Scattered Thoughts . . .

As I wrote in my previous blog entry, my night last night was less than stellar as a result of some pretty lousy health. It turns out that today has been no better. Actually, today has been worse than all the time spent in the bathroom in the middle of the night last night. I've had difficulty breathing. I've been very weak. My bones hurt like only a Systemic Mastocytosis patient could understand. I'm overwhelmingly exhausted. I'm nauseated. And, after lunch, my throat was inflamed and a bit swollen. Then I passed out.  When I awoke a few hours later, all the symptoms were still present so I knew it was time for my emergency medications.  I've needed epinephrine today and I also needed to take some other emergency medications to try to stabilize my mast cells. Most of these medications cause drowsiness. Compounding this drowsiness issue is the fact that this huge cellular reaction inside my body causes indescribable fatigue also.  I really hate taking these

Shortly after publishing my last post here last night, my health crashed. I had been feeling 'uncomfortable' all night long. Actually, I had been feeling uncomfortable and a little bit 'off' for the past few days so I knew something was amiss and my health would be crashing before long. What I knew was coming hit me in the wee hours of the morning last night. My stomach had been gurgling and making all sorts of noises all day long. This typically is an indication that gastro-intestinal problems are forecast. This held true last night. For those of us struggling with Systemic Mastocytosis, our mast cells indiscriminately choose an organ to attack (for lack of a better medical term... clinically speaking, "attack" is an appropriate description though). Mast cells control many bodily functions and are very important defensive cells in immunology, allergy, and infection. The problem is that my mast cells will respond/attack anywhere in my body for no known r

View of the night sky just after sunset from the deck. I think it is safe to say that we are all looking forward to heading to the lake. As I sit here typing this post, I can hear the rain falling outside my window and I can't help but hope the weather is nicer very soon. There is sailing to do... kayaks to paddle... swimming to be done... short hikes to be done... socializing with guests... a lot of photos to shoot... and simply enjoying ourselves every moment of every day. I'd prefer not to be doing all of this in the rain! Well, really, I'd prefer not to be doing any of that in the rain! Adam is graduating high school on Saturday so he is busy this week with finals and some last minute projects. I know he is looking forward to getting back out on the sailboat. I notice him eyeing the boat whenever he is in the yard. I am sure he is definitely ready to be graduating high school! So Adam is a bit antsy to get to the lake as well. I'm sure Sheila is looking

Although all the parts have been sitting around the house, shed and yard for the past year or more, I finally managed to put together a dolly for my sailboat yesterday. It has been a long time coming! If I had to do it over again, I would definitely change a few things in the design. This always happens though. I design something... build it... and then realize something is just not 'right'. I'm always trying to improve things. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that but it does get a bit tiring especially considering my health. Right now this dolly has a flat tire. When the snow eventually melted a few weeks ago, I noticed that one of the tires is flat. I had already assembled the basic frame of this dolly... the long tongue and the axle... and had mounted two 10" tires on it. All last summer I just propped the sailboat on this makeshift dolly using scrap 2x4 blocking. Unfortunately, whenever I moved the dolly around the yard (ie, for cutting the lawn), the b