Day 16 Riga, Latvia - Warm Day, Frozen Insulin

Joan's View

Waking up, Tony started right in on revising the bike routes. Once again, it looks like it's either highway or gravel roads, and as much beating as the bike took, we are doing the highways. 

I researched what to sightsee during the day after Tony made headway on the routes. Somewhere in the morning, I ate my breakfast and got out the remaining red currants to put on my roll, but they were frozen. I checked the other food in the fridge along with my Sprite Zero and it was all frozen. I noticed some ice crystals forming in my Sprite Zero last night so I turned down the fridge, at least I thought I did, so that Tony's insulin stayed safe. Now, one of Tony's insulin bottles was frozen and the other may have been compromised. Tony texted our favorite doctor, Dr. Wolters, and asked her to call when she got a chance. It was 5am in Sidney and she just happened to wake up early so she called Tony. They agreed that the frozen one was unusable and the other full one was taking a risk if it would work at all. If we are out in the middle of nowhere, which happens frequently on this trip, Tony would be seriously at risk. Cara said that we have to get a prescription from a Latvian doctor though to get more insulin. Tony did a search and there was a family doctor fairly close. We walked there, but the receptionists did not speak English and seemed unable to find someone that did speak English. Tony then showed her google translator that read, "I need a prescription for insulin." The lady immediately stood up and escorted us to another room with an English speaking doctor. The doctor talked to Tony right away and searched for an insulin prescription through her little book of prescriptions. The only insulin they have in Latvia is in pen form, no vials like Tony uses to load his pump. She asked for Tony's passport and wrote a prescription that we needed to take to a pharmacy, aka aptieka in Latvian. At the first aptieka, the pharmacist/technician said that they do not have that kind of pen and none of their affiliates stock it. She recommended some other aptiekas. We started out and found another one closer to the university. It was small and some older gentleman was at the counter a long time, so we moved on. At the next Aptieka, we hit the jackpot! The pharmacist/technician did not have that dosage of insulin, but spent quite a bit of time calling around to find one that did. She was our hero for the day! 

The aptieka that we needed to get the insulin reserved for Tony was a 45 minute walk farther. We hiked more and picked up the new insulin, $34 Euro later. The doctor never charged us by the way. She said it was an emergency. Another example of a world full of kind people.

Got it!

From there and around 3:30, we decided to head back to the one restaurant that we passed so that we could sit outside and enjoy the warm weather. Tony celebrated with another beer tasting and we devoured some delicious entrees. 

Our next stop was to find an insulated bag to keep the new insulin pens cool while we are biking since Tony has a special pouch for his two vials that holds only those vials. We stopped in at one of my favorite stores, Lidl. Tony found a bag for his insulin and we both found some other goodies as well. 😁

Escalators for the carts at Lidl stores!

We were still looking for a small icepack to keep the insulin cool in the new bag. Tony had the great idea to get a small juice bottle and freeze it. I thought a juice box would have less chance of bursting when it froze, so we had to ask Chatgpt to get the answer.

Walking back to the Airbnb, we got a photo of the main entrance to the university. 

Riga has been kind to us!

Tony's Extras

What an adventure. Another thing that we have never dealt with arose today. I thought that after having some success of redoing the bicycle routes from 7:00am to noon, things were going great. We were planning to head to the Latvian Museum under Soviet Suppression and then we had frozen Insulin. First thing was to ask AI. It said Insulin is not safe after frozen. I still believe that the full bottle might not have been frozen, so there was a chance to make it to the Museum. Cara made a good point though. When I change my pump tomorrow morning and the insulin is bad, it has now gone from an inconvenience to an emergency. 

So we were off to go to the doctor and a pharmacy. After 14,000 steps later, many stops and google map researches we had the proper insulin. What caused the problem for all you diabetic nerds (aka Wade)? The insulin in Latvia only comes in pens and more importantly they don't usually have U100, they only have U200. U200 is twice as strong and would take my body a little time to adjust and make the Basel rates out of whack. There is more to it, but for the non-diabetic nerds, I decided not to bother you.

When having a beer, a bee decided to have some too. Joan got a spoon to get the bee out. You know, I didn't want the bee to get too drunk and steal my beer, so I scooped it out and set it in the plants beside us. 

Joan decided to get a picture of the bee staggering on the plant and to show everyone that it was still alive and feeling good. Speaking of feeling good, it will feel good to get back on track bicycling tomorrow, with new places to stay, new routes and a bicycle back to working condition again.