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Showing posts with the label illness

Still COVID Positive

I noticed today that my runny nose has now changed from being a clear, slightly viscous liquid to an opaque yellow mucus which is a sign of my body fighting off an infection so I contacted my doctor's office to ask what I should do.   I was told that since I'm past the 10 day quarantine period then they want to see me tomorrow or I need to head to urgent care if I can't get an appointment tomorrow.  My doctor's office is overcrowded so, lately, it has been difficult to get a same day appointment so I wouldn't be surprised if I need to head to urgent care instead. So, in anticipation of my doctor's scheduler asking if I am displaying any symptoms of COVID and/or have tested positive, I decided to test again this evening...  It is two weeks into this horrendous virus and I am still testing positive! My fever still comes and goes in waves.  I have a cough and I'm coughing up phlegm.  As I already mentioned, my runny nose has changed from clear fluid to opaque

COVID with a Vengeance... Yet Again

I 've had COVID since we returned from Manhattan.  I tested positive the day after we returned home.  All in all, this bout with COVID seemed to be a relatively minor case.  The only troublesome symptom this time around was breathing problems requiring daily breathing exercises to help clear my lungs.  Other relatively minor symptoms were a fever that came and went a few times throughout the day, a bit of a sore throat, swollen eyelids, and joint pain.  In the past, I've experienced far, far worse so I was pretty happy and confident that this would pass relatively quickly. I was wrong.  The other night, I noticed that my sinuses were hurting.  I assumed they were hurting because they were so dry after many days of taking cold medications.  I had been taking cold medications since returning from Manhattan so I thought that perhaps the cold medications dried out my sinuses.  My plan was to stop taking the cold medications and use my saline nasal solution four times a day rather

Serious Health Setback

F irst, I'll address Sheila's current health with COVID...  She has a low grade fever coming and going all through the day.  She's exhausted.  She has a mild sore throat and she is coughing and sneezing with a runny nose.   Other than the fatigue which is noticeably affecting her, she seems to be doing better than she did with the flu a month ago.  I can only assume she is doing relatively well with this bout of COVID due to being current in her vaccinations and boosters.   The really frustrating thing is that when she contacted her doctor's office this morning they pretty much did nothing for her because she has not tested positive for COVID.  The fact that I have tested positive and she is symptomatic apparently means nothing for getting treatment.  She is over 50 years old so she is in the higher risk category so common sense is telling me that her doctor's office should have jumped on getting her on Paxlovid since she is symptomatic and I tested positive in the

Overwhelming Fatigue

Just about all of my "cold and flu" symptoms seem to be behind me but my level of fatigue is still quite overwhelming.  I spent just about all of this past weekend sleeping.  I awoke only to use the bathroom, eat and take medications.   I still have some minor symptoms of a cold...  some gunk in my nose and running down the back of my throat at times.  The fever has been gone for days though so that is good.  Headaches still come and go but are so minimal at this point that they are hardly worth mentioning.  I still get bouts of difficulty breathing but that could be due to my primary illness since I do experience this regularly anyway.  What I was experiencing a month or two ago, however, was well beyond my usual breathing problems (since being on medications to control these problems).  Overall, most of these untested, undiagnosed "cold and flu" symptoms seemed to have dissipated.  The fatigue is worse than usual though.  It is lingering.  It is overwhelming. 

Can't Shake The Flu

I'm still struggling to shake free from the flu.  I've been sick since just before we arrived back home from our cross country rail journey.   I still have a cough but not nearly as bad as it was in that first week. My biggest complaint, however, is dealing with the overwhelming fatigue and overall aches and pains.  Then, add in the usual fatigue, bone pain and joint pain from my primary illness and the past few weeks have been brutal.  An hour after getting out of bed in the morning, I need to lay down again.  At that point each day, I hardly have the energy to stand or hold my head up.   We'll see how long this lasts...  I'm tired of it though...

Another Struck from Support Group

I haven't been writing much about my own health and Systemic Mastocytosis lately other than an occasional quick update about a bad night or lousy day here and there. Sheila's health and her breast cancer has been pushed to the forefront over the past month and a half and rightfully so. Also, I've been writing more about more pleasant things such as hobbies, home renovations and the grandkids rather than my own health. The downside of not mentioning my own health problems is that people assume that no news is good news. That line of thinking, however, is rarely correct and it is not correct this time either. For instance, we just experienced a week of weather in the 90s with high humidity and unbelievably stagnant air. Well... to be honest, this sort of weather is like being in hell for me.  My health cannot handle climates above 80 degrees... indoors, outdoors, anywhere. So, without getting into specifics, I had a rather lousy week of poor health. It got so bad this

Embracing Change

We are in the midst of making a lot of changes.  We've always embraced change and only a complete fool would waste precious energy on fighting change. Embracing change is good for learning, for growing, for evolving, for reaching one's potential and beyond.  Embracing change does not mean you should live your life like a leaf being tossed about in a raging river. Embracing change doesn't mean we should just blindly go with the flow. Embracing change is about prioritizing, decision-making, problem-solving and effectively adapting based upon the changing environment around us so we can effectively grow. Fighting change is a complete and utter waste of time and energy. As with anyone struggling with a chronic incurable illness, energy is of very short supply. Even when I was perfectly healthy and at my strongest, I refused to waste time and energy. I made decisions, I actively participated in life and I grew.  I never wasted time and energy fighting change. Fighting chan

Another Wasted, Lousy, Miserable Week

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I've been residing here and on the couch for the past five months. Another week has passed and it has been similar to weeks over the past five months... lousy, miserable and a complete waste of time. I've been sick with a lousy cold which has aggravated my mast cells. The cold has been bad enough to keep me in bed and on the couch but, worse yet, these sorts of things always aggravate my mast cell illness too resulting in many more problems than just a flu-like cold.  I've done nothing this past week other than sleep, blow my nose, watch movies until I fall asleep, blow my nose, take medications, blow my nose some more, and take more medications. My bone pain has been far worse lately. Everything hurts. Then today... we lost water in the house early this morning. Fun times.  I overheard one of our neighbors saying that they were working on a water main down the block. We didn't have water until almost 6:30pm...  and, even then, it was just brown, muddy wate

A Muddled Mess

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My health has been quite lousy since January. Sheila and I seem to be passing a cold and a stomach bug back and forth between us, over and over. These types of 'common colds' always send my mast cells into a hyperactive tailspin so I'm having great difficulty focusing on anything because my thought processes are a muddled mess! I have a dozen different projects bouncing around in my head all at once. Most of these projects I actually want to accomplish... some I  need to accomplish as soon as I am feeling well enough... and all of these projects are occupying my thoughts at any given moment. If I'm not struggling with nausea and spending time in the bathroom, I'm struggling with pain and overwhelming fatigue. Sheila hasn't been much better lately. I feel as though I am spending all my time in bed, sleeping away the winter as projects keep backing up and my to-do list gets longer and longer. My spinal injuries are terribly inflamed. I assume much of t

Health Update

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Plain and simple, this past week has been brutal. Whenever we have a busy weekend of activities, it affects my health for the next week... or month. Last weekend was exceptionally busy from Friday through Sunday. We had squeezed in about three activities and three different places each day... I skipped my daily two hour naps... I was on my feet throughout most of the weekend... and we were on the go all the time. This is a recipe for a long bout of miserable health in my foreseeable future. In preparation of the long, busy weekend, I rested up in the days leading up to the weekend (longer naps each day and did virtually nothing each day in an effort to preserve energy). I also squeezed in more medications in the days leading up to the weekend as well as all through the three day weekend. I can get away with this particular plan of attack if I don't do it too often. It allows for fairly decent health for a few days but there is a price to pay... the price is exceptionally

Art Project While Sick

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The title of this blog entry is almost meaningless since art projects are about the only thing I accomplish since developing Systemic Mastocytosis. Art has many forms and I do try to stay active in many... drawing, painting, photography, videography, music and even designing and building things like models and renovating our home.  In this case, the illness I am referring to is this miserable lingering cold (12 days at this point). I occasionally have periods of clear thinking that are driving me crazy because I am so bored (I need to stay productive and creative) but I'm still not well enough to tackle anything of significance. During these fleeting periods of clear thinking over the past few days, I've been trying to draw and paint. This particular art project is a sketch of the Empire State Building. I already created a matching piece  of the Chrysler Building   a few months ago and it is now hanging on a wall in our newly renovated bedroom. I plan to hang this new sk

A Lingering 'Cold'... Quite an Understatement

For most people, a cold is an annoyance... an inconvenience... a nagging little problem of needing tissues nearby and having some over-the-counter cold medications. For those struggling with other illnesses, like my own illness, a cold can be brutal. My illness, Systemic Mastocytosis, causes overactive mast cells, all day, every day... an abundance of mast cells... and, since mast cells are at the center of immunology, this means I have an over-active immune system.  Because of these overactive mast cells attacking all sorts of things within my body which it should not, I often have symptoms of a typical cold even on a good day. I have too much histamine in my body. I have too much of every mediator produced by mast cells which causes all sorts of problems including some life threatening problems.  Now... add a virus or a cold to this already unhealthy body...  During a typical cold, my mast cells get even more over-active... moving into hyper-activity. This causes some absolut