Scattered Thoughts . . .

S heila and I had to run to the hospital unexpectedly at the last minute the other day to visit the lab in preparation of today's scheduled visit.  I figured I would be heading to the lab after my appointment that was scheduled for today but my oncologist wanted the lab tests done beforehand.  I got a phone call from Oncology requesting I head to the hospital two days earlier than planned.  Then, this morning, we headed up to UVM Oncology again for my scheduled appointment.   My usual lab results had no changes which is good news, I suppose.  The same things that have always been wrong with my lab results indicating Systemic Mastocytosis are unchanged.  The good news part of this equation is that the numbers aren't worse. My oncologist was a bit concerned about two things...  1) She seemed shocked by how low my oxygen saturation is getting at least once every week.  She was visibly surprised hearing that my O2 levels are getting down into the 80s (%) and sometimes even lower. 

Introduction T his blog entry is a little different than my usual entries.  Then again, my thoughts are often a bit scattered so there isn't really a consistent theme to this blog.  I do sometimes write about my hobbies including astronomy but this blog entry is not one of my typical short blog entries about viewing this or that or about some small astronomy project.  This is more along the lines of a casual review of my thoughts about a telescope.  If you are more interested in some astrophotography images rather than read about a boring telescope evaluation, then just scroll down to the closing of this blog entry (about halfway down this page). Quite often, people who are wanting to get involved in backyard astronomy for the first time ask other astronomers which telescope would be best to purchase as their first telescope.  This is a very common question that is asked at least once a day.  As a result, I find myself trying to provide advice to astronomy beginners a few times eac

Early last week was quite lousy as far as my health goes.  I was down doing absolutely nothing for three days.  As the week progressed, I started to feel a bit more like myself.  By Friday, I was feeling better than I had in recent memory.  Unfortunately, that was short lived, very short lived, as it usually is.   Feeling as good as I was, I actually did think that maybe my health was about to crash.  This is the usual thing for me.  I feel better than I have in a long while and then, usually within hours, my health suddenly plunges into anaphylaxis.  This time I felt really good through Thursday, then even better on Friday...  I must have been feeling pretty good on Saturday because I don't remember any remarkable problems.  I think I was thinking that with all the extra medications I took earlier in the week, I should be feeling better than I have in quite a while so I sort of pushed this old pattern out of my thoughts.   I'm still hobbling around with my knee injury.  Even t

I had mentioned in a previous blog entry that I had a photo of Kenzie from nine years ago that shows the same expression I captured on Ace last week.  I went digging for that old photo this morning. Here is Kenzie at four months old in 2012... And, here is Ace at two months old in 2021 with the same expression in the same living room...  Although there are distinct differences in their facial features, the expressions are the same.  Even more interesting is that I vividly remember this particular afternoon with Kenzie nine years ago.  When I saw Ace with the same expression, it immediately brought me back to 2012. I thought this was worth sharing here so here it is!