Scattered Thoughts . . .

This week has been quite brutal.   My usual bone pain has recently moved to a level so painful that I, myself, am unable to touch my long bones especially my femurs and tibias.  At rest, the pain is in the seven out of ten range.  When I lightly touch my femur or tibia, the pain skyrockets off the charts.   I'm also overwhelmingly exhausted.  I slept half the morning today and most of the afternoon.  My excruciating level of pain isn't helping me get some useful rest at all, of course. My breathing hasn't been the best either which also adds to the fatigue problem.   My fevers continue to come and go too.   Needless to say, I'm not accomplishing much of anything over the past couple of months.  When things get this bad, I attempt to do a lot of research so that is what I have been doing most of my waking time.  Well...  most of my waking time (which isn't much time at all) is probably spent preparing and cooking meals followed by the time spent researching.  I'v

T his blog entry sat around in my drafts folder for a couple of weeks!   I guess I should finish it and publish it. My joints have been terribly and painfully inflamed for the past week or so...  knees, ankles, toes...  I spent a few days on the couch because I could not walk at all.  I was on crutches for a short while and then a cane.  Now I am just limping around.  My left elbow is beginning to get inflamed too.  Sheila already has elbow problems.  According to our doctors, these joint problems are likely related to long-COVID issues.  Sheila is dealing mostly with inflamed joints in her upper body while I am mostly dealing with inflamed joints in my lower body.  My elbow isn't feeling so great at the moment though.  We'll see how this develops. I did some work in the yard today and, by the time I finished for the day, my right foot felt was though it were broken.  I came inside, showered and then hit the couch again with an icepack.  It is feeling a bit better now...  rathe

Sheila was tested for COVID-19 again this morning so I suppose that means we are both in quarantine until we get word on her test results.   She is feeling kind of lousy...  mostly symptoms in her sinuses and nose...  although she has watery, itchy eyes and fatigue as well.  It is possible she has a cold or allergies but we thought getting tested was the wisest idea because she was exposed to the public at the hospital a few days ago for one of her regular cancer checkups.  Other than that, we really have not been exposed to anyone in the past few days.  We've only been at home as we should be during a worldwide pandemic.   Anyway, now we wait for test results.  I suppose I will need a test as well if she tests positive.  My bet is that she is suffering from some far worsened allergies.  It is better to be safe and responsible so we'll sit tight while we wait for her test results... 

When I first procured this illness... Systemic Mastocytosis... I experienced a lot of very varied symptoms. Once I started on a cocktail of medications, some of these symptoms slowly waned. Most did not, but some did. Back then, I experienced all sorts of neurological symptoms. I experienced so many of these neurological symptoms that all my doctors thought I was developing Multiple Sclerosis. Fortunately, my cocktail of medications slowly helped to alleviate these symptoms. Sometimes, however, my health dips quite low and these symptoms appear again...  today is one such time. Today, my left hand has been twitching consistently all day thus far. Also, my taste buds seem to be all screwed up today... nothing tastes right! Everything is tasting very acidic.  In the big scheme of things, these two symptoms are hardly worth mentioning but it is worth mentioning that when twitching appears and continues for a few hours, it becomes quite maddening! All food tasting acidic is frust

I had some good health through the weekend which was very refreshing after struggling with a nasty cold and mast cell related side effects for months . During this brief period of good health, I was thinking clearly and had a good amount of energy, relatively speaking. As a result, I managed to get a lot of little things accomplished around the house. One project I started to tackle was building a little covered kitchen grilling area in the yard. I had all these ideas vividly in my head. Yesterday... I awoke and all those ideas and plans were a muddled mess and I couldn't figure out how or where to connect any two pieces of lumber. Hell... I couldn't even figure out what size the lumber should be!  Compared to some people's abilities with projects such as this one, not knowing what to do for a project such as this would not be a sign of anything other than another normal day. For me, with an engineering background and someone who is constantly designing and building thi