Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 'm going to keep this blog entry short since I'm writing on my Kindle in bed.   I had a fever again last night.  Although I felt mediocre this morning (eh...  well, I still felt rather lousy but better than I have been feeling for the past month), I slept most of the afternoon and then developed a fever again tonight.   I have inflamed lymph nodes in my neck, underarms and around my upper torso and swollen glands in my neck.  I've had this problem since developing COVID a month ago.  My sinuses are still hurting consistently.  I simply feel lousy.  The COVID virus seems to continue to incite mast cell issues with my primary illness too. Anyway, I wanted to document the continuing waves of fever.  The virus just doesn't seem to be loosening its grip on me.

T his evening, I was notified of my latest test results...  all results were negative and, when it comes to test results, negative is a good thing. PSA - my numbers were low which is a good thing since high numbers are a possible indication of prostate cancer...  so, no indications of prostate cancer...   good news. Metabolic Panel - all results were in normal range which means no signs of kidney infection.  This is a good indication that I don't have a far more involved strep infection...  good news.   Urinalysis - all results were normal here as well.  No blood in urine...  all characteristics of the urine was normal...  good news. The only remaining possibility that is left is that perhaps I passed a small kidney stone and that caused a fast healing abrasion in my urinary tract that bled only shortly after passing the stone. The doctor said if I see bleeding again, then I will be referred to a urologist.  In the meantime, I need to keep drinking plenty of fluids which I've

I 've been waking up pretty hungry lately.  I'm not sure why but it may have to do with taking so many extra H1 blockers.  Those class of medications tend to make people very hungry.  Whatever the reason, I've been hungry in the morning so I have been making larger breakfasts for myself. This morning, I made some French Toast with fresh raspberries and some bacon on the side... Breakfast was delicious but this wears me out.  I slept for two hours or more after cleaning up all the dishes from breakfast.  This caused me to miss lunch. The other problem with these big breakfasts is they won't be helping my cholesterol levels at all!  It hit the spot this morning though.

A s if having the COVID virus for a month now isn't enough, I'm also developing various secondary health problems. First, I developed a sinus infection.  Since I was still struggling with active COVID including fever, I needed to stay in quarantine so that I wouldn't infect my whole primary care practice.  This meant that when I thought I was developing a sinus infection, I had to resort to a televisit meeting with my doctor.  Since I was just video chatting with my doctor this meant that she couldn't examine me for additional problems and only had my descriptive assessment of symptoms to form a diagnosis and prescribe a treatment plan.   There was no doubt that she was right in that I was suffering from a sinus infection.  That was obvious by the symptoms.  Unfortunately, we are now thinking there were more serious underlying problems as well that had yet to show any symptoms. I got up yesterday morning at around 5am.  I hardly slept through the night mostly due to bei

Although I've been feeling quite lousy since being home from Manhattan...  so for the past month...  due to having COVID and some secondary infections and now awaiting results of some more serious tests, I've been a little bit bored at times too.  Most of the time, I've been feeling too lousy too be bored but, sometimes, I feel just well enough to want to accomplish something. I don't have much energy and my health problems seem to continually get worse in waves, but I still hope to accomplish something small each day with a very short burst of energy.  "Burst of energy"...  that is a bad joke so let me rephrase that.  I push myself for a few minutes at a time when I'm feeling a little better than I have previously and then need to rest.  Sometimes I sit at the piano briefly, sometimes I read, sometimes I watch a movie (or listen to a movie with my eyes closed), sometimes I pick up a camera and shoot some still objects in the living room. I had a few very

When I got up out of bed this morning, I only got as far as the kitchen (directly from the bedroom while on the way toward the bathroom) before I told Sheila I was already ready for a nap!  Since then, all I need to do is walk from one room to another before needing to sit down to take a break to restore some energy.  Then I walk another 10-20 feet and I need to sit down to take a rest again.  To say that I am "exhausted" is a gross understatement.  I am what I would consider to be dangerously low on energy. Since we arrived back home from Manhattan a few days before Christmas, I have spent most of my time either in bed or on the couch.  This has been my view from the couch...  and, for a change of pace, I sometimes sit in that armchair... Most of the time, I've had a camera or two at my side hence the snapshots here in this blog today.  Below is a photo of my favorite camera, my Sony a7 which is about nine years old at this point.  I shot this using my less-than-favorite

M y morning started out better than I have experienced since we were in Manhattan last month which was quite a relief for a change.  I was feeling well and I was up an hour before Sheila so I managed to get a few little things accomplished around the house that I had been putting off for more than three weeks because I had been so sick.  I showered and then Sheila got up out of bed. After just an hour of little everyday things around the house that everyone takes for granted without a single thought of how they will accomplish it, that was about it for me. I started feeling exhausted.  I was starving.  Before long, I was dizzy, I was having more difficulty breathing, my vision was narrowing and my peripheral vision was filled with sparkly grayness.  I've experienced this many times, especially in the past year after my previous COVID infection, so I quickly identified it as the cascading symptoms of anaphylaxis.  I grabbed my epinephrine and some of my emergency medications and did

I finally tested negative for COVID and we needed a few things from the market so we headed out of the house tonight.   This was my first time out of the house since we were in Manhattan the week before Christmas so I've been stuck in the house for quite some time.  Tonight, I quickly learned that I'm still not ready to be out and about. I'm definitely exhausted and that was the first thing I noticed while walking down our first aisle at the market.  My breathing isn't great but it has been far worse in the past.  I was breathing more heavily than I should have been simply by casually strolling down a couple of aisles in the market.   I just generally feel lousy and that was very noticeable tonight before we finished our first aisle.  My nose is still running a bit but that is so minor that I typically would not even mention it.  I mention it only to make note, for future reference, that my nose is still running. Overall, I'm feeling lousy and still want to stay ho

While I am still recovering from COVID and a secondary infection, I pulled out one of my film cameras.  This is my Mint TL70 TLR Instax camera. I have sort of lost all track of time but I think I've been in quarantine for three weeks now.  I should be at the end of my quarantine period though as long as I test negative for COVID this evening.  I already went through the Paxlovid treatment and I am just finishing up my antibiotic for my secondary infection.   I'm feeling a bit better than I have been feeling, finally, but I am still quite fatigued.  Actually, I'm quite exhausted by mid-morning.  I'm still seeing signs in my nasal mucus showing that my body is in overdrive fighting this infection but the mucus volume is significantly smaller now which is good.  I've been fever-free for a few days now which is good because I had a fever coming and going for a long, long time.  My joints are pretty painful.  My spinal injuries are quite lousy as well but that might be m

This blog entry consists mostly of photos of windows we saw on Fifth Avenue.  We did some window shopping, however, I should mention that we did quite a bit of shopping in quite a few stores on Fifth Avenue during our stay in Manhattan too.   I'll cover our disappointments in another blog entry but I have to add a bit about our disappointments here in this blog entry since window shopping, in general, is something that left us quite disappointed during this trip thanks to Sak's Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor.  (Plus, I'm still a bit bitter about being infected with COVID yet again due to this trip so I'm left with a lot of bad feelings about this trip... a lot of bad, bitter feelings.) First, Lord & Taylor is now gone so their windows and Christmas decorations were sorely missed.  Their Christmas window displays were always among the best on Fifth Avenue.  Sak's Fifth Avenue also used to be among the best but, this year, Sak's seems to have given up on