Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had an appointment with my doctor again this morning. I had planned to go to this appointment alone (Sheila and I usually attend appointments together but this appointment seemed like it would be uneventful... ie, no life threatening decisions to be made or discussed... so I was going it alone today) but my car is frozen in the mud so Sheila had to leave work to drive me there. Other than giving up some blood, the appointment was rather painless. Sheila and I saw the same doctor last week for Sheila's lingering cold. While we were there for Sheila, my doctor said she wanted to see me for a full exam and to adjust my medications. That appointment was this morning. This appointment was not a moment too soon since my health has been rather miserable lately. I've been having significantly worsened breathing issues since June of 2015... which is a long time and something which should have sent me to the doctor long ago. That was a priority today because it seems to be worseni

My health is finally feeling as though I am over the hump with this nasty, lingering cold. Today is the first day where I feel as though I am "recovering" from the cold symptoms. Although, my overall health is still quite miserable and I'm still struggling with typical Systemic Mastocytosis symptoms which are probably as a result of the lingering cold. The cold itself, however, seems to be waning... finally. Since I was feeling a bit better this morning, I quickly decided to pull out a camera, a lens, a tripod, a light, and a remote shutter release to see if I could get a photo of myself. I think I had to shoot about two dozen photos just to get two decent shots. Absolutely accurate focus is impossible to do with a remote shutter release. Ohhh... I just remembered something I could have done... I could have used my Kindle Fire tablet to choose a focus point... uggg... I should have thought of that this morning. I have an app on my tablet which allows me to control my

I feel as though my weeks-long cold is finally waning which is good news, however, I think this cold has had a tremendously negative impact upon my primary illness. The bad news is that I am well beyond exhausted. It is clear that I am not thinking clearly... I screwed up tonight's dinner... I spent time and energy preparing a pork roast, hoping for a few days of leftovers... seasoned it, seared it, put it in the oven... and three hours later realized that I never turned on the oven. After sitting unrefrigerated for close to four hours, the roast went into the garbage.  Simply walking to and from the bathroom is an exhausting task.  Showering will require more energy than I have to expend so it is not something I have even attempted in the past day or two. My eyes don't want to stay open.  Just the simple, thoughless, involuntary act of breathing while sitting on the couch is using up energy as though I were playing a grueling game of basketball.  I'm exhauste

I've been meaning to write about this topic for approximately four or five years now. Somehow other topics pushed this topic to the side time and time again. I've mentioned this topic a few times in other blog entries so I really need to make an effort to put something together to add to my blog... so here I am. As a teacher, as a supervisor, as a leader, I have been in close contact with many adolescents and young adults over the decades and followed them through early adulthood. In order to teach them and guide them effectively, I listened carefully. Over the decades, I was a teacher of music, aerospace, leadership, and various other specialties. It didn't matter which subject I was teaching but providing accurate information about those particular subjects was my primary concern, however, as a teacher and someone who was in a position to guide them, I would listen to their views on anything and everything. It was my job as a teacher and leader to get them thinking log

The title of this blog entry is almost meaningless since art projects are about the only thing I accomplish since developing Systemic Mastocytosis. Art has many forms and I do try to stay active in many... drawing, painting, photography, videography, music and even designing and building things like models and renovating our home.  In this case, the illness I am referring to is this miserable lingering cold (12 days at this point). I occasionally have periods of clear thinking that are driving me crazy because I am so bored (I need to stay productive and creative) but I'm still not well enough to tackle anything of significance. During these fleeting periods of clear thinking over the past few days, I've been trying to draw and paint. This particular art project is a sketch of the Empire State Building. I already created a matching piece  of the Chrysler Building   a few months ago and it is now hanging on a wall in our newly renovated bedroom. I plan to hang this new sk

For most people, a cold is an annoyance... an inconvenience... a nagging little problem of needing tissues nearby and having some over-the-counter cold medications. For those struggling with other illnesses, like my own illness, a cold can be brutal. My illness, Systemic Mastocytosis, causes overactive mast cells, all day, every day... an abundance of mast cells... and, since mast cells are at the center of immunology, this means I have an over-active immune system.  Because of these overactive mast cells attacking all sorts of things within my body which it should not, I often have symptoms of a typical cold even on a good day. I have too much histamine in my body. I have too much of every mediator produced by mast cells which causes all sorts of problems including some life threatening problems.  Now... add a virus or a cold to this already unhealthy body...  During a typical cold, my mast cells get even more over-active... moving into hyper-activity. This causes some absolut

A rare photo of a photographer without a camera pressed up to his face. I capture quite a few photos of Sheila but it is very rare when someone captures a photo of both Sheila and me together!  Since I usually have a camera covering my face, it is a rare occasion when someone grabs my camera and snaps a photo of me... and, although Sheila and I are together more often than not, even rarer is capturing the two of us together in the same photo.   While we were at The Munich Haus restaurant in Massachusetts this past weekend with family and friends, Jen asked if we would like a photo of the two of us... I could probably count on one hand how many times people have asked this question over the past eight years so it was a very nice surprise. I truly wish people would ask more often. I handed Jen my camera and gave a few quick instructions on how my camera operates. In hindsight, I should have simply switched my camera to one of the 'auto' modes to make things signific

My New York Central passenger set, headed by a Dreyfuss Hudson streamlined locomotive. As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I came home from the annual Amherst Railway Society's train show empty-handed this year. During our drive back home, I decided to do some model railroad shopping online when we arrived home.  Before we headed to the train show, I put together a pretty good sized list of things I might buy at the show if the price was right. From my experiences at past shows, I knew that I would not find three quarters of the stuff on my list so I made sure I had a pretty lengthy list to improve my odds of coming across something I wanted.  I had products on this wishlist from a number of different scales... N scale, HO scale, O scale (narrow gauge, 2-rail and 3-rail stuff), and even one F scale locomotive. I even had some products on my list which are not scale specific (ie, various power controllers, scenery products, etc). Even with this many products on my wishli

Sheila and I came back home from the Amherst Railway Society's train show with a cold. I always need some time to recover after any trip because of my spinal injuries and mostly due to my illness... Systemic Mastocytosis. Needing some time to recover is no surprise but having a cold on top of my usual need for recovery only compounds the problem. That being said, compared to my usual recoveries after trips, this cold so far has been rather 'mild' for me. Sheila is feeling well enough to be back at work today but my cold is still lingering... clogged head, runny nose, and painful swollen lymph nodes. Of course, whenever I run down my health since procuring this insidious illness, I experience these symptoms to some extent.... some times worse than others. Since Sheila has this cold at the same time that I'm experiencing these symptoms, I'm assuming that I'm also fighting off this bug in addition to trying to recover after wearing down my health.   My spinal i

Making our way to the door of the Big E for the train show... This past weekend we attended the Amherst Railway Society's 2016 Train Show... and, as always, it was a great weekend! I love model railroading but this weekend is about two things... Obviously, first and foremost, it's about model railroading but it is also a big social event. We've been attending this show long enough that we've established some 'tradition' for this busy weekend. We all arrive the day before the show begins, congregating in the hotel's lounge for dinner and drinks. We attend the show on Saturday the moment the gates open, spend the day perusing all the show has to offer and looking for good deals on trains, and then we all go to dinner at a German Festhaus. Relatively speaking, Sunday has become a rather peaceful day of meandering around the 8 acres of model railroading show. This year, Sheila and I arrived in Springfield Friday morning and spent the afternoon shopp