Scattered Thoughts . . .

I t is still only 7pm but, so far, today is the first day that I don't have a fever since being bitten by a tick.  I have been in much need of some good news so not having a fever is quite a relief.  For 11 days, my health got progressively worse.  The worst days were the 10th and 11th days after finding the tick on me and those were quite bad days. Right after pulling the tick off me, I was given a single mega-dose of antibiotic.  Unfortunately, that wasn't enough and my health worsened over the long Memorial Day weekend that immediately followed the tick bite.  After the weekend, I was called back into my doctor's office and they started me on the longest "at home" oral antibiotic treatment immediately.  So, those worst days at days 10 and 11 were only the 5th and 6th days on the long antibiotic treatment.   Those 10th and 11th days were miserable and that was clearly indicated by my mood.  I don't remember the last time I was in such a mis...

I didn't accomplish much of anything today.  I'm still dealing with fevers coming and going throughout each day since my tick bite.  My fever(s) never got above 100 degrees today so that is sort of good.   I'm still generally feeling quite lousy and  I also had difficulty focusing on any one task so I ended up bouncing from one thing to another within minutes, never really accomplishing anything.    I'm still in quite a bit of pain which certainly affects my ability to focus...  although the pain isn't as bad as yesterday but I'm still in pain.  My joints and my muscles hurt.  I have a bit of a headache too.   I stayed indoors today with the exception of wandering outside first thing this morning to water the flowers.  The first thing this morning the temperature outside was already up near 80 degrees!  Other than that, I was indoors all day long.  The weather was in the 90s again today and I don't do well in th...

I know it is only Day 5 of this latest antibiotic but, still, I feel the need to mention that I feel like crap.  This second course of antibiotics will be for 14 days so I'm still fairly early in this second round of treatment.  I'm not all that confident in its effectiveness though.  I'm still getting fevers every night.  My abdomen hurts.  My joints hurt.  My muscles ache.  I still have a headache.  And, I just generally feel like crap. What compounds this tick bite and whatever illness has been transmitted to me is the fact that I was still struggling with long-COVID when I found the tick on me.  So, between my mast cell symptoms, my long-COVID symptoms and now these tick illness symptoms, I'm not sure which thing is causing which symptoms.  There is no doubt that a few things suddenly came on and/or worsened after the tick bite so I'm fairly certain what is due to the tick bite.  Then again, the tick bite could be causing a wor...

I 'm feeling slightly better after a few more doses of antibiotic but my post-tick-bite fever is still lingering.  I still have a long way to go with the antibiotic so I'm still very early in the treatment which means I probably shouldn't be surprised by the lingering fever.  It is only a low grade fever but I am also taking NSAIDs which should be lowering the fever yet I still do have one so, without the NSAIDs, I can't help but wonder how high would my fever be?   I'm a bit more fatigued than what is "normal", I think.  It is difficult to discern what might be due to my primary illness (Systemic Mastocytosis) or due to this tick bite.  I am inexplicably exhausted though.  Hmmm...  maybe I should take some extra medications for my primary illness just in case this is related to that.  (EDIT:  I just did take extra medications.) Sheila and I did some grocery shopping this evening and I felt rather crappy through that relatively short out...

B etween typical lousy springtime weather and continued daily struggles with Long-COVID problems, I've been trying to find things to accomplish around the house.   I'm still having more difficulty than usual with breathing problems.  I'm always feeling like I'm trying to clear thick, nasty phlegm from my lungs.  Actually, I am still clearing this thick, nasty phlegm from my lungs (dark nasty stuff) but it is difficult to move this thick stuff and it seems to continue to replenish itself even after I clear some out.  So, this makes breathing difficult which also causes extra fatigue.   Another lingering problem is inflamed joints.  This isn't nearly as bad as it was from January through March but it is still worth mentioning.  As exhausted as I am, the pain continues to keep me up at night and keep me more uncomfortable than usual almost all the time.  I'm always dealing with pain due to my extensive spinal injuries as well as the bone an...

I had been very slowly recovering from my long-lingering COVID symptoms but things drastically worsened again this past weekend. We had about 13 inches of snow Friday night into Saturday so we had to head outside to at least clear off the roof especially since the snow wasn't supposed to stop falling for another 12 hours or so.  We didn't need a collapsed roof on top of all my health problems so we headed outside for a painful couple of hours.  It turns out we had another three inches of snow through the night on Saturday night after we cleared off the roof so it is good that we took care of the roof when we did. I started up the snowblower and made my way toward the driveway.  I had just broken through the deep snow with one slowblower-width path when it started making a terrible noise.  I noticed that one of the four augers was no longer held in place with its pin.  Fortunately, I had two spares on the control panel of the snowblower so that was a quick fix....

T his morning, Sheila and I picked up her dad so we could drive him to the airport.  He's heading to DeSantisland for a long visit with some family, friends and Disney.  This part of our trip went relatively well but it was not without a few concerning problems. While I was moving my medications and ice packs to the car for our drive northward toward Burlington, my right leg kept buckling under me.  In an instant, periodically, I was briefly losing the ability to control my leg.  This worsened the longer we were away from home.  Losing control of your legs when you have a spinal issue is not a good thing.  It is not good physically.  It is not good mentally.  It is not good emotionally.  This was a new development that is a bit concerning.   Unfortunately, I've been down this road before when I was originally recovering from my first and second line-of-duty spinal injuries.  At times various times after my injuries, I could not...

I am still in significant pain but I'm now managing to accomplish a few small things for very short durations each day.  It hurts to do anything but I'm getting up off the couch a few times each day.  Although the pain is still rather brutal, I have started on some very light physical therapy which should help in my recovery. My spinal injuries are another one of those things where I get knocked down and sent back to square one far too often.  This is definitely one of those times.  Actually, this time around, the pain is so bad and so consistent that it is reminding me of my original line-of-duty injury.  Things were bad after both my first and second line-of-duty spinal injuries so it is a bit frustrating to be back at this point 25 years ago once again.   25 years ago, the physical therapy required to walk fairly normally again was intense...  eight hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks.  After the six weeks, the amount of time in ...

T he pain from my spine and down my right leg that has been keeping me couchbound over the past couple of weeks is slowly improving but I am still mostly couchbound.   I've managed to wander the house for very short periods today.  I even was able to sit at the piano for very short sessions last night and today.  Almost all of my days, however, are still spent on the couch swapping out ice packs.   I managed to stay in bed for eight hours last night.  I eventually got up at 5am so I could take my morning dose of medications and put some ice on my spine.   Late last night, I switched to taking Dual Action Advil and then I took it once this morning.  It is clear to me that this stuff is only a fraction as good as Aleve for me.  I don't think I'll be use the Advil again.  That was a complete waste of money and it cost me a bit in pain.  I'll be going back to Aleve with my bedtime dose of medications.   This evening,...

B y mid-week last week, I started using my cane because my lumbar spinal pain was making it difficult to walk.  I would also get stabbing pains in the tops of my feet that would hit me like lightning.  At the time, my constant pain level was in the four to five out of ten range.   Unfortunately, this pain did not pass quickly...  definitely not as quickly as I would like.  By the weekend, my pain level increased to the unbearable seven to eight range.  I could not get comfortable.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't do anything.  The pain was constantly unbearable. I took two Aleves on Saturday but they didn't touch the pain.  I got no relief whatsoever.  The pain continued to get worse into the night.  By 1:30am, even dozing for a few minutes was impossible.  Getting to the bathroom in the wee hours of Sunday morning was unbearably excruciating.  All day Sunday, the pain was well in the eight to eight-plus range....

I had a relatively good day today for a change.  I slept about nine hours last night so I'm sure that helped considering I have not been sleeping well due to excruciating bone pain.  My bone pain has subsided to tolerable levels so that allowed me to get some much needed sleep.   Since I was feeling relatively well this morning, I managed to do some maintenance on a photography tripod head which is perhaps the most I've accomplished in any day since developing COVID in Manhattan before Christmas.  So, it was a pretty good day for a change. Tonight, however, I have a fever of 100.4° and that is not so good.   I've been see-sawing back and forth with fevers a few times a week for the past month.  In the previous month of COVID, I had a solid fever and I consistently tested positive for the virus.  I'm no longer testing positive but the fevers are still coming and going along with a few other problem symptoms.   My energy is still qui...

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 ...

I 'm five weeks into this bout with COVID and I'm still experiencing fevers every day.  Every evening my temperature rises into the triple digits range.  I was feeling "fair" this morning when I got up so that was a nice change.  It was pretty short-lived though. I have been ignoring snow removal due to struggling with the virus and daily fevers so, since I was feeling pretty good this morning (relatively speaking), I headed outside to clear out snow from around the house and off the roof.  By the time I came back inside a couple of hours later, I was feeling pretty lousy again.   Every evening, my sinus headache returns along with the fever but the sinus headache this evening is quite painful.  This sinus headache came back with a vengeance after all the heavy work outside.  Of course, my spinal injuries were screaming at me too while I was moving snow and since then.  I took quite a few breaks while working outside in an attempt to get past...

For the most part, today was yet another rather miserable day. I thought I might get to writing more about our trip to Manhattan a few weeks ago but I'm feeling so lousy today that I opted to avoid writing about the trip.  At the moment, due to getting this horrendous, lingering, debilitating virus during this trip, I have absolutely nothing good to write about this trip nor do I want to travel ever again so it is best that I do not put any of my current feelings into writing.  This sentiment about travel will likely change...  in time...  perhaps a very long time...  but, at the moment, this is how I feel.   I slept most of the day, again, and I generally feel quite miserable.  I had a little bit of energy after sleeping most of the morning but that only lasted about a half hour before I was feeling quite miserable again.  In that half hour, I managed to fix my telephone line in the house and I wrote about that in a previous blog entry....

A t 6:30 this morning, I got up for the third time to use the bathroom...  which itself is becoming more and more common as I get older...  but what was a bit unusual this morning is that I ended up in excruciating pain as a crumpled mess on the bathroom floor.  Getting up out of bed was extremely painful so I knew I was in for a rough morning at least for a short while.  I certainly wasn't expecting what happened though.  Getting out of bed was so painful this morning that I actually thought about grabbing my cane.  I quickly dismissed that idea, I think, because if I had to wake up enough to remember where I left my cane or to go looking for my cane, I would not be going back to bed after using the bathroom.  Too much thought would wake me enough that falling back asleep would be impossible.  I actually have two canes now but I have no idea where my older cane is located at the moment.   After carefully and painfully swinging my feet d...

While Sheila and I were moving the wet, heavy, foot or more of snow this evening, I tripped while trying to move the snowblower in reverse and I fell right onto my right pelvis...  the site of last week's biopsy...  and the pain was so brutal that I was seeing stars and just continued to lie there in the snow where I landed.   I figured that, at that point, it was probably good to just lie there in the cold snow.  Lying on my back in the snow actually was applying pressure and ice on the site of my biopsy so I really was in no hurry to attempt to get back up on my feet.  The pain was bad enough that trying to get back up to my feet would be difficult anyway.   How I ended up in this predicament is I was blowing snow on the back side of the house cutting a clear path from the road back to our oil tank and gas tank.  This put me out of sight from Sheila who was in the driveway on the other side of the house.  After my trip and fall, I figu...

I'm slowly but steadily recovering from my bone marrow biopsy.  It seems like the biopsy was the day before yesterday but today is the fourth day of recovery.  I've done a lot of sleeping when the pain would allow for some sleep.   I slept about 13 hours last night so that was good.  I awoke at around 5:30am but, contrary to the past few mornings, I was able to go back to sleep with no difficulty.  We got up at around 9am and Sheila did some yoga and then I made a fairly big breakfast.  So, I suppose I'm feeling well enough to do some cooking. Breakfast was good! I still have quite a bit of pain whenever I attempt to do anything.  Bending especially is painful...  sitting back against anything that puts some pressure on the site of the biopsy is even more painful...  and laying on my right side is better than it has been but at least it is possible now for short periods...  so things are improving.   At rest when nothing i...

I had no problems falling asleep last night.  I was dozing off by 8pm.  I awoke at 4:30am this morning when I tried to roll over onto my right side.  I was quickly reminded that the bone marrow biopsy was on my right side though so that woke me up suddenly.   I read in bed for a bit and then got up out of bed with Sheila when she got up for work at just before 6am.  However, I was unable to keep my eyes open by 8am and slept on the couch until just before noon (on my left side, of course).   I didn't even eat anything for breakfast because I was too exhausted to make anything.  I was originally planning to make some bacon and French toast because I was starving.  Due to a serious lack of energy, I changed my breakfast plan to just having a bagel with cream cheese.  I still didn't have the energy to make even that.  Instead, I grabbed a couple pillows from the bedroom and laid down on the couch.  I was asleep the moment my ...

Sheila did too much lifting and playing with a toddler on Saturday and has had serious back problems since then.  Actually, her back has gotten worse with each passing day since Saturday.  This morning was the worst it has ever been. I came out of the bedroom at 6:30 this morning to find Sheila lying on the living room floor in the dark.  If she hadn't spoken up in the dark to warn me that she was on the floor, I would have tripped over her, landed on her, and likely made her condition even worse.  That certainly wouldn't have helped either one of us! Apparently, she had previously made it to the bathroom, in pain, but trying to sit on the toilet put her back into an intensely painful spasm.  She managed to slowly, over the course of the next half hour, crawl her way back to the living room where I found her. At this point, Sheila couldn't get to the bathroom nor anywhere else.  When I helped her to carefully and excruciatingly make her way back to the bath...

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 wi...