So cold it hurts…

It’s been really cold this winter.

Really, really.

I haven’t tolerated it very well, to be honest.

I started out the year working very hard at not lamenting
day-in-and-day-out about how much I hate winter.
But when we started breaking wind-chill records, I started to fold.

I do believe that different people FEEL things differently. It’s why one patient needs Dilaudid and another gets by with Tylenol. While occasionally there are other factors at work, I do believe wholeheartedly that we have different thresholds for pain.

And cold?

I get REALLY annoyed when people say it’s better to be too cold,
rather than too hot. “You can always put on more layers,
but you can only get so naked…” I can see if you live
in tenement housing in 1910, or the prairies of Wisconsin in 1860…
but in my neighborhood with A/C… you can keep a house nicely cool.
But how many layers am I supposed to pile on before I cannot move?

For real. I have been wearing at least three layers a day
since early December. Not counting normal undergarments.

A tank top.
Turtleneck.
Zipper fleece.

Now – MOST days, I’ve also added a cotton
zipper jacket between the turtle neck and fleece.

And there were a few painful days where I wore
a sweater over the turtleneck, and under the fleece.

And that one day – really – I wore FIVE layers in my house.

And my house? Thermostat steadily set at 72F.

SEVENTY-TWO.

And more than once I took Tylenol because my muscles hurt from hunching and shivering all day. Sore muscles from being cold.

My family and my mom, meanwhile, found the house rather hot. Short-sleeve shirts and shorts were often seen here during the day. And the Spanish teacher commented she found it too warm in the house.