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Hiding From the Sun


Even with my blinds closed. Even with my sunglasses on. Even with the doors closed to brighter rooms. I'm still desperately trying to evade contact with the natural light that pours into my apartment.

I have yet to discover a way to mount curtains around these awful blinds to prevent light coming through the sides.

Everyone LOVES summertime. I mean who wouldn't love the warm temperatures, tan skin, long days at the beach, fun alcoholic beverages... the list goes on and on.

I certainly would love those things if they didn't make everything about my condition worse.

The hot weather, and yes even 80 degrees is sometimes too hot for me to handle... forces my patterns of behavior to change dramatically.

If I want to run an errand? I better have 3 bottles of water with me.

The heat dehydrates me much quicker than normal.

The heat causes the pulsing sensation to get much worse.

Heat stroke? Oh yeah. Every time I get in my car, I come close to hyperventilating. It feels like my airways are simply closing up.

The heat changes my body too. My eating habits haven't changed, but I rarely have an appetite and my stomach is swollen... but I'm not bloated or anything, the heat just makes it happen.

I ventured out today to the post office. I had to wear longer pants because yesterday the sun hitting my bare legs in the car created a painful rash, worsened by exposure to heat/sunlight.

The 2 minute walk from my car to the post office door was dreadful. It was barely 76 degrees but the sun was beating down.

I needed to run a few more errands, but that short exposure has me calling it quits for the day.

Heat makes my fatigue much more intense.

I don't even try to count the amount of times I've simply just collapsed from being in the heat.

It happened a lot more in South Carolina. I remember almost dying because I was forced to wait on a table outside in the 110 degree weather wearing long black pants and a long black sleeve shirt. I quit that job shortly after.

But now here I am, living up north.

In case you haven 't been outside this month, the entire country was hit with a lengthy heat wave. Even here the heat index was well into the hundreds...

Of course I'll make some comment about how hot it is outside.

Yet, people talk about me as if I love this hot humid weather.

Its a constant "oh she's from the south she's used to this" or "feels like home, yeah?"

No.

I quite literally uprooted my life because I was sick of not being able to function properly for 6 months out of the year because of the heat.

So it being this hot up here, isn't good for me. Its painful. Its exhausting. And I can't seem to figure out how to just turn the sun down.

I wish I could enjoy this weather, but summer is one of the hardest seasons for me.

So here I am today, hiding under a pile of blankets and pillows, fighting off this horrid migraine (a storm is coming thank god at least it'll be cloudy soon) AC blasting. Perhaps I'll spend some time researching towns where the sun doesn't come out... I probably won't have much luck, but hey its worth a look.

P.S. Fall is in 51 days. Halloween is in 111 days :)

A.

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