Today I was lucky. In spite of first checking in on my email and some blog posts this morning, I managed to also get to the grocery store in town and back before it started raining. We then had thunder circling around for hours; and really, really heavy rain - if I had been out in it, I would have got soaked to the skin in less than two minutes, no matter how many umbrellas.
No wonder I was feeling "under the weather" even earlier... I seem to be extremely sensitive to changes in the weather/ atmospheric pressure (??) these days, but am still having a hard time getting used to that! (Makes me feel old...) I keep wondering what I've been "doing" some days to make me feel so extra achy and miserable - and then the answer comes to me in a flash (quite literally)...
Safe and dry indoors, with the rain pouring down outside, I let myself be nailed to my bed for the worst of it this afternoon, distracting myself with a good book - the kind you just want to keep on reading but at the same time don't want to finish too fast: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I'm half way through, just hoping I won't change my mind about it at the end! The only thing I regret is getting the Swedish translation instead of the English original, because that makes it hard to quote from here...
Anyway. One of the characters in the book is a woman suffering from pain. She calls the pain her "wolf" and says the wolf attacks her especially in the hour before she is allowed to take her next dose of pain killers. I can relate to that, even though neither my pains nor my pills are of the "deadly" kind... But I believe the image will stick with me!
I'm feeling the wolf's claws in my shoulder right now so better end this post quickly.
Got some good news yesterday, though - I'm getting another 6 months period of training in the rehab pool (warm water), twice a week, starting soon. Doesn't drown the wolf, but helps keep it tamed...
Cloudy picture:
Not from today but taken by me a couple of years ago.
5 comments:
This is an angry sky but a fantastic photo. I am sorry to hear you have pain. It is a "pain" to have pain. I love lying in bed and reading a book. A luxury I am looking forward to when I retire.
I'd not really thought about changes in air pressure as a cause of being 'down'. That may explain a lot.
Mind you I would imagine that pain can be a pretty important contributing factor in feeling low. I'm sorry to hear that you have pain.
I don't think the connection increased pain vs changes in air pressure has ever been properly scientifically investigated and proved; but since I got my own chronic pain problems I've heard the same thing from lots of other patients with similar complaints. Looking back in old literature etc, I'd also say it's one of those experiences that have always been widely spread, and more or less taken for granted, especially among old people with rheumatism and similar diseases. In Swedish, we even have colloquial words for old men/women who can predict weather by their pains and aches, but I can't find a good translation. In Sweden, if I complain I've become a "vädergumma", people generally get the picture; but in English I end up with longwinded explanations like "overly weather-sensitive old woman" and it all gets much too serious before I even get to the end of the sentence...
I think I get the picture perfectly. Thanks for that explanation.
Dawn Treader...nice cloud shot. I too can feel a change when a front moves through...I do think there is a connection to how one feels. I do know that folks who have had hip or knee replacements always ache with a change in the weather.
Dan
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