Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 'm lagging behind in keeping this blog updated which, for some reason, seems to be the norm for the past year or so.  Perhaps it is due to overwhelming fatigue.  Whatever the reason, here is an update to my recent oncology care blog entries I wrote in the past month or so. My overall health over the past year or two has been gradually worsening.  This rather lousy overall health has become my new normal so I'm kind of used to it now.  Plus, it changed so slowly that it was difficult to see.  Since I'm used to it now, I have been having difficulty in recognizing it as an everyday thing and a new normal.   The biggest concern and perhaps the most debilitating concern has been overwhelming fatigue.  On far too many days, I'm ready to head back to bed long before lunchtime and sometimes right after leaving the bathroom getting ready to start my day.  On these days, I have difficulty keeping my eyes open and I have no energy.  My brain wants to do things that interest me b

I am typing this blog entry as I lie on the couch with my leg elevated and an ice pack on my right knee...  again.   I cut the lawn on Friday.  The lawn was long because I skipped a week (it was too hot and humid for two weeks for me to manage to get anything accomplished outdoors) so I needed two passes on most of the lawn but, even so, it seemed like a pretty easy job since the heat and humidity had broken.  I had absolutely no problems until my last couple of passes on the last section of lawn where I must have turned a little carelessly and twisted my right knee a bit.  All of a sudden, I could no longer put any weight on my right leg without a lot of pain.  I finished the lawn while limping along and then put everything away.  Usually I will water all the gardens after cutting the lawn but I skipped that this time around and went directly inside hoping my knee would feel better after sitting for a while. Unfortunately, since that time, I've been spending most of my time on the

T he few who actually follow this blog probably think that since I haven't mentioned my ankle injury lately that my ankle is back to normal.  That is not true.  No news isn't always good news. While it is true that the swelling is down and the pain has subsided quite a bit, I am still walking delicately on that ankle and my range of motion is still fairly limited.  When I do too much walking, it still swells a bit.  Then the ice packs come out and  I'm still resting with the ankle elevated too.   The pain, for the most part, isn't nearly as bad now.  I do get twinges of excruciating pain when I do something stupid like put too much weight on it or trip when working in the yard but, overall, the pain is just a dull ache most of the time.  I'm also getting weird tingling in my ankle like I have one of those useless, torturous TENS units attached to my ankle.  Sometimes it develops like pins and needles.  I assume these types of sensations and pain is a sign of my ankl

I t has been about nine weeks since my old ankle injury flared and I'm still limping around wherever I go.  It is slowly improving but, as expected in any recovery, I keep getting set back in recovery whenever I attempt to do anything that requires a bit of weight to be put on my left foot.   On the positive side, I'm now doing some light exercising in an attempt to get back some flexibility in my ankle.  Actually, my whole left leg needs daily physical therapy at this point.  My left leg is now noticeably thinner than my right leg due to lack of use over the past nine weeks.  I have been slowly and carefully getting back into some very light exercising (mostly stretching) to get back to "normal".  Unfortunately, this sets me back by causing a bit of pain, inflammation and swelling again.  I sort of cycle back and forth between feeling "okay" and limping around in pain which is normal during recovery.  We're now assuming that I had a severe case of sprai

At this point, I've completely lost track of time.  This ankle injury is taking forever to heal and one day is blurring into the next and the next and the next. Something that has happened a lot is that I get up in the morning and my ankle is feeling "fair".  I'm still limping and there is still varying amount of pain but, first thing in the morning, it is feeling far closer to being normal than being injured.  Then I shower... I don't know if it is hobbling around the shower that causes my ankle to get worse.  Of, maybe getting in and out of the shower causes my ankle to get worse.  Or, maybe the hot water from the shower that causes my ankle to get worse.  Or, maybe it is a combination of all of the above.  Whatever the cause, I feel quite lousy after I shower.  My ankle and foot is always swollen again and hurting to the point that I need my cane again.   This happened again this morning.  I felt pretty good this morning and, as a result, had some plans to acco

Working on the refrigerator for five hours yesterday clearly placed my ankle injury a step or two backwards in the recovery process. I had difficulty sleeping last night due to the pain in my ankle.  It is abundantly clear that I did far too much standing on it yesterday.  At rest, I am back into the area of three on the ten point pain scale.  While walking...  well, hobbling, really...  the pain is in the range of five to six and I am back to needing the use of my cane.  Today, I'll be residing on the couch again with my foot up.  The ice will have to come out of the freezer again and get wrapped around my ankle too.  It will be a day of sleep (hopefully) and movies. It's bad enough when you cause a step or two backward because you did something you enjoy.  I had no desire to work on the fridge yesterday...  I needed to work on the fridge and, honestly, I don't enjoy having to fix things.  Not at all.  I enjoy designing things and building things but it really annoys me to

I've had this ankle issue for two weeks now.  I'm still doing very little on my feet and keeping my foot elevated most of the time.  I haven't used any ice in a couple of days.  At this point, two weeks in, my ankle feels like it did on that first day of limping exactly two weeks ago.   Each day this week, my ankle has felt a bit better than the previous day so that is good.  This morning when I got up out of bed, my ankle felt like I had a hot nail driven into it for about an hour but that has subsided to a dull ache at rest.  I'm still needing to limp and occasionally use my cane but at least I am able to put a little bit of weight on my foot now.  Showering has been difficult and dangerous.  Fortunately, I haven't slipped in the tub but I honestly don't know how I have managed that feat.  Try getting in and out of a wet tub without putting any weight whatsoever on one of your feet...  try cleaning yourself without putting any weight whatsoever on one of your

Sheila and I were discussing something about Worker's Compensation over lunch the other day and I suddenly remembered the one time I attempted to file a Worker's Comp claim a few decades ago.  The reason for me filing a Worker's Comp claim as well as memories of this painful incident also came flooding back to me in an instant.   In hindsight, this Worker's Comp incident is the likely cause to my occasionally recurring ankle problems.  I only experience this problem when I do something careless with my ankle about once every four years or so but I've always wondered about its cause.  I've always just chalked it up to having a physically demanding career and being active in a lot of different sports.  Having been reminded of this incident while actually in an exceptionally painful recurring flareup, however, it all makes a little more sense now. For a very brief period of my life (a short period I would choose to forget for far too many reasons to get into here),

I am still residing in the living room on the couch with my left leg elevated, icing it every few hours, and trying to keep the pain in check.  This is now the end of day five on the couch.  Fun times. Yesterday morning, I was finally feeling like my ankle was beginning to heal.  I was able to put a slight bit of weight on my foot again so I figured it was a good time to attempt to shower.  Getting in and out of the tub so I can shower has been an impossible task so I was ripe for a shower by yesterday morning.  I managed to shower and then headed to the kitchen to make something for breakfast. I hobbled into the kitchen and spent some time upright preparing breakfast for myself...  back and forth in the kitchen...  back and forth between the kitchen and the couch with food and water while still hobbling with my cane in one hand...  in all, I think I was upright for about an hour. After all that standing and hobbling around with my cane, the pain was beginning to return.  After breakfa

Last Saturday, I was cutting the lawn and I stopped to cut back some brush.  As I stepped into the brush, I must have stepped into a nest of yellow jackets.  I felt like I was stabbed on the front of my shin by a broken twig and then I had a swarm of bees swarming around me.  When I stepped back to see if I had broken the skin by the sharp twig, I noticed that I had a bee stinging my leg.  It wasn't a twig! I squashed the bee with my hand and then moved from the area quickly.  I realized that it would be wise to head inside to grab my epi-pen since this sort of thing typically affects Mastocytosis patients more severely than healthy patients.  I took some extra medications and then went back outside to finish the lawn.   The area of my leg where I was stung felt a bit painful and itchy for the rest of the weekend but it wasn't worth mentioning.  Now, eight days later, my leg is still itchy, red and swollen so it is worth mentioning at this point.  So, I did some researc

You can clearly see the joint failing here. I'm frustrated... and exhausted. That's not a good combination.   As many of you have probably already read in previous blog entries, we've been searching for wood screen doors for months. Actually, we've been on the hunt for wood screen doors since last summer!  To save on time and energy, rather than build my own doors from scratch, I opted to buy a good quality stock door to customize.  I could (and, in hindsight, I should)  have made my own doors, completely, but opted for a stock door to save some much needed time and energy. I have very little energy due to my health and I have very little time due to the very short summer season here in Vermont. Our summer is packed solid with renovations which must be accomplished.  I had to add these screws to hold the joints together. I have a kitchen and living room to renovate and this includes new windows, new insulation and new exterior siding. The summer season

I was down and, for the most part, relegated to the couch for about a month recently due to some significant foot problems. I visited the doctor... we did some x-rays... and came to some conclusions about tendonitis, arthritis and subsequent swelling. The swelling was significant enough that I could not walk on it nor could I fit into any of my shoes. After about a month of hobbling around with a cane and a lot of pain, my foot slowly felt more like "normal" again.  Then, after about a week of "relatively normal" activity on my foot, I suddenly began having problems again! The recurring tendonitis (Achilles tendon) was making it difficult and painful to walk again and I was feeling some swelling in my heel (as opposed to my entire foot last time around). Although there is no doubt that after decades of extreme sports and a physically demanding career that my feet are a weak point and prone to injury, I've been feeling as though something other than activit

As I had already written previously, I had a very rough night with poor health last night.  I didn't get to bed until 4am...  and then I was up and in the bathroom again at around 8:30am.   I was hoping I could sleep away most of the day and, if luck would have it, I would recover a bit while I was getting some much-needed rest.  Well, no luck today as far as my health is concerned. I ended up suffering from some more episodes of anaphylaxis, although considerably more mild than last night.  My heart-rate was in the 120-140 beats per minute range most of the day making it impossible to sleep.   I've also been very flushed, on and off, all day and all evening tonight.  That is never a good sign.  Flushing on my face, neck and shoulders typically is a precursor to failing health again. This flushing is irritating too...  It gives me a deep burning feeling and I actually look like I have a splotchy sunburn...  when it is a bad case, all of my skin is a solid red that resembles

I have been very fortunate this Christmas season!  We have had an exceptionally busy, hectic and exhausting December and, for the most part, my health held up surprisingly well. Now, however, we are a few days past Christmas and my health has crashed... and it has crashed spectacularly. I had a few bouts with anaphylaxis causing dizziness, palpitations, tachycardia, and breathing difficulties which all leads to exhaustion.  Whenever my heart responds to anaphylaxis, my heart-rate jumps to the 120-180 beats per minute range and it can stay there for an hour or two. Having your heart-rate at this chest pounding level is similar to running for a couple of hours... or playing a basketball game for a couple of hours... or any other strenuous activity for hours.  I am left feeling exhausted and my entire body aches for days. The degranulation of mast cells which caused this anaphylaxia also causes nerve irritation and inflammation.  Needless to say, in addition to the overwhelming fatigu