Burning Man: Burn Night

Our intentions for Burn night:

– Have a more formal commitment ceremony at our camp at sunset, with our campmates and friends as witnesses (last year, it was completely private between Chris and I).
– Walk to the Man in our magnificent wedding gear that created for us.
– I would wear stuff under my gown suitable for spinning fire in, and spin at the base of the man.

What actually happened:

Chris woke up feeling nauseous and unable to keep food or fluids down. The wind and dust picked up by late morning. He wasn’t feeling too well, and wasn’t shaking it. Normally, this isn’t a huge concern – you just let it pass. But in the desert, staying on top of hydration is critical. If you can’t keep fluids down, you can’t keep hydrated. If you can’t keep hydrated, it’s a lost battle quickly.

Campmate then asked for use of our wifi signal to help figure out what was wrong with her car. When she arrived, it was apparent she was a bit too frazzled to do much surfing, so I got campmate involved – who graciously helped her get things back up and running.

While all of this is happening, the BRC post office arrives with a postcard saying we have a package waiting for us at the post office, and I *had* to get there that day to pick it up. I checked on Chris, and then headed down on bike. After getting through the moody postal system, I signed for a box sent by . I rush back to camp to check on Chris, and noticed that an EMT friend of one of our campmates was visiting, so I asked him to check on Chris. He decided to send down someone more qualified to check his vitals. It’s determined that Chris is borderline dehydrated at this point – but given that we have air conditioning, it may be most comofortable to keep him in the trailer and try to hydrate him there. But, if he’s not better in an hour – call for medical transport.

I then open the box I received, and it was certainly a brightspot in a rather chaotic day.

Many thanks to for this unexpected spot of joy that included a funky hat, socks, candy, jewelery and most importantly – cookies!!

The dust and wind progressed and was on the verge of total white out. Chris continued to not keep anything down, so I called up on to assist again, this time to go to medical and get transport while I caretook of Chris.

A vehicle arrived, she checked Chris’ vitals, and diagnosed him as possibly moderately dehydrated – it was time to get him to the REMSA medical tent for an IV.

Chris and I spent the next 5 hours in the medical tent pumping 4 liters of fluids into him (technically, if 3 liters doesn’t do it – they’re supposed to transport to Reno – thank goodness they bent the rules for us). The first two hours ended up during a shift change – and as dehydtration is not the most exciting or critical of cases coming in, we kept getting pushed aside with cups of gatorade. Until I finally batted my eye lashes and told the doctor that we were supposed to be having our committment ceremony in 30 minutes! That got them hopping.. and we received excellent attention and care.

We resigned ourselves that the playa had different intentions for us with our ceremony – so we again did a private ceremony in the medical tent with an IV hooked into Chris’ arm – a true test of ‘in sickness and health’. We held it at approximately sunset (hard to tell in the middle of a white out in a huge tent), and hoped our campmates and friends had gotten the word as to what was up.

Chris was released around 10p, and they gave us a lift back to camp. I got the ring out that I was planning to give to Chris during our ceremony and presented it to him. We then cuddled up in bed, watching the glow of the man burn out our window. We both slept for what felt like forever.

I found out in the morning that no one did fire dancing this year due to the weather.

Sometimes, things don’t go as planned. It’s much easier to make the best of it and find the beauty and joy in what life presents you.