The Decompression Tank...

Instead of going diving Bonaire in November and spending a crazy amount of money, we opted for Sebastian to go to Cozumel for a 5 day drive trip with his dive group, and me staying here in Houston for work. I always get nervous when he dives, so he made sure he called me after every morning dive and after every night dive just to make sure I was okay and to give me piece of mind that he was okay. The day that he was scheduled to come home I had the day off and was super excited to see him. He was on a plane and wasn’t really worried anymore because he wasn’t in the water. I was on the way to the airport when I get a call from a phone number I didn’t know. I answered it and it was Scott, Sebastian’s dive buddy. “Hi Patty, this is Scott Bradley.” I immediately thought to myself, why are you calling me?... Why not Sebastian? He went on to say “Well Sebastian is not doing to well.” My palms immediately started to sweat. Scott went on to say that Sebastian got a weird pain in his elbow and nearly passed out on the plane. They gave him oxygen and immediately felt better.


When diving, there is this thing called Decompression sickness.  Defination:
Decompression sickness (DCS; also historically or colloquially known as divers' disease, the bends or caisson disease) describes a condition arising from dissolved gases coming out of solution into bubbles inside the body on depressurisation. DCS most commonly refers to a specific type of scuba diving hazard but may be experienced in other depressurisation events such as caisson working, flying in unpressurised aircraft and extra-vehicular activity from spacecraft.

Since bubbles can form in or migrate to any part of the body, DCS can produce many symptoms, and its effects may vary from joint pain and rashes, to paralysis and death. Individual susceptibility can vary from day to day, and different individuals under the same conditions may be affected differently or not at all. The classification of types of DCS by its symptoms has evolved since its original description over a hundred years ago.

We are still not sure what exactly happened but they treated him for DCS at Memorial Herman anyway. After it was all said and done it was a really neat learning experience and with Sebastian having over 100 dives under his belt, I always thought I would get DCS before him!

A special thanks to Kristi & Scott Bradley for staying with me at the hospital!

In other news I have a headache right now. I just got LASIK eye surgery over weekend. I am really liking that I can see without contacts but I think that my head has to get used to the eyesight change.