Saturday was a Bad Day... and Night
Sheila is recovering from her hospital visit a few days ago and we're ready to jump into more medical appointments for her. On the positive side, she is slowly recovering and feeling better. We're still waiting to see her Oncologist and her Primary Care doctor early this week to discuss these newest problems but, for now, she is feeling more stable.
My health, however, is taking a serious hit.
I went out to mow the lawn after breakfast yesterday morning since it was a first day in a week that we finally had dry grass. It was beginning to get warm so I opted to forego pulling out the weed-whacker and just do a relatively quick mow. I figured I needed to minimize my time out in the sun, heat and humidity so I skipped the weed-whacking.
My health does not do well in the heat and Saturday was a bit warm and quite humid. I knew the wisest thing to do would be to just run the mower over the lawn as quickly as possible without overdoing it and then get out of the heat.
About two thirds of the way through the lawn, I came to our big "Christmas tree" that we decorate with about 15 strings of lights. I've been putting off shearing this tree for about a month and, when I saw this beautiful overgrown tree on Saturday morning, I decided it needed to be done now. I hate seeing overgrown landscaping anywhere (to me, it is a sign of laziness and not caring) but I especially hate seeing it on my own property.
I went back to the shed to get our extending pruning pole, some pruning shears and a rake. Once I reached for the top of the tree, I instantly realized that our tree had now outgrown our pruning pole. I quickly improvised a little bit of an extension and managed to get the top third of the tree pruned nicely.
Unfortunately, at this point, I started having difficulty seeing. My vision lacked contrast and color was very subdued... I was a little bit lightheaded... I knew I was "graying out" and needed to get to my medications as soon as possible. It was time to head indoors.
I took some emergency medications and cooled my body down under a spray of cold water for about five minutes. I was feeling a bit more stable so I decided to finish up my shearing and the lawn while I was again feeling halfway decent. I suspected that feeling halfway decent wouldn't last long but I knew I only had a little left to mow outside so I'd might as well get it all finished.
The rest of the pruning and mowing of the lawn went well and I then scurried back indoors, out of the sun, so I could cool down again under the spray of cold water. I took some additional medications and hoped that would be the end of my health troubles for the day.
Wrong again.
I had forgotten about events leading up to this day which had an impact on my health... and these sorts of things always impact the following few days or even weeks.
I felt rather lousy through dinner. I couldn't put my finger on any specific problem but I knew I wasn't feeling "right". By bedtime, the rest of the problems surfaced.
I spent the next hour in the bathroom... sick as a dog... holding down vomit as I sat on the toilet with stuff coming out the other end. I was nauseated beyond my usual limits of bearability and, generally speaking, I felt rather miserable.
After an hour or so of misery, I was able to head back to the bedroom... still groaning under my breath at the nausea... I stopped in the kitchen for more emergency medications and more water. Everything hurt... my bones, my whole body hurt. Worse yet, I was still terribly nauseated too. I managed to get some sleep though.
This morning, after another hefty dose of medications, it was time to evaluate where my healthcare went astray resulting in the problems I had the previous day. Working my way backward through time, I realized that I had pushed aside all sorts of signs of impending doom when it comes to my health in the days preceding Saturday.
I went all the way back to the middle-of-the-night ambulance ride to the hospital for Sheila. We spent about 12 hours at the hospital and, during that time, I missed a dose and a half of my usual medications. Then throw in some stress due to worrying about Sheila (stress is a huge trigger for my health problems) and this was the start of my health teetering on the brink of crashing. Add in some hot, humid days following our day at the hospital and we have a recipe for disaster. The only surprise is that it took so long to crash.
I never was able to make up for the lost doses of medication while we were at the hospital. Actually, there is no making up for lost doses. If you miss a dose, it is lost forever and you are pretty much screwed and should expect poor health. During those times without medications, my body continues to build up mast cell mediators. When the mediators rise to dangerous levels, then my health crashes into anaphylaxis as well as other debilitating problems. This slow cascade of symptoms after a slow sequence of bad events is what happened to me this time around.
By Saturday morning while I was mowing the lawn, I started graying-out... I was lightheaded, my vision was faded and lacked color, and I then began to see some sparklies in my eyes... which is the start of the cascade of symptoms toward anaphylaxis. I temporarily halted the anaphylaxis by spraying myself down with cold water (bring my body temperature down) and by taking additional medications. Unfortunately, this was not enough to correct the little fight going on within my body over the past few days.
Eventually, my health did crash and I was sick as a dog for most of the night last night. I felt miserable. I wasn't even sure I could lie down in bed without puking. I hate nights like that. I was exhausted and my whole body hurt but lying down was only inviting puking so I was propped up on pillows.
After realizing where and when my health started its downward spiral this past week, I immediately jumped into extra doses of medications to make up for the problems. Now I'm groggy from some of the medications and I will remain quite groggy for the next day or two.
Hopefully, however, my health will find some stability again soon and I will remain stable for a little while...
My health, however, is taking a serious hit.
I went out to mow the lawn after breakfast yesterday morning since it was a first day in a week that we finally had dry grass. It was beginning to get warm so I opted to forego pulling out the weed-whacker and just do a relatively quick mow. I figured I needed to minimize my time out in the sun, heat and humidity so I skipped the weed-whacking.
My health does not do well in the heat and Saturday was a bit warm and quite humid. I knew the wisest thing to do would be to just run the mower over the lawn as quickly as possible without overdoing it and then get out of the heat.
About two thirds of the way through the lawn, I came to our big "Christmas tree" that we decorate with about 15 strings of lights. I've been putting off shearing this tree for about a month and, when I saw this beautiful overgrown tree on Saturday morning, I decided it needed to be done now. I hate seeing overgrown landscaping anywhere (to me, it is a sign of laziness and not caring) but I especially hate seeing it on my own property.
I went back to the shed to get our extending pruning pole, some pruning shears and a rake. Once I reached for the top of the tree, I instantly realized that our tree had now outgrown our pruning pole. I quickly improvised a little bit of an extension and managed to get the top third of the tree pruned nicely.
Unfortunately, at this point, I started having difficulty seeing. My vision lacked contrast and color was very subdued... I was a little bit lightheaded... I knew I was "graying out" and needed to get to my medications as soon as possible. It was time to head indoors.
I took some emergency medications and cooled my body down under a spray of cold water for about five minutes. I was feeling a bit more stable so I decided to finish up my shearing and the lawn while I was again feeling halfway decent. I suspected that feeling halfway decent wouldn't last long but I knew I only had a little left to mow outside so I'd might as well get it all finished.
The rest of the pruning and mowing of the lawn went well and I then scurried back indoors, out of the sun, so I could cool down again under the spray of cold water. I took some additional medications and hoped that would be the end of my health troubles for the day.
Wrong again.
I had forgotten about events leading up to this day which had an impact on my health... and these sorts of things always impact the following few days or even weeks.
I felt rather lousy through dinner. I couldn't put my finger on any specific problem but I knew I wasn't feeling "right". By bedtime, the rest of the problems surfaced.
I spent the next hour in the bathroom... sick as a dog... holding down vomit as I sat on the toilet with stuff coming out the other end. I was nauseated beyond my usual limits of bearability and, generally speaking, I felt rather miserable.
After an hour or so of misery, I was able to head back to the bedroom... still groaning under my breath at the nausea... I stopped in the kitchen for more emergency medications and more water. Everything hurt... my bones, my whole body hurt. Worse yet, I was still terribly nauseated too. I managed to get some sleep though.
This morning, after another hefty dose of medications, it was time to evaluate where my healthcare went astray resulting in the problems I had the previous day. Working my way backward through time, I realized that I had pushed aside all sorts of signs of impending doom when it comes to my health in the days preceding Saturday.
I went all the way back to the middle-of-the-night ambulance ride to the hospital for Sheila. We spent about 12 hours at the hospital and, during that time, I missed a dose and a half of my usual medications. Then throw in some stress due to worrying about Sheila (stress is a huge trigger for my health problems) and this was the start of my health teetering on the brink of crashing. Add in some hot, humid days following our day at the hospital and we have a recipe for disaster. The only surprise is that it took so long to crash.
I never was able to make up for the lost doses of medication while we were at the hospital. Actually, there is no making up for lost doses. If you miss a dose, it is lost forever and you are pretty much screwed and should expect poor health. During those times without medications, my body continues to build up mast cell mediators. When the mediators rise to dangerous levels, then my health crashes into anaphylaxis as well as other debilitating problems. This slow cascade of symptoms after a slow sequence of bad events is what happened to me this time around.
By Saturday morning while I was mowing the lawn, I started graying-out... I was lightheaded, my vision was faded and lacked color, and I then began to see some sparklies in my eyes... which is the start of the cascade of symptoms toward anaphylaxis. I temporarily halted the anaphylaxis by spraying myself down with cold water (bring my body temperature down) and by taking additional medications. Unfortunately, this was not enough to correct the little fight going on within my body over the past few days.
Eventually, my health did crash and I was sick as a dog for most of the night last night. I felt miserable. I wasn't even sure I could lie down in bed without puking. I hate nights like that. I was exhausted and my whole body hurt but lying down was only inviting puking so I was propped up on pillows.
After realizing where and when my health started its downward spiral this past week, I immediately jumped into extra doses of medications to make up for the problems. Now I'm groggy from some of the medications and I will remain quite groggy for the next day or two.
Hopefully, however, my health will find some stability again soon and I will remain stable for a little while...
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