Scattered Thoughts . . .

The past three weeks have been quite lousy for me.  Somehow, my body started bleeding internally.  Accomplishing anything or even doing anything, naturally, was put on hold until this is resolved. Eating has been minimal and my drinking has been mostly water (and I absolutely hate drinking water).  Once a day I add a glass of apple juice with some fiber too.  The rest of my daily food has been soft, very bland foods and fruit.  I haven't eaten such bland food in about four decades before I left my parents' house for college and the Air Force.  My mother was the queen of dry, overcooked, bland cooking.  The running joke on our block was that whenever someone smelled something burning, everyone would remark, "Oh...  Mrs Maher must be cooking again."  She certainly liked her food bland and beyond well-done, that's for sure.  Even when we went to restaurants, she would always send her plate back for more cooking or less spices or both.   Two of my daily medications, t

Last night was... brutal.  The lousy health started to hit me while I was cooking dinner... country fried steak, pan roasted potatoes, country gravy and a big pan of fried okra. With four burners on the stove going at once, it was far too hot for me.  Heat is a major trigger for me. Warmer environments for anything longer than a few minutes will trigger my Systemic Mastocytosis episodes. These episodes can simply be painfully debilitating with only a few symptoms and/or they can include life threatening symptoms such as anaphylaxis. After cooking dinner, I couldn't even eat... I was nauseated beyond belief... and, generally, felt quite lousy. I knew my body was crashing but, apparently, I was not thinking clearly which is another symptom... diminished cognitive reasoning. I should have taken some emergency medications at this point but didn't think of it at the time. By the time we finished dinner, my nausea was still constant but I was experiencing worsening waves of n

The past two days were relatively productive days for me for a much needed change. I still ran out of energy within a few hours each day but I managed to get a few things accomplished. I feel as though I have not been 'productive' since I built our fireplace in December so this was a much appreciated and refreshing change to have a couple of productive mornings this week! The weather was nice so I was able to pull the table saw out of the shed so I could cut some wood. I have to admit, however, that just collecting tools was almost enough of an energy drain that I needed to call it a day.  I managed to slow down enough to keep up enough energy to make it until lunchtime. After that, I was so spent that just the simple act of putting tools away was impossible. Yesterday morning I did a little bit of staining... typically, this doesn't affect me too badly but yesterday was an exception. While I was cleaning my brush, my tongue started tingling and then, within a few momen