Uncommon Cold

"Nic is cold. All. The. Time.

One of the many not-so-wonderful side-effects they don't tell you about when you lose a ton of weight... The silver lining is that several cardis are now so big that they go round twice!"

I can see the tendons on my hands and feet now. I've never been able to see them before. I catch myself looking at my hands, stretched out in front of me and see concave sections at the side where my thumb joins my wrist. Wrist bones that stick out instead of being an unnoticeable hard lump between a padded hand and forearm, discernible only when pressed. I make fists and see the shape of my knuckle joints. I see my veins, although I think that's been exacerbated a little by working out with hand-weights. Any rings over a size small slip off my fingers. Okay, each finger is slightly different in size, but for the fingers I like to adorn with silver pretties, small sizes are the only wearable options if I want to still be wearing them at the end of the day. (For those of you that remember I celebrated being able to wear my all-time favourite ring back in September 2013, you might be interested to know that I haven't worn it for a while because it was sliding off all the time.) I already had small hands span-wise, but now I need to buy children's gloves just to make sure I don't look like I've broken the top joint of every finger wearing gloves that are too big.

So yes, my hands and feet are cold because there's just not the insulation around them any more. Doubly annoying for my feet as I am, and have always been, an indoor barefoot kind of girl. My Mum (who would despair of me keeping socks on my feet even when I was tiny) will be the first to confirm this. I was wearing flip-flops on my feet indoors to keep me off the chilly floor when it got really cold, but apart from that small concession to the temperature, I was a happy-go-lucky hippy feet lass. But not now. Holy crap. I hate wearing socks indoors, and I'm not a fan of slippers, but Sheesh! My tootsies could be languishing, frost-bitten somewhere on Everest for all I can feel of them. I got chilblains last September from having to rely on hot water bottles in bed to bring life back to my frozen toes. In SEPTEMBER! Wearing fluff around my feet seems like a small price to pay to be able to walk properly, but I'm going to grumble about it, anyway.  

And don't get me started on my torso. It's all well and good to expect your extremities to be hit by a lack of warmth, given the circumstances, but your intremities, too? (I'm not bowing down to spell-check and its judgemental red line on this one - intremities should totally be a word.) Yes, it's February, but this inner core of cold is a new, new thing. I am currently wearing four layers, including a thermal vest top and a particularly enveloping fluffy jumper but I'm not shivering. I'm just cold. It's like some strange frozen god has reached down my throat and turned my gullet to ice. It's not a pretty picture, but it's the best I can manage. My heart isn't cold, my spine hasn't turned to ice - there's nothing poetic or beautiful about the feeling at all. It's like I'm radiating cold from the inside-out and I'll never be comfortable again.

It is a very strange feeling for this girl who has always been toasty and warm.