Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Hot Flashes Are NOT Fun

I was rather hoping they'd be long gone by now, it's been 5 months since radiation was done.

What's a hot flash like? Well let me tell you...

It's this huge wave of heat that crashes over you. At first you don't feel hot. In fact your limbs can be little blocks of ice, so cold that the feet feel like they are burning with frost bite. Then suddenly the body begins to go into "too hot" panic mode and all your cells start vibrating at once and sweat burst from every available pore on your body. You don't know hot n' sweaty until you've felt your shins gush (so weird).

All you can do at this point is pant, make yourself as big as possible (maximizing your surface area for evaporation) and fan. It only last for about 5 minutes, but that's 5 minutes of gasping, choking heat that could just about make you throw up!

Hot flashes are always followed by a ridiculous chill. Now that you're covered from head to toe in a sheen of sweat there's no way of putting a halt to the bodies cooling system. It can take up to 1/2 an hour to regain a normal balanced temperature. But be ware, the moment you realized that you are comfortable, that's when the next hot flash will kick in! I spend all day either wrapped in a blanket or pulling on a sweater... or visa versa.

And it's not just by day - nights are crazy too. For the past couple of nights I've been waking every 2 hours tangled in my soaked night shirt and burning up. I'll just be drifting off again when I realized I'm shivering cold and can't get bundled tight enough.

I sure hope this ends soon.