Irony in the desert

When we left for California on Wednesday evening, it was 114 degrees outside. On the flip side, it seems that over the weekend temps dipped back to a more normal range. In fact, as we traveled back into town around 8:30 last night, it appeared that temps in the west valley were down into the low 90's, even the high 80's!

So? Well, when you live in the middle of the desert you worry about heat. And water. Lots about water. Then you read something like this:

Her warning is timely, coming on the heels of a major medical study of endurance athletes that found drinking too much water during heavy, prolonged exercise may be an even greater threat than drinking too little.

In fact, that phenomenon has unexpectedly developed into one of the most common health threats to Grand Canyon hikers, where nearly a fifth were ending up as "water intoxication" emergencies until warnings were posted.

This year, the once-unrecognized problem made medical headlines after a study showed more than 10 percent of runners in the 2002 Boston Marathon finished the race with below-normal sodium levels, a condition called hyponatremia.

"She" is an 80-year old Tucson woman recently treated for hyponatremia. What exactly is hyponatremia, you ask? It's a condition that occurs when a human being takes in so much water that they begin to flush sodium from their system at an unhealthy rate (recall your basic chemistry and physiology):

When that happens, water enters the body's cells, which then swell. If swollen brain cells start pressing against the skull, the result is brain damage, paralysis, coma and sometimes death.

So, don't drink enough water and risk dehydration or drink too much and risk brain damage, paralysis or even death. Surely there's a better option...