Minnesota Weather

The last couple weeks I’ve been hibernating in my house. The weather here has been frigid and cold, with most temperatures below 5°F. I used to go out no matter what the weather was outside, although my body has a hard time adapting to temperature. Having a spinal cord injury at my level I get cold fairly easily. Unless I use the thermometer to check my temperature I don’t know how cold I actually am, which could lead to hypothermia if not watched frequently.

Even while indoors, I usually have a blanket on throughout the day and sit by an electric fireplace that I flip on if my body or the room gets too cold. At night I sleep with a heated electric blanket that has the ability to change temperatures from 1-High. Depending on what I put it at, it helps regulate my body temperature better than any other sort of heating system. I also have a small heater in my room alongside the indoor heat.

We do have central air and heating, although it’s difficult for it to register in specific areas. This is especially true if I have the fireplace on. When my house was being remodeled, we put in floor heating which also helps (and keeps people’s feet warm). Although it does nothing for me as only my wheels hit the floor!

Other than it being cold, we also get a lot of snow here. That is also one reason that stops me from getting out, especially from taking Brody for walks. In the neighborhood where I live there are a lot of back roads and they don’t get plowed during the winter unless it snows above 2 inches. Sometimes they just use salt before if they know it’s going to snow and then they don’t even plow. This just makes the roads slushy although most of the time there pretty icy and slippery.

I have written blog posts in the past about temperature and weather. The last one I wrote was similar although I stated that despite temperatures being low outside I tend to venture out. It’s different this year, as my body has changed and the temperature affects it even more. My body also used to be able to regulate its temperature better, although for some reason over the years it’s changed. I wish things were different because it’s difficult spending my days indoors all the time.

Jenni