Temperature Regulation

"Is that normal?" I asked my cardiologist.

"Eh," she said, not looking up from her lunch. "It happens... you know..."

"What can I do about it?"

"Eh, nothing much... you know..."

Since my surgery I've had occasional flutzpahs in my temperature regulation system. For reasons unknown my body decides it's freezing, and there's no convincing it otherwise. This state of affairs reaches a state of almost fatal irony during the summer in hell - the outside air temperature is a hundred and eight fricking degrees, and I think I'm freezing to death. It would be about as silly as someone near the summit of Mount Everest suddenly collapsing of heatstroke.

I had such an attack yesterday. We went to the grocery store yesterday evening, mostly to get cat food and get out of the house for a while, and my body temperature decided to crash.

It seemed to take hours to get back home, even though it didn't, and I got in bed and put a heating pad on my chest. The heating pad is covered with warnings like "If you fall asleep while using this product, YOU'LL DIE HORRIBLY! THIS MEANS YOU, LUMPY!" So I slept for a couple of hours with the heating pad on my chest. When I finally woke up, I was no longer cold and I had a lovely rectangular red patch on my chest.

I guess what I'm saying is that if anyone has any clue why surgery has caused my internal thermostat to go haywire, I'm all ears. Or eyes, as the case may be.