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 miserable mood.  It s

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 this type of heat even on a "good" hea

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 worsening of my mast cell disease sin

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 outing.  I was a bit d

L ast night, after my doctor's office had closed for the day, my very low grade fever that I had throughout the holiday weekend, started rising.  Stuff like this always seems to happen on the weekends or at night.  By 8:30pm, the fever had reached 100.4 degrees so I was a bit concerned.   I still wasn't sure where the threshold should be for being concerned or seeking more medical attention but I figured the best thing would be to call my doctor's office in the morning.  If I started feeling miserable rather than lousy, then I would have to go to the hospital emergency department.  However, before heading to the bedroom last night, I realized that I could also write my doctor an email then, if necessary, follow-up in the morning after they opened for the day.  I definitely didn't want to wait so long that I would need to go directly to the hospital. This morning, the phone started ringing at 7:15am.  I get virtually no phone calls but now my line was ringing and it was

T he pain that has been radiating around the site of my tick bite is lessening but I'm still not feeling great.  My fever is increasing, little by little, especially this evening.  I'm at 99.9 degrees now.  We'll see how this develops through the night...  Why does this stuff always happen after the doctor's office has closed?   I'm assuming heading to a hospital isn't advisable until the fever inches above 101-102 degrees.   EDIT:  9:30pm - Before heading to bed, I decided to check my temperature again...  I was over 100 degrees.  I just checked again now at bedtime, about an hour after taking an Aleve and an aspirin, and my temperature has dropped to around 99 degrees again.  So that is good.  I definitely need to talk with my doctor (or any doctor) tomorrow morning.  

F irst, I should probably write a few things about the tick bite that I got this past Thursday.  Actually, I think it is past time for an update. The site of the bite hurts...  all around the area hurts.  The tick was latched onto the right side of my abdomen under my waistband and the pain radiating from that relatively tiny spot is felt past my groin to the left and down below my right hip on the right.  I can also feel the pain deeper into my body at the site of the bite.  It is sort of an ache...  a mild burning ache...  maybe not "burning" but a warm ache.   When I got out of the shower today, I noticed I have about a two inch diameter pale white area around the red bite area.  It is not a bullseye but it is an odd pale lack of skin coloring around the bite area.  I'm not sure what this means, to be honest.  (Note:  After being out of the shower about an hour or so, that pale white area is no longer visible...  so, strange.) I have a very low grade fever now.  I'

I 've been busy with landscaping projects over the past couple of weeks whenever I am feeling well enough.  This is good news because it has been helping me build up my strength again after months of COVID and long-COVID. Whenever I am done sweating from the morning of work in the yard, I then check myself for ticks before stepping into the shower.  Last night, unfortunately, I never made it to the shower because I was exhausted, I had to make dinner, I was still sweating, etc.  I just never got to the shower.  I had changed out of my sweaty clothes when I came in at lunchtime but I never did make it to the shower yesterday so I skipped a more thorough tick check too. This morning, I headed back outside to plant flowers into our window boxes.  We had purchased a bunch of flowers a few nights ago but I hadn't had time to plant them until this morning.  This was an easy job and only required about an hour of work.  After planting, I cleaned up the mess I made, put the gardening t

Over the past few days, I've been having a conversation in a photography forum about how to shoot monochrome images.  More specifically, someone had asked how to better utilize the in-camera color filters to get darkened skies.   She was having difficulty seeing much of a difference between images shot without a filter and images shot with a filter.   It just so happens that I spent some time running some experiments pertaining to this topic a couple of years ago so I had quite a bit of useful advice. This photographer explained that the skies were hazy and most of the scene was green foliage but that she could not see much of a difference between images shot without any in-camera color filters and those shot with a red in-camera filter.  Now she was wondering if she was doing something wrong or wondering if a true physical filter on the lens would be better. I was the first in this forum to respond to her.  I explained that hazy conditions are lousy for getting darkened skies in m

E ven though our summers are extremely short up here in Vermont, I've always had nagging thoughts about a small garden railroad nestled somewhere in amidst our flower gardens.  I think I finally found the right place among our gardens for a small elevated garden railroad.   Adjacent to where our backyard putting green was located (I'm in the process of repurposing this area to horseshoe pits...  another ongoing project for this spring), we had a small, overgrown garden area consisting of some shrubs, berry vines and mostly weeds.  In the process of cleaning up this area for the horseshoe pits, I saw this area in the very different light that I felt would be great for a small garden railroad.  The area is about 16' x 8'.   Here is an aerial view of this small area... The round things lined up in a row running across the top of the image are concrete test cylinders that I have been using as a border along one side of the pitching and putting green.  I've been using th