It looks like the summer from hell has hit. I have to admit I am not in the mood for this, and you think after this many years of the disabled life, I'd be used to it. We have had in my neck of the woods, 100 degree temperatures for multiple days in a row. It is insane. As you all know I am housebound when it hits over 83 degrees as well as in cold too, due to a combination of COPD and asthma. Months inside are nothing new to me. After all it's one reason I get housecall doctors. But for some reason as I get older, instead of getting more used to it, it doesn't seem to get any easier.
I went out to eat with a friend when it was on the border temperature, we went out early in the morning and I coughed and wheezed all the way home, but this stuff, when it's a soup pot outdoors, it is scary for those of us with respiratory disorders. Just walking into air like that within a minute or two, will have me with the lungs struggling. One thing when you can't breath and the oxygen sinks low and the phlegm rises, it brings terrible panic. Sucking it up, doesn't work in that. I am scared for people in all the places without air conditioning. I wonder if the people in my sort of health conditions can get help. I have been in places in the winter where there was no power where I feared for my life and breathing.
Having the apartment window air conditioner on for full blast for hours and hours. has kept it at a bearable 81-82 degrees in the apartment. Yes it is that hot. There is also some crazy drought which my area of the country very rarely sees that has sun and fire-blasted every single blade of grass into yellow straw. My mood feels as just as dry and rusted out.
So life for me has come to a stand still most of this summer. When the weather breaks I pop out, I did a presentation at a self help group I was in acouple weeks ago, but then the door slams back shut! So it is a strange way to live life.
It's kind of difficult, I have to admit feelings of ennui and isolation lately. Sometimes going on a social website can be a torturous event watching people seem unable to feel heat, not letting 100 degrees stop them from doing anything. You wonder, "Was I ever that healthy"? I think in my case I never was.
I have had some people visit me, a couple friends so that has been nice, and kept things bearable but you feel apart from life. It is painful. The small pleasures of life get stripped away, no groups, no time outdoors. I have this ongoing fantasy of a 50 degree day, my favorite temperatures, and a cool wind blowing wearing a sweater but not too cold. LOL. I have had periods of time when I have been inside 90 days straight. The weather is growing worse, no matter if you believe it's global warming or not. Mild is not the word anyone could use to describe the weather anymore.
So I write, do poetry and other art projects to try and distract myself. But it's hard to explain the pain and how the isolation troubles a person. I hate being housebound even with the years of having to deal with this. I built up an "indoor life" that has a lot of Internet connections, hobbies, phone calls and art projects to keep me going but I have noticed when I hit the 2-3 week mark of this nonsense with no let-up or break in it all, I start getting very antsy. I missed too many things over the last few weeks from a disability meeting to a self help meeting to not being able to visit an art center. It could be worse, I at least have my husband in here, but the feelings of "missing out" definitely are there.
See:
"Housebound Fat People"
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