Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It has been cold all day.  I have been cold all day! Seems that  I just can't take cold weather as well as I once did.  Part of it is the  peripheral neuropathy that I  now have as a result of chemotherapy. I take extra care to make sure my feet and hands don't get cold- I put on gloves when  cleaning out the fridge or reaching into the freezer,  and even sleep with a heating pad  at my feet to keep them warm. 

But  the rest of me stays cold, too, not just my hands and feet.  Part of the reason, I think, is that I'm  quite thin and have  very little natural padding to serve as insulation. But turns out there's another reason, too: I'm getting old, and  just as I suspected,  older people feel the cold more. According to an article from Scientific American's Health After 50 there is a natural slowing of our metabolism as we age and our bodies become less efficient at generating heat and maintaining a normal body temperature. It's nice to know there's a logical scientific explanation for it.

Much as I would like to think that warm weather  will be here soon, the local weather forecast  is calling for more of the same, with a possibility that temperatures will drop into the teens tonight.  And to make things worse, there's a possibility of snow by the end of the week.  Now I know some people  love snow and look forward to it, but I am definitely not one of them! So I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth, bundle up in a zillion layers and dream of  spring. Stay warm, y'all, and repeat with me the words of P.B. Shelley: "If  Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"