Snowbird

Well, my devoted Cake Eater readers, I am no longer in Minneapolis. I am currently dictating this post from the comfort of my sister's dining room table in her home outside of Austin, Texas.  

The weather in Minneapolis, currently, is 6° and sunny. They might get some snow later in the day.  The weather here in Austin, currently, is 59° and sunny, so it is fairly comfortable here. And hopefully it will help my hands to recover.

Basically, I had to go south for the winter. I am a snowbird---at age thirty-eight.  Sigh.  

Since the problem cropped up over Christmas, I've been in touch with Dr. Academic, who had never heard of neuropathies causing anyone's hands to swell and joints to ache before; he sent me to a neurologist, who thought I had Raynaud's Phenomenon, but who was wrong.  The guy who judged him to be in the wrong was a rheumatologist to whom the neurologist had referred me.  The rheumatologist couldn't find anything wrong with me other than a slight vitamin D deficiency---as in I was three points below normal---hence he said to take more vitamin D, to call him in six weeks to see if it solved the problem, and then bounced me back to Dr. Academic. Sigh.   I've been trying a drug called neurontin since the beginning of the year, and while it actually does help with the nerve pain, it also causes me to go cross-eyed.  Which sucks. I tried the same drug last year, with the same results, but Doctor Academic wanted to give it another try and hence we did but with the same results.  Completely out of options, he wished me a happy winter south of the Mason Dixon line, and told me to call in case I needed anything.

This was the husband's idea. He's tired of watching me be in pain, and since the only time the neuropathies have completely gone away was last summer, it seemed logical to give warm weather another shot to see if the warmth would send them back into stasis.  They really sucks when you don't have any options left, and this trip down south is our version of a Hail Mary pass.  One can only hope it works, because, quite frankly, I'm sick of this. I'm not expecting overnight relief, but hopefully with time, I can start living pain- free---you know, at least in my hands.

I don't have to be back in the Twin Cities until the middle of March, because that's when I have my three month checkup with Dr. Academic. I put it off as long as I could, but that's the deadline.  Fortunately,  I can work from anywhere and hopefully this will help me become more productive, and healthier. We'll just have to see.  Right now, I'm just happy I can go outside without a coat, hat, scarf and gloves.  How novel.   I will bounce over to Florida for a couple of weeks to see my parents, who are currently living the high life in Bonita Springs for the month of February and who have graciously offered me one of the four bedrooms the house in which they're currently residing has.  After that, who knows what the plan will be.  I might come back to Austin.  I might go home.  It all just depends on how this plan works. 

As far as this "treatment" is concerned, well, you could do a lot worse than sitting outside in the sun on the second day in February in a polar fleece and jeans.