"Cabin Fever"
                                   By Kelly Tomlinson


  The title conjures up images of Jack London's Call of the Wild in snowbound Alaska, does it not? It did for me up until I moved to a place where summertime temperatures are 100 degrees and above. Some people love when summer arrives but I dread when June comes up on the calendar. Three months of cabin fever are ahead of me! Or if you are really bored you figure out there are 2,160 hours in a 90 day span of time which also equals 129,600 minutes. Okay, I feel better, I can stand cabin fever for that long.

  It is not so bad in the early stages. There are some days when it is still cool enough in the morning for me to get out of the house but by July I'm holed up in my house with the air conditioning set at 68 degrees. I know it is going to be a bad day when I get the newspaper at 6:00 a.m. and it already is 80 degrees!

  Going stir crazy is not unusual for me. The first summer I experienced cabin fever I thought my family was going to pack me up in a box and ship me off to places unknown. Luckily for me they forgave me for my absurd behavior during those three months and the coolness of autumn arrived. None too soon I might add.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, I work out of my house so I never get away from work in the summer. Can you imagine that, three months straight of never leaving the office. Good lord what made me decide to work at home? Oh, I remember, my MS!

  By August, I'm really starting to feel the pressure build, just like a pressure cooker on the stove. I want to get out of the house but my better senses and my better half remind me that if I go out in that heat, which by the way is now peaking at about 110 degrees, I will be bed bound for two or three days. Let's see, I need to weigh the issues here— get out of the house or lose a couple of days in bed. It's a no brainer, life is too short. I'll stay cooped up for 30 more days. I can handle it. My better half approves of my decision!

  Finally, September comes and the weather starts to cool, summer cabin fever is over! I go outside, it is only 75 degrees, I smell the flowers and the grass and take in all the other wonders of nature. It's great to be outside again. I have 9 more months until June, or 270 days, or 6,480 hours or 388,000 more minutes. Oh-oh, that's not very far off, I better enjoy this while I can!

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