Tuesday, July 6, 2010

hot hot heat + soccer (in a frying pan) = carpe diem

Holy mackerel, it was hot today. Maybe not as hot as some parts of the country, but hot nonetheless. Especially for a soccer game. The heat, combined with the artificial turf surface we played on that sucks in every single degree out of the atmosphere and multiplies it by 12 before shooting it back out like a giant hair-dryer, brought back (temporarily) the more-than-a-year-old symptom of tweaked out vision in my left eye. This re-emergence can be attributed to Uhthoff's Symptom, or the phenomenon through which symptoms are prevalent during heat and/or physical activity (among other triggers).

It is entirely possible that the vision loss was purely psychological. I know that heat can exacerbate symptoms, so perhaps I'm hyper-vigilant and subsequently prone to letting my imagination get the best of me. But that doesn't matter. The important thing is that this evening's phenomenon served as a gentle reminder that I need to be out there pushing and challenging myself and getting all up in Uhthoff's grill.