Scattered Thoughts . . .

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 ...

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...

Last night wasn't one of the best nights of my life.  It certainly wasn't the worst, but it was lousy nevertheless. Once again, my Systemic Mastocytosis negatively impacted my health.  This illness affects my health negatively every day, but that is my "new normal" so I don't really think much about my limitations when my health stays in this "new normal" range. How any transient symptoms manifest can vary greatly so, each time I have any problem of failing, debilitating health, it can be a relatively new experience.  Last night was a little strange... Earlier in the night, I felt 'okay'.  I was feeling a little full or bloated but nothing that would arouse suspicion.  (In hindsight, it should have.)  I had some moderate joint pain, but with the drastic change in weather today, I attributed this pain to the weather.  I was wrong, however, and these couple of things should have aroused some suspicion! In the middle of the night I ended up ...