Warning about dust...

[Cooter]

For those that have never been, if you have lung issues or any other issues with immune system, etc. it is a good idea to bring along a bandana or dust mask. you can't really see it when you are in the festival grounds, but the air is really dirty! the best way to understand this is to look at your car at the end of the night. all that and more is what you have been breathing in all day.

a little story: i have a lung disease and after coachella '04 i came home and felt really junky, was coughing up a lot of nastiness. a week afterwards, on the night of cinco de mayo, i ended up bursting a blood vessel in my lungs. got up to go to the bathroom at about 3am and it suddenly felt like a sprinkler went off inside my chest. ended up coughing up close to a cup of blood over the next half hour. luckily the hospital is right down the street from my house, so we were able to get there quickly. the scariest part, though, is that i was told if the bleeding didn't stop on it's own there is not much they can do to stop it and that death can be a result.

so please take care of yourself and be aware of what you can't really see! especially if you are older or have some older folks coming with you, that dust can cause serious infections.

the most traumatic part of the night? it wasn't the possibility of bleeding to death, it was sitting on the stairs yelling for help and seeing my naked father come running down them towards me. not a view anyone needs to see....ever.

[Rose]

thanks for the tip cooter. It was really windy here yesterday. I hear it's bad in indio right now. Do they predict winds for this upcoming weekend? I have access to some really good face masks at work (construction).

[Kymery]

Good info Cooter, thank you!! my son had that happen a couple weeks ago, after working on a very dusty job site. He wore a mask from then on.

[tgcali]

Thanks Cooter. Glad you're doing ok now. I'll grab a couple of the masks we used during the fires and tuck them into my backpack I'm going to carry.