Scattered Thoughts . . .

S heila and I have always exchanged Christmas presents on Christmas Eve so we did the same this year.  Below are a select few photos from last night.  We had a nice night! I received a tabletop micrometer for cutting very fine slices of specimens for viewing and imaging under the microscope... Sheila came home from her office Christmas party this year and was a bit bummed that someone chose to take her Yankee Swap gift.  She had a miniature sled that would have worked perfectly with our Christmas decorations in our garden window but someone chose to "steal" her gift.   Upon hearing this replay of events, I immediately and quietly got online to see if I could find the right size sled...  I found a package of three sleds that were the exact size she said she had at the Yankee Swap...  so, she was excited and surprised to see she had her sleds again! It was a hard find but I managed to get the book "Wicked" for Sheila at a rare reasonable price...  a...

My night through the night was quite lousy last night.  We went to bed at around 10pm but I was not sleepy just yet which, I assume, was due to all the steroids in my body at this point.  Sheila fell asleep quickly but I stayed up and read for a while. I was still needing to get up to use the bathroom every hour too.  I think this was due to all the extra antihistamines I have been taking daily for the past week as well as because of all the extra water I had been drinking throughout the day.  These short bathroom trips were clearly cutting into my sleep too. Then, at 2am, I had some minor difficulties breathing.  It resolved itself within about ten minutes but that was a sign that I clearly am still seesawing back toward anaphylaxis.  It is happening much less frequently now and the severity is much less now too but that seesawing is still occurring it seems.   It is sort of like a swinging pendulum...   Early on, this pendulum was swin...

As I wrote in a previous blog post, I've been experiencing horrific pain all throughout my body for the past week and it has seriously affected my mood in a negative way. The level of pain was worst through this holiday weekend. At times like this, I increase my normal dosages of medications to try to bring my body back into check. This past week has been no different. On the positive side, I am feeling a bit better today but I have to say that just the simple act of walking across a room is still quite painful. Now, add to this pain and lousy mood a weekend full of constant fireworks... We had been invited to view Burlington's fireworks a few days ago but I quickly declined. I've always had a bit of a problem with the logistics of this particular event considering my health issues and disabilities so that made me hesitant to accept this offer but I also do have a problem with fireworks in general... and especially, the smell of gunpowder. The constant barrage of firework...