New Symptom; "Phantom Heat"

There's actual heat and there's "phantom" heat; most of Texas is dealing with actual heat.

It's not even Summer yet, but it's been hotter than usual (for June anyway) this year, and "usual" is no picnic in Central Texas.

For most of this month, the high temperatures here in Austin have hit 99 or 100 degrees, with little if any breeze or chance of rain. It's early for this level of heat, and it's scary for everybody, not just farmers. At this rate, we'll have highs of 115 for most of August!

I pretty much just hide out in the air conditioning from May through early October; Claude and I go for "walkies" for about an hour early in the morning, but some days it's too warm for me at 7am.

Things might start to cool off in about three and a half months...

Seriously, if I could afford to travel, and if my spine was up to it, I would so be in Canada! I've never been there, but my Dad and his brothers used to go to summer camp in Nova Scotia; he said they had to start every day with a brisk nude swim in the icy cold Bay of Fundy, which remains around 43 degrees F year around.

That sounds really good right now. This time of year, popsicles and ice cream are my main food group and my only defense.

Anyway, to compliment the Hellish weather, I've developed a new sensory symptom that leans into the heat - it feels like there's an invisible heating pad on my right upper back and on the outside of my lower right leg; phantom heat. (Why couldn't this have happened in January?).


Seriously, it feels like heat is radiating both onto and from those areas, but of course the skin actually feels normal to the touch. All this phantom warmth might have been welcome during the Winter, but right now I could do without it.

Still, as sensory symptoms go, it's nothing. I mean, it definitely beats pain, burning, or itching, so I'm really not complainin', just sayin'.