Heat and Pain

Seattle is in the midst of a heatwave.  I know for many parts of the country and the rest of the planet, high eighties and mid-nineties seem like a cool breeze, but we are acclimated to mid-sixties and seventies in the summer.  Mostly, we are acclimated to rain, with a few eighties now and then.  This is torture.  Few of us have air conditioning and fans cannot be found in stores anywhere.  My brother, bless his heart, convinced a guy at Home Depot (bless them) to let him pre-pay with his credit card for one that was on order for them.  Seattle hasn’t seen this ever.   Not for this long.  A year and a half of warm weather.   I want the dreariness back, even though that is painful for me as well (physically).

It’s a free standing one that you vent out the window and it has saved me from further torture.  Took my brother and his wife two hours to get it in!   I am so blessed to have a family that cares about me.  Between the pain and the heat, I have been going insane.  Mostly with worry over the planet and climate change.  Anyone who thinks it isn’t real needs to get an education.  And I’m not talking about the increase in the temperature.  That isn’t climate change, but part of the fall-out from it.   Watching documentaries on nature and knowing what we have done to this planet is sickening to me.  That’s my rant.

The heat has made the pain worse, because everything swells up.  I don’t know, truth be told, and should stop trying to figure it out.  It is what it is.  And it hurts.  I just read another article on Huffington Post about assisted suicide and the lack most states allowing it.  I wrote to one of the contributors of the article about how, even with states that allow it, it leaves out a huge population of people who don’t have a terminal illness which will kill them fast, but rather, a chronic condition that will kill them eventually, usually slowly and painfully.

The former is better for the patient, though they may not agree at the time. The latter may be better for loved ones in terms of having you around, but then, watching you suffer is no joy.   And it’s really no joy for the patient.