I Survived Hurricane Ian With AS
I moved to Orlando, Florida from NY about a year ago. I wanted a better environment for my children as well as for myself, the bitter cold weather of NY was causing me to flare often.
Since I've been in Florida, I've only had one flare which is pretty good
I stretch every day to help with the stiffness and i also dance to keep my body moving. So when hurricane Ian hit Florida, I was somewhat prepared physically. However I have never experienced a category 4 hurricane, so it was pretty scary.
I live in a 2-bedroom house, so we lost complete power pretty quickly. All of the food we bought for the hurricane went bad. We had to use flashlights and portable lights for light, and there was no air conditioning so it got pretty muggy pretty fast. My ice packs that I usually use to calm my pain in my lower back defrosted and i couldn't use my heating pad which I use often, but i had back up.
My supplies
Before the hurricane I purchased a hot water bag and I had plenty of ice so I put my gel packs on ice until it melted again. This lasted a few hours but not for days, so eventually I had nothing to relieve my pain besides continuing my stretches which was hard to do because of the humidity in my home. But, i put on something cool and still got it done.
My children were extremely bored with no TV, video games, or wifi; you can only imagine their pain too! So, I got crafty. We painted on canvas, we made tie dye shirts, we played board games and cards, and we had a dance competition and of course I won! We also played this game on our phone called Heads Up. It's an app you can download on your phone. To keep our phones charged we had to take turns going to the car to charge.
When the food went completely bad, we had to eat sandwiches--peanut butter and jelly to be exact. I try not to eat foods with lots of sugar, so I substituted the jelly for bananas. I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich which is delish! We had plenty of water to drink and room temperature water is not bad, I prefer cold water, but when times get hard you must sacrifice.
The storm picking up
The storm started to pick up Tuesday, September 27th, and Wednesday evening is when the hurricane came and stopped by to say hello! It did more than say hello...it ripped my backyard apart, breaking my back porch door and knocking down my fence. My neighborhood also got hit pretty hard.
Checking into a hotel
On Friday September 30th, we had to go into a hotel because power was still not restored, and wouldn't be restored until Sunday evening. The stress of it all I would say was the worst part for me not knowing what to expect being that it was our first time in a major hurricane was very stressful and had my anxiety out of control, worrying if my windows would break or my house would flood, and we would lose everything was very scary and nerve wrecking to say the least, but we got through it together as a family.
Today the sun is shining again as if nothing happened. I'm in some pain but I'm able to relax over the weekend to let my body recharge. The best part about living in Florida is that the sun always comes back out to shine even through the darkest of times and that's how I view living with AS the sun always comes back out to shine even on your darkest days remember to always look for the light instead of the darkness!
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