Today it is not that cold, the windows in my Today it is not that cold, the windows in my bedroom are not frozen. I feel cold though. The electric blanket nor hot water bag help me through the cold night. Going to bed is no fun. Cotton wool in my ears to prevent the earache, a hat that I lose during the night, a fleece blanket over my pillow with the sides folded around my head. Nothing worse than cold on the head, brains that literally creak.
I am forced to lie still, as still as possible on my back. A painful back that made me sleep on my left side for over 20 years and shovel a few steps a day. Of course, I try to turn around, shift my head a few inches. It's all good for losing the blanket, hat and cotton wool.
My eyes ... since weeks I suffer from itchy eyeballs, red veins, swollen and inflamed eyelids ... the eyelashes at one eyelid have disappeared but the inflammation remains. I try to keep them closed, cover them in bed although the pressure of the cotton cloth hurts. The blanket over my head feels a bit warmer but my body remains cold.
My feet, ankles covered by warm socks with a Christmas print, are still not warm after hours in bed.
Outbursts. Chills followed by heat, hot flashes that make me jump and wait in the freezing cold for them to pass.
When will it stop? It does not stop, but it's a recurring thing about four times an hour. Heat attacks followed by shivering from the cold. I don't like to be smelly, cold sweat... it's literally frozen. You don't get much warmer in a sweaty soaked "pyjama".
The sunglasses I wear in a dark house cause inflammation of the skin, eczema where it touches my face. A result that will keep me busy for the next six weeks and when I wake up I am exhausted, exhausted and glad that I no longer have to go to school. Sorry, but I can't anymore.
While still in bed I touch my bone-dry skin. "I need to use body lotion again", I think and "how come my stomach feels so cold I am underneath a blanket. Isn't a cold belly a sign of hypothermia with babies?"
Dehydrated. No matter how many times I drink, I am dehydrated. My eyes, skin, ears, nose and mouth are dehydrated and nothing changes this fact. A lifelong problem that I keep struggling with and no doctor has an answer or even responds to it. They don't know how I feel or play dumb.
"Don't whine, complain, you live with it for so long you know what to do."
Is it nagging when you can't open your eyes? If eyelids are glued to your eyeballs, you have fissures in your nose and mouth, skin that sounds like sandpaper, suffer from ear pain due to a lack of moisture and eye inflammation for the same reason. I drink and drink, walk up and down to the toilet, but drinking doesn't help. Thinking back, this is not a problem that just arose but it's going on for at least 25 years. A long time in which the pleasure slowly fades and staying alive, functioning a little bit, is the biggest battle. The question is why? Why should I bother?
"Hold on for a few more years", I promise myself, "in a few more years they will be fine, they have each other and the dogs... they died."
Blind as I am, I grab for the bottle of eye drops. My eyeballs feel strange behind the closed limbs. My fingers scrape, search for an opening, the bottle hits my eyeball. One drop is enough ... should be enough to open my eyes. It works but also runs down my face like a silent tear. The tears I've been missing for years. The bottle is almost empty and so am I. Empty. Old and forgotten by everyone. The useless human who can no longer do anything, locked up in memories and only the old dog still cares about.
I read somewhere that the cold may have some effect on it but I'm not entirely sure since exposure to cold is basically like exposure to dry wind