This post really struck a chord with me. Nearly half a dozen times following summer weekends at “camp” (a Maine term for what the rest of the country knows as a cottage), I found myself just about immobilized by fatigue. I assumed I had overdone it by having company, having too much fun, or that the week that preceeded the weekend was much tougher than I had thought. The fact that those circumstances were accompanied by 90+ degree heat was simply not a fact for consideration. It wasn’t until I was in my neurologist’s office and she mentioned how difficult the heat had been for her MS patients that I put it together: I had been felled by heat and humidity. It just hadn’t occurred to me until then that being so weary was connected to the weather. We don’t normally have summers of such suffocating heat here in Maine, so I hadn’t experienced the effects before. I know heat can be a problem, but I never thought through how it would manifest itself.
The timing of this realization is good. In the 12 years since my diagnosis, I’ve convinced myself that MS doesn’t impact my life much beyond the three shots I take a week. Combined with some cognitive changes, I am just now starting to cope with having multiple sclerosis. “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” is going to be interesting this year!
I don’t often read Momentum, but the article on your blog caught my attention. This is my first visit – but I enjoyed your writing and your perspective. I’ll be back!
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