We took off Friday and drove up North about 3 hours to Salida, CO with our besties (of 25 years) to celebrate his 60th birthday. We went together and rented a really nice 2BD Loft on main street right in downtown. Salida is a funky town that caters to locals and tourist alike. Mountain biking, Kayaking in the Arkansas river in the Summer and skiing in the Winter as it is within a short drive to several nice ski areas in southern CO. Got there around 4PM on Friday and got settled in. Our besties got in around 5PM. Friday night we went out and hit one of the local brew pubs and had some fantastic pizza, calzone and great craft beer. Came back and chatted around the fireplace for a few hours and called it an evening.
Saturday morning we got up, fixed a nice breakfast Frittata with ham, green chile, and tomato's. Washed it down with mimosa's and we headed out for a day of sightseeing around town and of course, shopping! Salida seems to be the capital of the 2nd hand shop or consignment stores. About a dozen or so art gallery's as well as several antique stores are spread out around town. We spent most of the day walking around and perusing the shops. I recently purchased a new turntable so I had a fantastic time looking at bin after bin of excellent condition used Vinyl LP's from the 60's and 70's. I hit the jackpot and found about 20 gently used LP's and was quite happy with all my treasures and the ladies had scored some nice vintage items of clothing to boot.
We headed back to the loft around 4PM, dropped off all our treasure and decided to hit another brew pub that was just a few blocks away for a quick pint and light snacks before we headed back to the loft to fix a nice birthday dinner. The loft had a like new Weber Genesis grill and I had tested it out that morning and found it to be full of propane so we stopped at the local grocery store and picked up some nice ribeye steaks, potatoes for baking and greens for a nice salad. The loft had a built in wine cooler so we had all brought several bottles each of things to share. Some nice rose's as well as several bordeaux blends and even a few of my own creations found themselves into the fridge for the weekend.
Dinner turned out wonderful. The food was excellent, the wines were excellent, desert cake (with BD candles). All lovely. We had another fire in the stove and played some board games till around midnight IIRC and everyone was tired, tipsy and ready for bed.
And that was the beginning of the strangest next 12 hours ever........
The loft has both a front entrance off main street and several businesses on the first floor (Spa etc.) as well as a rear entrance with a small backyard and rear alley with parking which is very typical design style all over CO. Both doors have locks on them and we had made sure they were locked when we came in that night. Around 3:30AM I heard a VERY loud noise that woke me from a dead sleep. At first I was not sure if I had dreamt the sound or if it was the rear door downstairs as it has a screen door that when it slams shut makes a loud sound and I thought perhaps someone downstairs had entered late at night and let the door slam. After what seemed like a minute or two I heard a commotion outside the door followed by the voice of our friend (husband) calling his wife's name over and over. There was no response. By now Mrs. IB had woken as well and the next thing we heard was "are you OK, wake up, are you OK"?
The wife had gotten up in the middle of the night for a drink of water. She remembers going to the kitchen but nothing after that. We found her passed out and crumpled on the floor half way in the hallway and halfway in the bathroom. It took several minutes to get her to regain consciousness and we sat her up and she passed out again and slumped over. We laid her down on the floor in the bathroom and attempted to wake her once more. She came around for about 15 seconds and then again passed out. At that point we called 911 (first 911 call of my life). It took several minutes for me to figure out where exactly we were address wise but finally I remembered and after playing 20 questions with the 911 operator they dispatched EMS and were on scene in about 3-4 minutes. In the mean time I think she passed out several more times. The loft had a very steep, narrow stairwell, no elevator so EMS had a very fun time getting her downstairs and into the truck. They basically used a chair of sorts with straps to hold her in place and they took her down the 2 flights of steps to the landing.
So the weird part is this woman is 5'2" 110lbs and works as a fitness leader. She is in short a pint sized "Terminator" of a woman who mountain bikes, runs and teaches aerobics classes like 10 times a week as part of her job. Needless to say excellent physical condition, doesn't smoke, no history of anything like this EVER. EMS got her to the hospital in about 5 minutes and they started running test etc. Her BP was only like 77/43 but they couldn't for the life of them find anything causing it. They gave her 3L of saline to pump her up and build blood pressure but the best it would do was like 87/53 and then fall back after about 20 mins or so. She complained of a bad headache (her head did hit the floor when she fainted) but all test (blood work, x-rays, CT Scan) showed nothing out of the ordinary. They decided to keep her overnight (Sunday) as they could not get her BP to stabilize close to anything normal even for her. I suppose the best thing was that if this had to happen we are glad that it happened when it did as the next day they were headed to a cabin up North deep in the Rockies where they would have been all by themselves with limited cell service at best and the closest hospital or emergency help about 90 miles away......
As of today they have decided to release her as her BP has finally stabilized. She is very sore from the fall (no cuts at least) but they still can't seem to find anything wrong. We are at a loss ourselves trying to come up with anything but nothing is making any sense at the moment. They are headed back home after cancelling their week of vacation and will be home later this afternoon. She will follow up with her PCP this week to see if they might be able to find anything going on.
So happy things turned out fine (for now at least) I guess just another incident of never take life or anything else for granted. Things can get pretty wild in a New York minute as they say!
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I think she's glad she missed witnessing that dance.
