Friday, October 10, 2008

Be Careful What You Wish For ...

Nope, I haven't gotten a diagnosis.

But part of my mystery illness is that I generally run a low-grade fever. And for the past few months, I've been getting spontaneous and profuse sweating. Almost like the hot flashes I remember in the weeks and months after giving birth when my estrogen levels plunged.

I can be fine one minute, and then dripping with sweat for the next 15. All very weird, but apparently all within the range of illnesses that my doctors ponder as possible diagnoses. (And no, it's not early menopause or even peri menopause -- I got tested for that last year.)

So between my low fevers and these sweats, I've been keeping things cool in the house, including an open window in my bedroom to help keep me cool. (During my sleep study, the dayside technicians kept commenting on how cool I kept the room. I set the thermostat around 66 because whenever it got warmer, I felt overheated.)

So it finally cooled off here in Portland. And when I noticed the temperature in our family room was only 64 degrees Thursday morning, I decided to turn on the heat to nudge it up to 68 since my daughter doesn't believe in dressing appropriately for cold weather.

When it was still 65-66 degrees in midafternoon, both Scott and I made trips to the thermostat to nudge up the temp.

Scott questioned a few times why wasn't the furnace kicking on to raise the temperature, so I finally sent him down to take a look at the furnace. And he was right, there was definitely a problem. The furnace appeared to be working except for the blower, so he disconnected it and I started calling our furnace repair folks.

Of course, they couldn't come until Friday, they said.

I knew it was colder in my bedroom when I woke up than I'm used to because I was still buried in sheets and blankets and hadn't kicked them off as usual. In fact, I had them pulled as far up as I could get.

Our bathroom thermometer said it was 59 degrees in our bedroom when I woke up. Downstairs, the thermostat said 61 degrees.

Brrrrrrr! Even for me, that's too cool for comfort.

And now it's a little past 6 p.m. and the repair guy still hasn't shown up. I called at 5 p.m. and spoke to the dispatcher, who assured me I was still on the list but would not estimate a time of arrival nor tell me how far down the list I was.

And so I wait, snug under a quilt, for once actually happy to have the heat of my laptop on my lap. I can honestly say that it's finally cool enough for me, and then some!

Cross your fingers for me that someone will show up to give me heat before bedtime ...

UPDATE: So Billy -- the cutest guy ever, I'm talking hotter than Patrick Dempsey as McDreamy -- showed up around 8:15 p.m. to fix my furnace. Turns out, it wasn't the furnace anyway. It was the thermostat. Apparently, one of the pins had gotten bent, probably when batteries were changed, and that was keeping it from communicating with the furnace. Maybe. It also might have been a dirty filter that caused the motor to overheat and shut down ... or a combination of the two.

So now, at 9:30, the temp is back up to 65 degrees and maybe I won't wake up to icicles in the morning!


3 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Have you been tested to see if you are b12 deficient? That can make you feel like crap too. B12 also regulates your iron. Just a thought. You never know.