception would open again.

She asked me whether I had a room at the YHA that night, and I explained. She offered me a private room for the next five hours (checkout being at 10 a.m.) for $65, with space heater. I accepted. The next morning I rebooked all my YHA dorm rooms to singles. It cost $600 NZ, which is $400 U.S., but I don't want to have pneumonia again. (I may be goin
to anyhow, though I hope not, but I don't want to.) I have had it at least seven times in my life, five of them in this century, and every time I've been sicker. My forced-air capacity is too low to measure.

Anyhow, I had a shower and a heater in the $65 room, so I did what I could to get my blood oxygen level back up. I hope I'm not going to have pneumonia again.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Yikes! Be careful, Meredith.