This is what they're reporting from Omaha and parts of Iowa.  I actually remember the 1998 snowstorm because it happened while I was lying in a hospital in Ames, Iowa, with a blood clot in my head.  I was 24 years old at the time, so my clot was quite the dramatic event.  No one could say why it happened, at least not at that point.  Then the day after I was admitted to Mary Greeley Medical Center, the blizzard hit, and everything shut down.  My mom, who'd flown in from Pennsylvania before the storm, said she'd never seen anything like it: the snow came down continuously, building up and up and up until my little hospital window was almost completely buried.  The nurses were stranded with us for days.  In a weird way, the blizzard was also really fitting for my personal medical drama--a symbol writ large of what was going on inside my veins.  It's not often the weather follows the cues of your life.

 

Usually, I forget that this time of year is the anniversary of my hospital stay, when I was first diagnosed with lupus and officially introduced to a life with chronic illness.  I can hardly believe it's been almost a decade since this happened.  It feels the way most important events hit you: like it was yesterday and eons ago.  This year, the weather reminded me by circling back to its starting point, dumping yet another heap of snow on the plains states.  I wonder what will happen next year when this anniversary rolls around.  I expect I won't need a blizzard to jog my memory.