A chilling episode

When I first met my husband he was always wearing a jacket no matter how hot it was. I didn’t really notice because we were mostly in air-conditioned places with many people laughing and singing. I think I began to notice when we started going to Mass together. He told me he often had these “chills.” “Chills” to me meant feeling so cold you tremble, your teeth rattle and all you want to do is curl up under your thickest blankets and wait for your fever to break. I never saw him doing that.

 Apparently “chills” to him means a sudden cold feeling around his chest and back. The coldness “stabs” him, maybe like a hundred icicles. The stabbing gives him pain. Fortunately, these stabbing spells don’t last very long though they last long enough to bother him terribly. Then he breaks out in a sweat, changes his shirt and... waits for the next stabbing session to come again. Since the quarantine I observed he changes his T-shirts four to five times a day. Once he sweats he puts them in the wash so our poor laundrywoman has a lot of washing to do.

“When did this start?” I asked. “Maybe six years ago,” he says. He has been to many doctors in search of a possible cure but no one has gotten rid of it. The last one prescribed medicine that helped for a while but then suddenly it started up again. Now, since he’s had his ischematic stroke, it is stronger than before. It really bothers him.

Last night we went to sleep with the air conditioner set at 30. Yes, 30. Yes, that’s not standard. Fortunately, I learned to sleep without air conditioning when my daughters were young and I slept with only an electric fan so I could hear everything going on, because at the time one of my daughters loved to escape at night. So last night we had the air conditioner and a revolving fan on. I went to sleep without a blanket. Who needs a blanket at room temperature when it borders on hot?

 Sometime in the middle of the night I heard the beep. The temperature of the air conditioner was being changed. Then I woke up feeling cold. The blanket that we’re supposed to share was wrapped all around him. I got up, went to the bathroom for my robe, put on thick socks that I keep nearby and went back to sleep. I woke up again with a shin cramp. I put ointment on it, walked a bit until it passed and went back to sleep. No complaints. Was he aware of what had happened to me? No, because he was deeply asleep, something he is not too conscious of in the morning when he wakes up and says he was awake most of the night.

 But I write this because I really want to help him. He remembers his mother used to suffer coldness on her arms when she was old, and she would strongly pat her arms and sigh “I am tired of living” in Spanish. We think maybe his cold spells are inherited from his mother. I tell him to talk to her, ask her for help. It’s true his mother passed away a long time ago but certainly he can ask her for help. I think he tries but doesn’t get a reply.

 We have tried many things. I have rubbed all sorts of things on his back and front when he has a cold spell but in the end he tells me it doesn’t help. Nothing seems to help. I must let you know that I have all sorts of ointments that I buy whenever I see one. Remember, I have had a few bad falls and they have left me with muscular aches in the shoulder, the lower back on the left, right and center, and on the knees. I get occasional cramps, all sorts of minor inconveniences and the potions to help me live more or less comfortably with them. What else is there to do? When you get old your whole body begins to creak.

 And that’s the problem: we are old. My husband is 82 and I am turning 76 this year. We are old even if we are not fully aware of it. Also we both drink StemEnhance Ultra that I sell. It helps you find the energy to feel young so maybe we just haven’t fully adjusted to aging without creaks. But surely there must be a doctor out there who can help my husband get rid of his cold stabbing pains. If you are such a doctor, do text me. We have been to geriatric doctors, internists, endocrinologists, neurologists, and two alternative doctors. 

Maybe writing about our search will help us discover one, will help us learn that growing old doesn’t have to be so chilling after all.

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