Scattered Thoughts . . .

I awoke again this morning having difficulty breathing.  Yesterday was a pretty good day but the "good health" didn't last long...  only around 47 hours.   This morning's difficulty breathing wasn't what I would call a dire emergency nor did any other symptom(s) develop.  If one additional symptom had appeared, then it would have become an emergency.  My rescue inhaler seemed to help this morning so that is good.  I then took my usual morning medications and added an extra H1 Blocker into the mix.  So, that is two mornings approximately 48 hours apart that I awoke this way.  It is not the most pleasant way to be awoken.  I think this might be due to the long period of time through the night putting more time between doses of medications.  This would also be a sign that my mast cells aren't getting enough medications to stabilize them for longer periods.  Or, maybe a generic medication isn't strong enough compared to a brand-name medication.  Of course, my

I had another rather lousy day yesterday.  I awoke in the morning having difficulty breathing.  My breathing improved a bit after I got up and took my morning dose of medications but I continued having difficulty breathing off and on throughout the day.   At this point, I'm really at a loss for what might be causing this ongoing breathing problem...  generic medications as opposed to brand-name medications?...  a worsened mast cell condition?...  a new condition that is more acute?...  having COVID again but continued to test negative?...  I really have no idea and I'm thinking we won't have any idea until after my next bone marrow biopsy.  That is scheduled for early in March so I have one more month to wait.   Most of yesterday was spent on the couch but I did manage to spend some time at the computer editing a few landscape photos.   This first photo was shot in Burlington on Lake Champlain... The State Capitol in Montpelier...  the three people walking toward me in the

S ince we missed the big train show event a couple of weeks ago, I decided to do some eBay shopping to see if I could find one or two of the items I had planned to search for at the train show.  One of these items was a large scale street car.  I prefer finding these items at shows so I can inspect the item closely rather than just looking at a few photos on eBay.   It turns out that I found what I was looking for very quickly.  It was listed as being in "Excellent" condition and the price was appropriate for a used item in excellent condition so I purchased it.  There were less expensive street cars available but I chose to purchase this particular one because it was listed as "Excellent".  This street car was delivered yesterday.   The trolley was packaged well and it was delivered to me in about three days so that was good.  I appeared to be in very good condition so that was good too.   After unpacking it from its shipping box, I immediately placed it on my LGB

W e had planned to go to Kenzie's figure skating dress rehearsal yesterday.  I had been feeling fairly well on Friday and Saturday so it was looking like I would be able to attend this event.   I packed up my camera gear so I could take some photos, dressed appropriately for a cold ice rink, and then we headed out to the car.  Within about five minutes of our drive, I started having breathing difficulties again.  I waited another five minutes to see if my health would settle down and then I told Sheila we should turn around and head home.  I waited until just before we got on the highway.  There is a roundabout there at the highway overpass so we just turned around at the roundabout and headed back home.  I wasn't feeling so lousy that I would need help so I felt I could stay home alone this time.  I told Sheila that she should go to Kenzie's figure skating event without me so she just dropped me off at the house and then hit the road again.  When I got inside the house, I

T he other night, Sheila and I were both awakened by a chirping alarm.  We're in the midst of furnace problems so I immediately jumped out of bed to go investigate.   I checked the smoke detector in the kitchen first...  removed the battery...  I still heard chirping so I headed to the hallway.   I pulled the smoke detector off the ceiling in the laundry room and hallway....  removed the battery...  then headed to the bathroom to relieve myself.  While in the bathroom, I heard chirping again coming from the laundry room!   My initial thoughts were of an episode of "Friends" when Phoebe has a chirping smoke detector in the middle of the night and removing the battery did not stop the chirping.  Now I was thinking that maybe there was some truth to that comedic episode and perhaps there is a capacitor inside the smoke detector that is storing power even after I remove the battery.  Now I was wondering how I might remedy that in the middle of the night without resorting to P

T oday we have some highly unusual sunny skies but it is still frigid out there at -8°.  I shot these two images through our living room window...  It actually looks great out there for some solar astronomy!  We rarely get clear skies in the winter here so these crystal clear deep blue skies are quite atypical for us.  There is no way I am heading out there though unless I absolutely must head out there.  It is far too cold for me!

M y health seems to be recovering over the past day or two, finally, so that is good.  I feel like I should be much farther along in my recovery at this point but the past day or two have seen a nice improvement in my overall health.  Unfortunately, we have other problems that are cutting into our sleep though which won't help my health at all. We learned recently that our furnace is on borrowed time now...  at the perfect wrong time considering the current frigid weather.  We spent around $800 just to hold us over through this heating season but the furnace is not running well.  Replacing the furnace in winter is rough because we would be without heat for at least a day.  If other parts need to be ordered, we could be without heat for more than a day.  That simply won't work in the dead of winter so we're trying to just make it through this heating season before we tackle installing a new furnace.   The temperatures have plunged well into sub-zero territory.  To make this

I had mentioned in a previous blog entry that we had to call a service technician to repair our furnace.  He made a bunch of necessary repairs but we still had one intermittent recurring issue.   I kept an eye on all the parts that the service technician replaced and I have to say that it is good that we called for service.  Some of the parts were cracked, deteriorated and corroded.  Those parts definitely needed to be replaced.  The service technician was at our house one night and then the following day doing repairs.  It really hurts when you have to call for service during the night! The day after his second day working on the furnace, we noticed some odd sounds coming from the furnace.  I was still feeling miserable so I was of no help.  I can barely think straight nevermind work on a furnace.  Sheila called the fuel company again to schedule service.  It would be a week before the service technician could fit us in again unless we wanted to pay the emergency visit fee again.  Th

I had been complaining about an overly short dovetail bar on one of my telescopes so I finally tackled that problem this morning.   I simply bolted a longer dovetail bar to the overly short dovetail bar.   When I have a lot of weight on the back end of this telescope (ie, diagonal, heavy eyepiece, camera, etc), I run out of dovetail length to move the telescope forward enough in the mount's saddle to properly balance the telescope.  Now, with this longer dovetail bar, I should have no problems with balance.   I still need to figure out why the views are terrible through this particular little scope but that is a different problem for a different day when I can get outside with this telescope to refine the collimation.  If refining the collimation does not help, I'll need to completely disassemble the telescope to see if I can spot any problems but I'd prefer to avoid that.  If I do have to disassemble the whole scope and I still can't spot any problems, then the cause

O verall, I have felt like I was recovering fairly steadily over the past two and a half weeks since my emergency hospital visit.  There was a bit of seesawing back and forth but I took a couple of significant steps backward last night.  Today, I'm actually feeling as though I am back at square one which would be the day after coming home from the hospital. At dinnertime last night, Sheila and I headed to Shaw's to do our weekly food shopping.  I hadn't done this since before my ambulance ride to the hospital a few weeks ago so this would be the first big test of my current health and recovery.   Although the store is only about seven minutes away, I started feeling health problems coming on about halfway there.  It started with some relatively minor difficulty breathing.  I used my inhaler in an attempt to stay ahead of the problem.  Also, I "just didn't feel right".  I couldn't put my finger on what exactly wasn't right but I knew I didn't feel r