The Unexpected Bad Days

If you ever been to Southern Illinois, you know the truth in the statement, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”
Two years ago when I first tried to start this blog, I was having a pretty bad summer all around. I was seriously broke and I found out my MS meds had screwed with my blood chemistry and liver functions, leaving me depressed and sick. On the upside, the MS itself was not flaring up.
We had a horribly hot summer and I thought at the time that maybe I was the odd man out in autoimmune diseases, because I felt best when I could open the windows and door and get some fresh air. I kept the air condition set near 80 that summer to keep my bills down.
Since then, I’ve realized that it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. Yup, it sounds like an old cliché, but I have found it’s true. This summer we have had about 4 inches more rain than normal and the humidity has consistently been high. That summer, though the heat was miserable, it was a dry summer. Not quite a drought, but definitely more dry than normal.
So, the difference is that this summer, I am feeling the MS much more than usual. Yesterday, I stood in the park for about forty minutes talking with Theresa and Emily. We were just standing, but man was I worn out when we were done. I still had errands to run, including the much dreaded trip to Wal-Mart. By the time I got home, my back was seizing up and my limp very pronounced.
It was a tough day.
Days like that, when I am parking half a football field away and then wandering through the Super Wal-Mart is exceedingly painful. The use of the shopping cart to help maintain my balance makes me angry as I am too damn young to feel this crippled. Bending to grab something off the bottom shelf become a joke that isn’t funny and all I really want out of lie at that moment are heavy duty painkillers. I make due with Tylenol and ignore the fact that it can combine with the MS medicine to give me liver troubles. Easing the pain so I can walk is all that matters in that moment.
Today, the rain is pouring from the skies, but the humidity and heat combination is packing less of a punch. I can walk today.
Tomorrow is looking good too, but on Tuesday the temperature is supposed to jump to the mid-90s and with all this fresh water around, the humidity will be high. I think Tuesday I need to stay indoors.