Way to hot!

So, I have had enough of the heat.  You will never find me complaining about the cold.  Yes, sometimes it makes me hurt a bit, but honestly, I would rather have to add another layer of clothing or some thermal underwear than to deal with the 100 + degree weather and the 99 % humidity.  It is horrible when even with air conditioning, you can sit inside your house and sweat.  I can not imagine what it would be like to have no air conditioning, or heaven forbid, be that person having to work outside.  I walk out my front door, and immediately I am soaking wet with sweat.   I can not drink enough water to keep myself hydrated to make a difference.  Before long my face is bright red and the sweat has stopped, apparently nothing left to sweat, hello,  all of the water is just hanging in the air.  All this occurred in the 25 steps from my front door to my car, lol.  Thank goodness for air conditioned cars and that is actually works. I had to drive from Delaware at the beach where I live to visit my family in Pennsylvania, where I am from.  Oh yeah, beach is not cool when it is that hot.  Sand makes it about 100 times hotter, you can actually get blisters on your feet.  You can not look cute, while trying to avoid burning your feet on the sand, to try and get to the water, which by now is also boiling.  Ok, guess you have the picture, lol.
Ok, back to the car, I am now in my car, with the ac on at full blast. I am driving and in the first 20 minutes of my travels, my son and I notice even the cars are fighting back from the heat.  One of them has caught fire and now, the volunteers of the local fire department are desperately trying to cool it off and kill the flames that are trying to take over.  No one was hurt, and thank goodness for the brave men and women who give up their time to help others, and of course on this particular day, there ability to stay cool.  I am thinking at this point screw the car, turn the hose on yourself and stay cool, only problem is since they have to use a special foam to put the fire out, so no water, just heat, man, we sure don't need that.
So, as we get through this disaster, traffic breaks and we start rolling.  Music is going, conversation is good and we just keep trekking.  My son is excited about going up "home" to visit his friends.  He is telling me that they are thinking about walking downtown that night when we get there, hanging outside.  I am thinking, you are completely off your rocker, but I always think in means of my disease, my meds, everything has changed because of that.  When I was 15, I probably would have done the same thing.    Then as we are driving a little while my son says, "mom, look at that" and points at my cars external thermometer.  It is now reading 108 degrees.  Yeah it is only getting better.  It was the highest it reached, 108,  but for a bit, I honestly thought I lived in Hell.    We finally made it to PA, only stopping once at a roadside fruitstand to grab a watermelon fro my son's friends family, but just that few minutes out of the car was enough.  I was now trying to derive a vision of how to make a air conditioned expandable and flexible hallway so I will not have to step our of the air conditioning again.  Ok, yeah, I know, I can dream.  Well, let me say, the entire weekend was primarily the same.  To hot to breath, but I did what I could.  Sunday, I did go to a Memorial Motorcycle ride for a friend of mine who past away in March.  Over 394 motorcycles taking a ride to memorialize a wonderful man who past away at the age of 36, way before he should have.  An awesome sight to see.  Plus I got to take my grandson with me and he had a ball seeing all the motorcycles.   I am incredibly tired and worn out.  I am hoping the heat breaks, but all in all this weekend was good.  Now, if I can get through this next week which will be difficult due to the loss of a very dear friend a year ago on Wednesday.  I will be sharing pictures of the awesome memorial ride soon.  And of course tomorrow is Ten on Tuesday.  Thinking of the top ten ways to cool off!!!!.  Til the next time people, gentle hugs!

HOT!

So it is only the beginning of June and we here in Delaware are in the beginning of our second supposed heat wave.  I am totally not cool with this, no pun intended.  I am sure you are all aware major weather changes wreck havoc on your pain levels and high heat kills me.  It wears me out so quickly, and no matter what I do, it makes recovery back to my more normal (if you can ever use that word to describe yourself,) self a long and drawn out process.  I sometimes wonder what is worse, the hot or the cold weather.  Well honestly, I have an answer.  I have to say the hot weather for me is absolutely the worst.  At least in cold weather you can continue to add on layers until you are warm, but when it is hot, being naked is as bare as you can get, and being in water to cool off helps, but only to an extent and then at some point that no longer helps.  Plus, I do think the town would very much frown at me slowly limping and waddling through completely naked dowsing myself with water stay cool.  It would definitely scare away our large summer vacationers that help keep our town running, plus it may get me in a bit of trouble and of course would definitely mean I would need a whole lot more pain meds to be unstable enough to go outside my house naked, LOL.  So what the heck do you do?  Well, first off, pray the air conditioning equipment in your home, whatever it may be, does not decide to take a crap on you.  God knows with all the money we spend on medicine and doctors we have no money for repairing that stuff.  Eat only cold and frozen stuff, I guess that  would help, but can't see my family being fine with me plopping the chicken still frozen on their plate for dinner and say ok let's eat, nor will the doctor be fine with me having Ice cream sundaes or sno cones for 3 meals a day all summer long. (now that, the kids may like.)   How about living in the bathtub or shower, well, not only will it make you very wrinkly, you won't get much done, and it could sky rocket your water bill.  So so far I am still stuck with just praying, which works, I do that alot.  I guess you can pray for rain to lower the temperature, but with that comes its own risk of pain issues.  You can use a rag to keep the back of your neck cool, that will  help some, but again, will need to be repeated and you won't be able to do it all the time.  Well it seems like we are stuck back at the fact that summer is here and we are going to have to deal with the heat.  Let me just remind you of a few very important things to remember,

1.  Drink, drink and drink some more.  Remember that your body will only show it is thirsty when it is in dire need, just because you are not thirsty, does not mean you don't need to drink.  Water is the best, but green tea with a little sugar can help too.  Green tea is known to help reduce the pain so if you are not a huge water person, go ahead and make some homemade green tea.

2.  Stay inside between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm.  This is the hottest time of the day.  If you need to be out, be in the shade as much as possible and follow the instructions in #1

3. Don't over do it people, we know what that leads to.  Take care of yourself and listen to your body, when you are tired, sit, relax, or go home and do more tomorrow.  What good are you gonna be if you are stuck in bed not being able to do anything or worse, in the hospital?

4. Heat can make you feel nauseated, eat little bits at a time.  Not eating will make you weak or cause problems for the host of other illnesses that you have.

I am not a doctor, but I have been through crazy hot summers before.  I have had to deal with this stupid illness during heat waves as well as blizzards.  I simply like to help when I can and I worry about my fellow spoonies, because we have to stick together.  I wish I could say if you do this then you will not hurt at all and you summer will be a piece of cake, but I can not.  I can tell you that you have to give yourself a break and realize that if you don't take care of yourself, then no one else will.  Enjoy the summer to the best of your ability, eat the good stuff, fresh fruits and veggies in season, make smore's and tell stories. I would also love to hear what you do to cool off or stay cool.

Me, I keep wondering, how bad can Alaska really be???????