Scattered Thoughts . . .

Whenever my health fails with mast cell issues, a whole slew of extra medications and emergency medications are needed on top of the immense assortment of everyday medications I must consume daily in order to stay here among the living. These emergency medications, however, bring on a grogginess and foggy state which is difficult to effectively and accurately describe. I feel like I am walking around in a different dimension than the rest of the population on our tiny rock in our vast, ever-expanding universe. I feel like this dimension is cold, damp, rather dark... like an underground tunnel... except at this stage of recovery, there is no brilliant light shining at the end of this tunnel... just shadows... silence... almost like a vacuum void of all things we understand as life. As can be expected, my brain  is significantly impacted  with an imposed suppression of cognitive ability due to the grogginess brought on by these drugs (albeit life-saving drugs, for me). My mind bou

When I was writing about my health last night (my previous blog post), I knew my health was not headed in the direction I had hoped. I suspected it might be a long night... and, although it was not as miserable as it often gets, it was indeed a long night spent in the bathroom feeling rather miserable. The nausea continued to worsen as I was typing last night. My breathing didn't get worse, but it did not improve much with epinephrine sprayed into my lungs. That provided only temporary relief allowing me to get some much needed oxygen into my body by opening up my constricted lungs if only briefly each time.   Eventually my intestines started gurgling... a sure sign that I must find a bathroom quickly and that I must take some extra emergency medications as soon as possible (it is difficult to do when you are sick as a dog). The gurgling intestines definitely created a need to spend some time in the bathroom through the night last night... oh, fun times! My episode and post-e

A nice night out with friends for Christmas... Even when my health is relatively well, I am always a bit concerned about the timing of my poor health. I don't actually worry about it because, after all, I can't control my health, but it does concern me enough to wonder about rescheduling and contingency plans. Realistically speaking, just because my health is relatively well at any given moment does not mean my health will continue to be relatively well. If anything, Mastocytosis has taught me to accept and expect unpredictability. Although, to be honest, long before Mastocytosis reared its ugly head, I had already come to terms with unpredictability due to my spinal injuries. "Unpredictability... accept it, expect it, embrace it!" From November until the end of January, we have been quite busy physically and our schedules quite hectic. There were a number of events we were looking forward to and we, as always, were hoping my health would cooperate with this he

Miss Mackenzie at the head of our table at The Munich Haus. While we were all out to dinner on Saturday night of our long train show weekend, our little Mackenzie created a new identity for herself... an alter ego... and, in the process, she invited us in for a more intimate glimpse of her own developing personality... During our more formal dinner out at a German Festhaus (I will write more about this dinner and Festhaus later), the 33 month old Kenzie asked to be taken to the potty. This polite and responsible request alone deserves some positive reinforcement but this is not the subject of this blog entry. The subject of this blog entry is about a little girl's imagination while in a land far from home and while in a rather noisy and unfamiliar cultural restaurant with her family... Liza quickly ushered Kenzie to the ladies room. While in the ladies room, a woman was taken with Miss Mackenzie's presence, behavior and personality and asked Kenzie for her name. Kenzie

Whenever we wander from home for our long weekend excursions, we always meet some friendly and sometimes very interesting people. The train show in Springfield, Massachusetts has never been an exception and this year was no different. While we were enjoying our first night in Springfield for the train show, the grandchildren made new friends with a local Dish Network Satellite installer. This gentleman enjoyed Lukey's and Kenzie's animated antics while they entertained us in the lounge during our pizza dinner. Seeing the kids reminded him that he had some little Dish Network promotional gifts out in his truck in the form of stuffed animals. He was kind enough to run out to his truck to retrieve his last two "Hoppers" to gift to the kids. Both Kenzie and Lukey were given their own Hopper the Kangaroo by this kind Dish installer. These gifts were definitely appreciated by both of the kids... and that is evident here in the photos!

Today is a rather lousy health day for me so I am stuck in the house trying to find something interesting to do which will not make my health any worse. Since I have some model railroading trains sitting out and about after our annual train show in Springfield, I decided I would see why one of our Lionel GP-7's will not move in forward or reverse. When I power it up, everything seems to work just fine including the sound. When I try to put it in forward or reverse, I can hear the twin motors whirring away so I know the motors run but the gears are not engaging. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the little gear that is supposed to be on the end of the motor driveshaft has broken off each motor. These gears were cheapo plastic gears that were somehow affixed to the smooth metal driveshaft (I have one of the broken gears in the bottom of the styrofoam box for the locomotive). It clearly was a poor design and I knew I would not be able to fix this problem without replacing a f