Scattered Thoughts . . .

We are back home from the lake house now.  Although it was a great week on Lake Groton and I prepared for this week for months by being vigilant with my daily physical therapy (a daily ritual since my second line-of-duty spinal injury in 1998), it has really taken a lot out of me. My spine is inflamed from dragging around kayaks and the sailboat.  Packing bags into the car didn't help either!  As bad as the spinal pain is, problems associated with my Systemic Mastocytosis are far worse and much more debilitating. Wearing myself down is one of the worst things I can do to my health today and has the same effect on all Systemic Mastocytosis patients.  The absolute worst thing we can do is to miss a dose of medications.  Wearing oneself down takes a close second though and requires the longest amount of time to recover. It just so happens that I did miss a dose of medications on our first night at the lake.  Our daily lifestyle changed so much at the lake that my medications wer

I'm still recovering from the excruciating kidney pain I had all last week and through the weekend but I am up and about and accomplishing small things around the house.  Although we still do not know for sure the cause of this intense pain, it is good that the pain is waning and I am able to accomplish a few little things again. What I am now struggling with, however, is unbearably hot weather so early in the year.  I had to retreat to inside the house by 11:00 am because the heat was so oppressing.  When I retreated to the protection of our home, our little weather station was showing the temperature to be 93 degrees.  By the time I had finished lunch, I was wishing we had the air conditioning units installed in our windows. My health does just fine when the climate is in the 70s.   When it is in the 80s, I need to take a lot of breaks to cool off.  One of the quickest and effective ways to cool down my body is running cold tap water over the blood vessels in my wrists.  This