For some unfathomable reason, I woke up at 4:00 am this morning soaking wet with sweat and feeling like I was in a toaster oven. We had left the a/c running so it was cool in the house, but I was still frying hot. The wife got up and turned the air down even more in an attempt to cool me down so I could get back to sleep. I suspect I subjected her to a good round of goosebumps before I gave up and got out of bed.Thinking I surely must be running a fever, i got up and grabbed our little battery operated thermometer and held it to my temple. When it finally beeped I looked at it in shock.
97.2! What the snap?
How could my body temperature be so low if I felt so hot?
Holy freaking snap on a cold turkey leg, what was this all about?
It made me want to do my English Bobby imitation. "Ere' now! What's all this, then?"
It was a mystery.
I felt better and cooler a little while later but the whole waking up after three hours of sleep thing tended to make the day drag on just a tad.
And to top it off they sent me down to 9 yard to play with the wobbleheads. It got somewhere in the low 90's this afternoon with nine million percent humidity. It was so steamy and hot if I were a Vietnam vet I'd be having flashbacks.
The 9 yard shack has a/c but since the shack itself is only the size of a phone booth you freeze once you step inside. Mostly because if you're standing, it's blowing in your face. And if you sit, it blows right on the back of your head. And every time I stepped back outside my glasses fogged up. What a pain!
I was grouchy and hot and irritable and trying hard not to be grouchy and hot and irritable to everyone else and not having much luck.
And if this post ever had a point to it, it's completely evaded me. I have not a freaking clue where I was going with this.
Sorry.
I'll just go check the calendar and get out of here before I embarrass myself further.
Tuesday is going to shine bright and be National Chocolate Ice Cream Day. Not a big chocolate ice cream fan myself, but maybe I'll put a big blob of it under my hat to keep me cool.
This is merely a technical observation, Rev, but you can’t determine body temperature by applying a thermometer to your forehead. If you could, a doctor wouldn’t trouble his patients by inserting one in their mouth or elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteWhen the ambient temperature is low, your body purposely leaves your skin cold to minimise heat loss.
As to whether your body would adopt the same strategy whilst you were running a fever ... dunno.
I would like to hear your English Bobby imitation. I would like even more to see English Bobbies still around who said things like that. They don’t even wear the good old uniforms. Now it’s flak jackets with POLICE on the back, at any rate round here. I live in a town famous for breeding terrorists. That’s one of the reasons I can’t reveal where it is, for fear of helpful air strikes by our partners in the Special Relationship, or as our Prime Minister recently renamed it, the “essential relationship”. My house is a few yards from the mosque.
I usually get the chills when I'm running a fever. I started shivering violently.
ReplyDeleteWhen your body temperature is lower you're more sensitive to heat. So it's normal that you'd feel hotter with a lower body temperature.
ReplyDeleteThe question is...why was your body temperature that low? Clearly that's not normal for you or you wouldn't say anything about it.
I like chocolate ice cream. It's my favorite flavor.
Hot flashes???
ReplyDeleteVincent- These new thermometers are supposed to be pretty accurate, or so they claim. Don't have a clue how it does work, though. My bobby imitation is based alot on the cops from the movie "A Hard Days Night" with the Beatles. With maybe a little Monty Python mixed in with it. I've always loved the British inflections. I'd always thought it would be nice to live in a place where the police didn't carry guns. Too bad that's not the case anymore.
ReplyDeleteBryan- I tend to go back and forth from chills to sweats. This time I just got the sweats. Maybe it was just a bad dream or something.
Chanel- Your explanation seems to fit the best. My body does some odd things. Echoing the odd things in my brain, I suppose.
Asha- Maybe I'm menopausal? Should I go buy a sports car and get a 20 year old mistress? Man, I don't have the money for all of that.