"I am not a delicate flower!"...

...or so my friend Zabet is often heard to quote. I fear, however, that I am. Indeed, I may be a zone 8 flower in a zone 6 world (I grew up on an Air Force base outside Shreveport, Louisiana). In the last 24 hours our temperatures have fallen from a respectable spring-like 65 to the low '20s, with forecasts down to 10 in the next day or so. I feel like I have been stomped, hacked on, flash frozen, and then arranged in a pretty vase and expected to look fresh.

I woke up this morning not able to move. I was feeling fine last night, even went to bed a little early, and this morning everything--my sinuses, my neck, my fingers, and each and every separate bone in my feet hurt. My cell phone was next to me--it hurt to hold it, but I was able to call work. I know that sounds pathetic and whiny, but it's true. Think about the worst case of flu you've ever had and double it, then keep in mind you could literally feel that way whenever you woke up. I've been through this a lot, it's fibromyalgia, or as my friends put it "fibrous migraines". They tend to kid me because I do seem to attract weird syndromes, and I've droned on too much about them in the past. Usually, I can laugh off a little chronic pain. Today, I just tried to sleep through it. I slept until 1 pm, ate a little and slept more. I also seem to have a sinus infection, and I'm not sure if the CPAP could make that worse. And I'm on my period. Not that the masses out there care about that tidbit of information, but I wish somewhere along the way someone would have pointed out to me that one of the problems with being female is that your immune system goes haywire during your 'time of the month'. It took me awhile working in a hospital full of older women where I was getting sick (this apparently happens whenever you start a job in a hospital--new germs come into play) every month like clockwork. I've never seen it written in print, but all the older and wiser women out there seem to know it as fact....

Okay. I'll stop ranting and go back to sleep. It's nearly midnight and some of the pain's let up, although everything (including my hands) is numb and stiff, so I'm making lots of typos. Maybe tomorrow will be better. It usually takes about a day to adjust to the new pressure/temp and then I'm okay again. My boss called me right after I woke up this afternoon, and I told her how I felt, but it sounds so silly to say, well, it's raining/sleeting, and now I can't function. Fortunately she's a sympathetic boss. Sigh. Here's to tomorrow. I hope spring comes soon....