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 n

During the antique boat show yesterday in Burlington, we decided to head up to Church Street for lunch and a few cold drinks. We couldn't get a seat at Vermont Pub & Brewery so we headed to Sweetwater's. As always, Sweetwaters provided great service, great food and decent drinks.  While we were at Sweetwater's, I had a hankering for some smoked buffalo wings. Sometimes chicken wings do not affect my health and sometimes they have a huge impact. Unfortunately, it seems yesterday the wings impacted me negatively. Regardless of how they affected my health, these smoked buffalo chicken wings were succulently delicious! I'm not sure exactly what caused my health to crash (and this is a very conservative, mild term when talking about what happened to my health last night) but I do know that chicken rarely, if ever, agrees with my health.  We also had some french fries and onion rings at the restaurant at the boathouse which were clearly deep fried in the same oil as