I'm really excited about this. Just changing environments right now sounds like such a treat.
Tediously, crawlingly slow, we're preparing to go to Missouri.
Walter's employer called him in. They want him to see doctors up there, in their home state, their base of operations.
This may lead to his severance from them. The injury was on May 1st, and he's not getting better any more. Getting whacked in his post-open heart surgery sternum with a 200 pound door in a 50 MPH wind left a mark, as they say. Nothing we can see - but there's chronic inflammation in that sternum now. It prevents him from driving commercially; the seat belt and movements needed to safely operate a big rig just don't go together with the pain.
Walter went to his computer a couple days ago and put up a CD of the CAT scan they did on his chest. For the first time, I saw the titanium wires holding his sternum together. It's not a mesh, as I'd thought. Just wires. Eight wires. They're tied around the two halves of his sternum and pulled tight, trussed up like a pork roast; a couple have what look like loose ends dangling, too. On the image they look mean and sharp.
So outside of our happiness at leaving the local pollens behind, we have mixed emotions about this visit. Some trepidation. Some hope. I don't think they'll ever clear him to work again, I just don't see how they could safely do that. Meaning Walter would be rated as disabled from his occupation.
Which has its pros and cons. I want him home, now. Forever. Yet naturally enough, neither one of us wants the income loss. We don't have any idea what that will be.
He's been paying for short and long-term disability insurance, which is good. But his Benefits Coordinator says that's completely different from Worker's Comp. When a worker is injured on the job and can't work any more, their case is settled through the home state's Worker's Comp laws. What those laws are in Missouri, we're not sure. He'll probably get medical care for this injury for some time. Other than that remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, back at the k ranch, we're both still so sick with allergies we can barely function. We should have been able to leave a week ago. Can't. Servicing the car and packing the bits of food and clothes and medical appliances we need has taken us a week so far.
Two weeks ago I had a little surgery on my left leg, to finally remove that blasted Mystery Thing. The surgeons were great. The Mystery remains unsolved: it was a big cyst, in a capsule, but the lab could find nothing pathologically wrong. Today at 4PM I'm supposed to get my stitches out. And before that, we'll do the last bits of shopping we need for our trip.
With any luck, that is.
It seems gas prices have gone down since I last got out of bed.
Heh.
Our 1400 mile drive may cost us much less for the waiting.
.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Coming Up for Air
It's been a while since I've been this knocked down by allergies. I'd sort of forgotten what the full impact is like.
It's a strange feeling to lose days and weeks and months of your life to just drifting along.
I sleep. Most of the time I'm in bed a good 12 hours a day, sometimes more. There's no way for me to recall, unaided, how much time has passed; time has lost its sense, its meaning. Trying to remember time by looking back on significant dates like holidays is often the best I can do.
Sometimes I feel like I'm far adrift, tethered to earth by the most tenuous strand, delicate and fragile as a spider's web. Then I hear your comments like voices whispering to me in the ether, and that strand anchors me, it's strong as steel...
I have trouble communicating. Not just because I'm abed so much; it even happens when I'm out and about and moving around in my quiet world. There's something about the onslaught of all this histamine that leaves me, well, speechless.
My voice is often just a squeak, high-pitched and childish, a voice I dislike hearing from my own self, and can't control. Oh, I want my deep crunchy voice back!
But it's not just the voice, either. If someone asks me a question my mind goes blank. Very simple decisions are hard to make on the spot. It's difficult putting words and sentences together, even while writing. Can I do it? Yes. And I do. Then it saps my energy, sometimes for days afterwards. It takes everything I've got.
And here and there, people who don't understand have trouble being patient with me as my mind searches for the words and phrases, as I struggle to put it together and communicate. I give them all I've got. Everything. They try to mask their impatience and their sense that I'm Just Not Trying Very Hard. They've no idea how much they've just taken out of me, leaving me drained for hours or days afterward, nothing left inside me for anyone else or for myself.
I'm starting to come up for air now, here and there. Usually by mid-July the waves of pollen spikes diminish. So far this year? It hasn't changed much.
Many of you also have allergies; I know that for some of you they're severe. Are you doing worse than usual this year? Does it seem like this hay fever season is making you sicker, so far, or is going on longer than usual?
Patience, I tell myself, patience...
I try not to have things that need taking care of, personal business to attend to. But I do, as do we all; and that's all there is to it.
so...gently, carefully, I get myself up and about, slowly...
.
It's a strange feeling to lose days and weeks and months of your life to just drifting along.
I sleep. Most of the time I'm in bed a good 12 hours a day, sometimes more. There's no way for me to recall, unaided, how much time has passed; time has lost its sense, its meaning. Trying to remember time by looking back on significant dates like holidays is often the best I can do.
Sometimes I feel like I'm far adrift, tethered to earth by the most tenuous strand, delicate and fragile as a spider's web. Then I hear your comments like voices whispering to me in the ether, and that strand anchors me, it's strong as steel...
I have trouble communicating. Not just because I'm abed so much; it even happens when I'm out and about and moving around in my quiet world. There's something about the onslaught of all this histamine that leaves me, well, speechless.
My voice is often just a squeak, high-pitched and childish, a voice I dislike hearing from my own self, and can't control. Oh, I want my deep crunchy voice back!
But it's not just the voice, either. If someone asks me a question my mind goes blank. Very simple decisions are hard to make on the spot. It's difficult putting words and sentences together, even while writing. Can I do it? Yes. And I do. Then it saps my energy, sometimes for days afterwards. It takes everything I've got.
And here and there, people who don't understand have trouble being patient with me as my mind searches for the words and phrases, as I struggle to put it together and communicate. I give them all I've got. Everything. They try to mask their impatience and their sense that I'm Just Not Trying Very Hard. They've no idea how much they've just taken out of me, leaving me drained for hours or days afterward, nothing left inside me for anyone else or for myself.
I'm starting to come up for air now, here and there. Usually by mid-July the waves of pollen spikes diminish. So far this year? It hasn't changed much.
Many of you also have allergies; I know that for some of you they're severe. Are you doing worse than usual this year? Does it seem like this hay fever season is making you sicker, so far, or is going on longer than usual?
Patience, I tell myself, patience...
I try not to have things that need taking care of, personal business to attend to. But I do, as do we all; and that's all there is to it.
so...gently, carefully, I get myself up and about, slowly...
.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Totally Debilitated. And, Cocooning.
Well, it was great while it lasted. And it did, the positive effects of our little escape stayed with us for two or three days.
But after that? We both were knocked off our feet again, even worse than before. It's been the worst episode of debilitating allergies for either one of us in several years. Judging from past years we may perk up soon, the second week of July or thereabouts. We've been decidedly unperky for weeks now. *Very High* weed pollen counts here every day on The Weather Channel pollen forecast.
So we've been staying in bed.
Sometimes, though? You've got to go out. Doctors. Meds. Food.
On Wednesday, June 25, I did something outside of the house for several hours. I have no recollection of what. Such jaunts expose me to unfiltered air and higher concentrations of pollen in the western edge of our towns. The ventures into unsafe territories wear me out, and during bad pollen times I have to limit them, and not do two days in a row. If I can help it, that is.
This time? Nope. The next day, Thursday, I spent in essential shopping. Meds, some food. The last stop on my *route* was Walmart. I was out of guaifenesin (mucous thinner/fibromyalgia treatment). The microwave had died too, and it's so essential when we're sick and weak and diabetic, it absolutely had to be replaced. I had to take care of these things, or I would have come home. I was at the end of my rope, getting dizzy, fatigued.
Inside the store, I noticed something happening that was vaguely familiar, like a face you used to know well, but haven't seen for a while. In my mental state then - severe allergies give us some cognitive dysfunction - I couldn't place it.
Itching. Redness, warmth, bumps, all over my arms, my ears burning and itching and swelling. The palms of my hands. My scars. Face. The knuckles on my fingers. Itching, itching, burning.
Crap. A serious systemic allergic blowout.
And I had no idea what had set it off.
Inside the car, out in the parking lot, was a prescription I'd just filled at Sam's. I always always always carry multiple Epipens with me. Those are the emergency adrenalin shots that save people from dying from anaphylactic shock or asthma. They need to be replaced every year to keep them fresh, although they usually do stay good for much longer. I used to be bad about replacing them because they're expensive and I was so broke. Now my Medicare HMO pays for most of my meds with no copay.
For some reason, I'd remembered last week that the *current* Epipen was 18 months old, and called for a refill. I picked it up at Sam's that very morning. I hadn't yet taken it out of the bag and put it in my purse.
So I had four or five older pens in my purse, which were probably still good, and my fresh one in the car.
Okay. I was covered if I needed it.
It's best not to use them, though. They're dangerous, they can induce fatal heart attacks.
I sat on the Walmart store scooter and thought. Carefully. I had some business up at the Customer Service counter, so I also told the lady there what was happening, so she'd know.
Then I got a 20 mg Prednisone tablet out of my emergency pill container and chewed it up so it would act fast.
I shopped. I was determined to finish what I went there for. Absolutely determined.
A half hour later there'd been no noticeable change so I did it again.
And finally, finally, my palms and scars weren't itching as much. My red swollen heated bumpy forearms got better.
By then I was in the checkout line. I called Walter to tell him what was happening, and that I was starting to get better and would be home soon, that I was okay to drive.
So. I made it home. And I've been sleeping ever since.
I've had some exceptional sleep sessions before. The fatigue of serious allergies is totally debilitating. After a particularly bad episode like on Thursday, it's even worse. Not only do I sleep a long time and often, I've been told I look comatose. I don't move in my sleep, ever.
Once I slept 17 hours without waking even once. That was a record. Usually I'd sleep 8-12 hours, then get up for two or three, go back to bed for a few hours, carry on that way. Before I took high-dose steroids I often slept 18 hours a day, essentially bedridden, for 6 months a year. As the years went by, my *good* months became fewer and fewer.
Finally I was down to around 2 *good* months per year, and 10 in bed. I hadn't really glommed on to that. I was at the doctor's and Walter was with me, and when I explained how I was spending 6-8 months in bed sick now, Walter gently corrected me. --No. You're up to about 10 months. And the *good* months aren't very good any more.
That's why I finally agreed to take high doses of Prednisone. It got me out of bed, it gave me my life back. I knew I was shortening my life, and encouraging diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney and liver damage, a compromised immune system, bruising, weight gain, a bloated *moonface,* facial hair...and the only thing that mattered to me, the only thing I've ever regretted, was not doing it earlier. If I had, you see, I could have spent much more time with my grandmother Helen before she died.
Anyway...
I set another sleep record for myself this time. Between Friday and Saturday, after the onset of that probable early-anaphylactic reaction at Walmart, I slept almost continuously for 24 hours.
And a whole lot every day since then.
Walter hasn't been much better off. So the good thing I get out of this?
Yes, DC. I've been cocooning with my love, snuggling up and sleeping, napping like cats.
Every cloud that darkens my life has at least one silver lining.
.
But after that? We both were knocked off our feet again, even worse than before. It's been the worst episode of debilitating allergies for either one of us in several years. Judging from past years we may perk up soon, the second week of July or thereabouts. We've been decidedly unperky for weeks now. *Very High* weed pollen counts here every day on The Weather Channel pollen forecast.
So we've been staying in bed.
Sometimes, though? You've got to go out. Doctors. Meds. Food.
On Wednesday, June 25, I did something outside of the house for several hours. I have no recollection of what. Such jaunts expose me to unfiltered air and higher concentrations of pollen in the western edge of our towns. The ventures into unsafe territories wear me out, and during bad pollen times I have to limit them, and not do two days in a row. If I can help it, that is.
This time? Nope. The next day, Thursday, I spent in essential shopping. Meds, some food. The last stop on my *route* was Walmart. I was out of guaifenesin (mucous thinner/fibromyalgia treatment). The microwave had died too, and it's so essential when we're sick and weak and diabetic, it absolutely had to be replaced. I had to take care of these things, or I would have come home. I was at the end of my rope, getting dizzy, fatigued.
Inside the store, I noticed something happening that was vaguely familiar, like a face you used to know well, but haven't seen for a while. In my mental state then - severe allergies give us some cognitive dysfunction - I couldn't place it.
Itching. Redness, warmth, bumps, all over my arms, my ears burning and itching and swelling. The palms of my hands. My scars. Face. The knuckles on my fingers. Itching, itching, burning.
Crap. A serious systemic allergic blowout.
And I had no idea what had set it off.
Inside the car, out in the parking lot, was a prescription I'd just filled at Sam's. I always always always carry multiple Epipens with me. Those are the emergency adrenalin shots that save people from dying from anaphylactic shock or asthma. They need to be replaced every year to keep them fresh, although they usually do stay good for much longer. I used to be bad about replacing them because they're expensive and I was so broke. Now my Medicare HMO pays for most of my meds with no copay.
For some reason, I'd remembered last week that the *current* Epipen was 18 months old, and called for a refill. I picked it up at Sam's that very morning. I hadn't yet taken it out of the bag and put it in my purse.
So I had four or five older pens in my purse, which were probably still good, and my fresh one in the car.
Okay. I was covered if I needed it.
It's best not to use them, though. They're dangerous, they can induce fatal heart attacks.
I sat on the Walmart store scooter and thought. Carefully. I had some business up at the Customer Service counter, so I also told the lady there what was happening, so she'd know.
Then I got a 20 mg Prednisone tablet out of my emergency pill container and chewed it up so it would act fast.
I shopped. I was determined to finish what I went there for. Absolutely determined.
A half hour later there'd been no noticeable change so I did it again.
And finally, finally, my palms and scars weren't itching as much. My red swollen heated bumpy forearms got better.
By then I was in the checkout line. I called Walter to tell him what was happening, and that I was starting to get better and would be home soon, that I was okay to drive.
So. I made it home. And I've been sleeping ever since.
I've had some exceptional sleep sessions before. The fatigue of serious allergies is totally debilitating. After a particularly bad episode like on Thursday, it's even worse. Not only do I sleep a long time and often, I've been told I look comatose. I don't move in my sleep, ever.
Once I slept 17 hours without waking even once. That was a record. Usually I'd sleep 8-12 hours, then get up for two or three, go back to bed for a few hours, carry on that way. Before I took high-dose steroids I often slept 18 hours a day, essentially bedridden, for 6 months a year. As the years went by, my *good* months became fewer and fewer.
Finally I was down to around 2 *good* months per year, and 10 in bed. I hadn't really glommed on to that. I was at the doctor's and Walter was with me, and when I explained how I was spending 6-8 months in bed sick now, Walter gently corrected me. --No. You're up to about 10 months. And the *good* months aren't very good any more.
That's why I finally agreed to take high doses of Prednisone. It got me out of bed, it gave me my life back. I knew I was shortening my life, and encouraging diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney and liver damage, a compromised immune system, bruising, weight gain, a bloated *moonface,* facial hair...and the only thing that mattered to me, the only thing I've ever regretted, was not doing it earlier. If I had, you see, I could have spent much more time with my grandmother Helen before she died.
Anyway...
I set another sleep record for myself this time. Between Friday and Saturday, after the onset of that probable early-anaphylactic reaction at Walmart, I slept almost continuously for 24 hours.
And a whole lot every day since then.
Walter hasn't been much better off. So the good thing I get out of this?
Yes, DC. I've been cocooning with my love, snuggling up and sleeping, napping like cats.
Every cloud that darkens my life has at least one silver lining.
.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Oh! And, BTW - Yes, We Both Feel MUCH Better Now!
It worked.
Walter'd filled the car with fuel around mid-week. He'd already told me he wanted to take us out on a jaunt as soon as we could go. We don't know when he may be suddenly ordered back to work; he's still getting tests done and waiting for time to heal his injury.
The checks are coming steadily now, which is a huge relief. But after such a long period of low to no pay - two months, I think?!, I don't want to know for sure, really - we have a lot of financial catching up to do. That's just ordinary budgeted expenses, outside of the debt we're still working off.
So Mr. Budget did not look upon excursions with a kind eye. Filling the tank on the Isuzu cost $66. I have never paid that much for one tank of automobile fuel in my entire life.
Walter filled 'er up after carefully listening to my accounts of where we stood, knowing that at least we weren't secretly overdrawn or about to have the internet shut off. Walter knew that if the tank was full, it would be a lot harder for me to say, again, --No, we can't afford it yet, maybe next weekend...
He also knew how very much it would mean to me to go out, especially where we went.
Can you tell how much I love that man?
Picture us staggering around allergic Sunday morning, fighting to stay awake, doing better or worse as our allergy meds freshened or wore off, or new waves of pollen came through like they do. Carefully parceling out our necessary belongings, putting them by the front door, not daring to open it until the last minute. Open the door and pollen comes in...
Earlier in the morning, Walter was a little better off than I was. He cleaned out two air machines; then he went down, and I perked up a bit. Good. I fed him. He was getting so fatigued he was about to pass out, and surely would be in no condition to drive. Lunch woke him up a little.
Meantime, at long last, I packed the car as quick as I could. I turned the key in the ignition and ran the HEPA and ionizer machines in there for a while.
It was already early afternoon by then. You see how pokey we get? Both of us are seriously experienced travelers. Despite this being an unusual type of trip, it shouldn't have taken more than an hour or so to get going. I wanted to bring some odd items as a sort of practice run for camping out in the Isuzu. So maybe two hours packing, maximum.
Not five.
Here's one of those times I think, --This is why they call it *disabled...*
I came back in and told Walter, --Ride shotgun, I can drive. Just getting into a small space with both air machines going will help us.--
Between the cleaned air and trading environments with the Everglades, we're both doing much better today. Me, I slept until late afternoon, and felt pretty vigorous when I woke up. Walter's eyes are almost normal, not all black and purple and swollen shut. He's been able to stay awake all day. He got up to get his chest CAT scanned this morning (hooray!).
I got up at the same time to take my AM meds, then fell asleep in the office chair. When he came home around 11 AM, I thought it was 8:30 and he was just leaving for his test. Nope. It was time to wake up, take my noon meds, and go back to bed.
I woke up refreshed. Been awhile since I did.
We have no idea how long the good effects will last. But we'll be sure to enjoy the hell out of them while they do.
.
Walter'd filled the car with fuel around mid-week. He'd already told me he wanted to take us out on a jaunt as soon as we could go. We don't know when he may be suddenly ordered back to work; he's still getting tests done and waiting for time to heal his injury.
The checks are coming steadily now, which is a huge relief. But after such a long period of low to no pay - two months, I think?!, I don't want to know for sure, really - we have a lot of financial catching up to do. That's just ordinary budgeted expenses, outside of the debt we're still working off.
So Mr. Budget did not look upon excursions with a kind eye. Filling the tank on the Isuzu cost $66. I have never paid that much for one tank of automobile fuel in my entire life.
Walter filled 'er up after carefully listening to my accounts of where we stood, knowing that at least we weren't secretly overdrawn or about to have the internet shut off. Walter knew that if the tank was full, it would be a lot harder for me to say, again, --No, we can't afford it yet, maybe next weekend...
He also knew how very much it would mean to me to go out, especially where we went.
Can you tell how much I love that man?
Picture us staggering around allergic Sunday morning, fighting to stay awake, doing better or worse as our allergy meds freshened or wore off, or new waves of pollen came through like they do. Carefully parceling out our necessary belongings, putting them by the front door, not daring to open it until the last minute. Open the door and pollen comes in...
Earlier in the morning, Walter was a little better off than I was. He cleaned out two air machines; then he went down, and I perked up a bit. Good. I fed him. He was getting so fatigued he was about to pass out, and surely would be in no condition to drive. Lunch woke him up a little.
Meantime, at long last, I packed the car as quick as I could. I turned the key in the ignition and ran the HEPA and ionizer machines in there for a while.
It was already early afternoon by then. You see how pokey we get? Both of us are seriously experienced travelers. Despite this being an unusual type of trip, it shouldn't have taken more than an hour or so to get going. I wanted to bring some odd items as a sort of practice run for camping out in the Isuzu. So maybe two hours packing, maximum.
Not five.
Here's one of those times I think, --This is why they call it *disabled...*
I came back in and told Walter, --Ride shotgun, I can drive. Just getting into a small space with both air machines going will help us.--
Between the cleaned air and trading environments with the Everglades, we're both doing much better today. Me, I slept until late afternoon, and felt pretty vigorous when I woke up. Walter's eyes are almost normal, not all black and purple and swollen shut. He's been able to stay awake all day. He got up to get his chest CAT scanned this morning (hooray!).
I got up at the same time to take my AM meds, then fell asleep in the office chair. When he came home around 11 AM, I thought it was 8:30 and he was just leaving for his test. Nope. It was time to wake up, take my noon meds, and go back to bed.
I woke up refreshed. Been awhile since I did.
We have no idea how long the good effects will last. But we'll be sure to enjoy the hell out of them while they do.
.
This Place of Unearthly Beauty
We went to my all-time favorite place in the Everglades, off US 41. I had a need to go a-swamping, and so we did. The trees you'll be seeing are mostly cypress (bald and pond cypress). But what I love just as much as cypress are the plants that live upon them. Here, it's forests of bromeliads. And orchids, lichens, ferns, all sorts of beautiful plants.
It's one of the only places I've ever been where a swamp looks like the *Swamp* scenes from the movies.
The water is like a mirror. It's so reflective it's hard to tell where the surface is sometimes.
Those bushy looking plants growing up the trunk of the cypress tree are bromeliads. Many are way bigger than your head.
Plants that live on other plants are called epiphytes. They don't hurt the host plant. Here, it's not just bromeliads and orchids that live on the trunks of these trees. The ferns and lichens and such do too.
.
It's one of the only places I've ever been where a swamp looks like the *Swamp* scenes from the movies.
The water is like a mirror. It's so reflective it's hard to tell where the surface is sometimes.
Those bushy looking plants growing up the trunk of the cypress tree are bromeliads. Many are way bigger than your head.
Plants that live on other plants are called epiphytes. They don't hurt the host plant. Here, it's not just bromeliads and orchids that live on the trunks of these trees. The ferns and lichens and such do too.
.
We Were Entertained By All Sorts of Critters...
Well, hello!
heh! Everybody knows alligators can't read.
I have to look this one up. Maybe a Painted Lady?
Zebra longwing. Perfectly common down here, but I never ever get tired of them.
.
This Campsite is Taken. Hey!
The deer are slightly skittish, but not enough to leave. They're really almost tame.
Which, as the rangers tell us, is not a good idea. This preserve contains about half the state's population of panthers. Those are very big cats, folks. The sign explains how you shouldn't jog alone here, or let your toddlers or dogs run around untethered.
nom nom nom! Oh - the reason it's not a good idea for the deer to be so tame is because deer are the panthers' favorite dinner, along with feral hogs. If dinner's tame, it'll hang around humans, and the huge cats will follow. So please don't feed the deer and hogs. Thank you.
There are giant grasshoppers here too, lubbers and such. Probably you can feed them all you want. But the signs don't say.
This bird, and his wife, were vastly entertaining. More about them later...
.
Which, as the rangers tell us, is not a good idea. This preserve contains about half the state's population of panthers. Those are very big cats, folks. The sign explains how you shouldn't jog alone here, or let your toddlers or dogs run around untethered.
nom nom nom! Oh - the reason it's not a good idea for the deer to be so tame is because deer are the panthers' favorite dinner, along with feral hogs. If dinner's tame, it'll hang around humans, and the huge cats will follow. So please don't feed the deer and hogs. Thank you.
There are giant grasshoppers here too, lubbers and such. Probably you can feed them all you want. But the signs don't say.
This bird, and his wife, were vastly entertaining. More about them later...
.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Hoooo-EEE!!!
We are both incredibly allergic here. The pollen counts are skyrocketing and Walter is getting the extreme symptoms I used to live with daily. Back before the high-dose steroids, that was.
Most people wouldn't understand these are symptoms of extreme allergies. I'm watching him and it's like looking into a mirror. I've talked with other superallergics, but almost never seen one in the middle of a bout.
We were walking through the house to the laundry room. He suddenly wavered, recovered his balance, tried to take another step, and his foot went way off to the side instead of in front of him. Like someone who's had too much Happy Hour.
I told him, --Put your hand on the wall. Something solid. Stand up as straight as you can: line up your bones. If you touch anything at all it'll help you balance.
Around his eyes, he's so swollen and purple it looks like he was in a bar fight after that too much Happy Hour.
He's sleeping constantly. Gets up for an hour or two, can't do anything, can't stay upright, goes back to bed. Taking Zyrtec helps some, for a while. It makes his nose leak like crazy.
Fatigue. Dizziness. Loss of balance. Extreme sleep. Weakness. I ask him a question and his mind goes blank.
Walter was always allergic. He gets these reactions to food, like eggs, where his skin makes huge patches of hives, nearly covering his back and thighs. But this? This is new.
Long ago I wondered if some obscure virus may play a role in this superallergic condition. If so? He caught it from me.
He's been getting more and more like me in his allergic reactions the past few years. I'm far more protected now than I was seventeen years ago. There's a reason I take all these pills. It's not for recreation, believe me.
He doesn't take those allergy meds, and most of them are barred to him because of his heart condition and the meds he takes for that.
Bear with me. I'm here. I'm sleeping too, most of the time, just not as much as Walter.
Right now we're contemplating running off for a nice recreational drive. If we pack the Isuzu with HEPA air machines, a drive will probably do us both a lot of good. Just going to another area, not even far away, can help calm down these reactions. Walter says whenever he leaves Florida he's normal again. I know this is a factor in his desire to go back to work.
Meanwhile...I've been hearing from some of you, too, about exceptional allergic reactions, hay fever, like that. Your dizziness and fatigue are part of it, yes.
And I've got a stack of unanswered comments and emails about other stuff. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
I'm okay. I'm used to this. Just slow, for now. I'll get there though.
I always do.
.
Most people wouldn't understand these are symptoms of extreme allergies. I'm watching him and it's like looking into a mirror. I've talked with other superallergics, but almost never seen one in the middle of a bout.
We were walking through the house to the laundry room. He suddenly wavered, recovered his balance, tried to take another step, and his foot went way off to the side instead of in front of him. Like someone who's had too much Happy Hour.
I told him, --Put your hand on the wall. Something solid. Stand up as straight as you can: line up your bones. If you touch anything at all it'll help you balance.
Around his eyes, he's so swollen and purple it looks like he was in a bar fight after that too much Happy Hour.
He's sleeping constantly. Gets up for an hour or two, can't do anything, can't stay upright, goes back to bed. Taking Zyrtec helps some, for a while. It makes his nose leak like crazy.
Fatigue. Dizziness. Loss of balance. Extreme sleep. Weakness. I ask him a question and his mind goes blank.
Walter was always allergic. He gets these reactions to food, like eggs, where his skin makes huge patches of hives, nearly covering his back and thighs. But this? This is new.
Long ago I wondered if some obscure virus may play a role in this superallergic condition. If so? He caught it from me.
He's been getting more and more like me in his allergic reactions the past few years. I'm far more protected now than I was seventeen years ago. There's a reason I take all these pills. It's not for recreation, believe me.
He doesn't take those allergy meds, and most of them are barred to him because of his heart condition and the meds he takes for that.
Bear with me. I'm here. I'm sleeping too, most of the time, just not as much as Walter.
Right now we're contemplating running off for a nice recreational drive. If we pack the Isuzu with HEPA air machines, a drive will probably do us both a lot of good. Just going to another area, not even far away, can help calm down these reactions. Walter says whenever he leaves Florida he's normal again. I know this is a factor in his desire to go back to work.
Meanwhile...I've been hearing from some of you, too, about exceptional allergic reactions, hay fever, like that. Your dizziness and fatigue are part of it, yes.
And I've got a stack of unanswered comments and emails about other stuff. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
I'm okay. I'm used to this. Just slow, for now. I'll get there though.
I always do.
.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Happy Birthday Dad! Oh. Happy Father's Day Too!
My father was a Texan, although you'd never know it to speak to him. A Californian as well. He moved all over the country in his childhood and youth. Granddad was a college tennis coach, then became a civil engineer. A Navy lieutenant during WWII. After the war, when Granddad moved up into high-level defense construction as a civilian, they did some more moving around.
But when Dad was a little boy, they stayed put long enough in Texas that he kept a pet spider for quite some time. It wasn't in a container; it was free. It had spun a web between his bed's headboard and the wall. He feels this was very effective for keeping his mother out of his room. Hey. Kids need their privacy.
That spider was a black widow. Now you know one reason I've loved black widows all my life.
Dad's mother, my Helen, was an artist. Oh, she was a pistol, Grandma was. Outspoken and funny, intelligent and flirtatious, intimidating as all get out. She could charm the eyes off a snake, and had a pilot's license too. A true Texas woman. Besides all their family dogs, she tolerated Dad's many personal pets, his scorpions and spiders and I don't know what-all. Well, she better; she kept pet rats as a girl, herself.
One day the movers came, packing the family up for yet another relocation, and they went by a little box Dad had put on the dining room table. The lid of the box opened up. Out came his collection of pet tarantulas, crawling over the dining room table, escapees.
That was one of their more interesting household moving experiences.
A lover of science and medicine and biology all his life, Dad went on to medical school, became a doctor, helped deliver his own kids, then went into pure microbiological research - his lifelong dream. It's been an interesting ride ever since.
It's perfectly common now to see extraordinary things; we take them for granted, watching the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. But when I was small, viewing any microbial life was an unusual privilege for adults, not to mention kids.
Dad the Scientist had access to one of those rarities called an electron microscope in the early 1960's. Looking through those eyepieces, seeing things so small that almost nobody in the world had even dreamed of them - that fascination has never left me. They were black and white images, not color. But for the first time in history, with an electron microscope you could see certain internal structures in very small microbes. Particles of minuscule life that had only been theorized until then were actually being viewed. And as a small child I got to see some of those first-ever sights.
Our parents used to take us up to Mt. Baldy when we were kids. We'd get pond samples and bring them home to look at all the pond life through the microscope. Oh, it was beautiful! Diatoms and paramecia and amoebas and protozoa and I don't know what all, swimming around doing their bit. You could watch them move, propelling themselves about with their little flagella or whatever their usual means, eating, engulfing fellow denizens in great maws. They blithely went about their business of life in the tiny universe they dwelled in - a partial drop of water on a slide.
Dad's done a lot of tissue culture, meaning he grows tissue cells, human, mice, rat, whatever the need. The containers the tissue cells live in are kept in an incubator at just the right temperature, and fed just the right medium to grow and reproduce as fast and healthy as they can.
They need some TLC from time to time. For example, the containers may need periodic rotating to bathe all the cells in the medium. These days that's automated, using roller bottles. You can see how well they're doing by simply counting a sample, to see how their numbers increase over time. Perhaps adjustments in temperature or food are called for. So the ritual of counting cells by putting a sample, or the whole bottle, under the microscope is a familiar one. A nurturing activity, checking the little ones to see how they do.
So is mixing medium. Like most foods, it's a lot cheaper and better if you make it yourself. Dad gets the ingredients and mixes up big batches, often in a 5-gallon water jug. Different foods have different mixing procedures. Generally, though, they take several steps that include putting a big bottle of stuff on an electromagnet plate. Inside the bottle is a piece of steel. Turn on the electromagnet, and the steel inside the bottle rotates fast, mixing the medium.
Add some more stuff and mix again. That step may involve a more gentle mixing procedure: rolling the big bottle across the floor. I've had the pleasure of helping in that one. Dad stands across the room, puts the big bottle on the ground, shoves it over to me with his foot, and I send it rolling back to him. Ah, fun! We roll it back and forth until he deems it Mixed Enough.
But when Dad was a little boy, they stayed put long enough in Texas that he kept a pet spider for quite some time. It wasn't in a container; it was free. It had spun a web between his bed's headboard and the wall. He feels this was very effective for keeping his mother out of his room. Hey. Kids need their privacy.
That spider was a black widow. Now you know one reason I've loved black widows all my life.
Dad's mother, my Helen, was an artist. Oh, she was a pistol, Grandma was. Outspoken and funny, intelligent and flirtatious, intimidating as all get out. She could charm the eyes off a snake, and had a pilot's license too. A true Texas woman. Besides all their family dogs, she tolerated Dad's many personal pets, his scorpions and spiders and I don't know what-all. Well, she better; she kept pet rats as a girl, herself.
One day the movers came, packing the family up for yet another relocation, and they went by a little box Dad had put on the dining room table. The lid of the box opened up. Out came his collection of pet tarantulas, crawling over the dining room table, escapees.
That was one of their more interesting household moving experiences.
A lover of science and medicine and biology all his life, Dad went on to medical school, became a doctor, helped deliver his own kids, then went into pure microbiological research - his lifelong dream. It's been an interesting ride ever since.
It's perfectly common now to see extraordinary things; we take them for granted, watching the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. But when I was small, viewing any microbial life was an unusual privilege for adults, not to mention kids.
Dad the Scientist had access to one of those rarities called an electron microscope in the early 1960's. Looking through those eyepieces, seeing things so small that almost nobody in the world had even dreamed of them - that fascination has never left me. They were black and white images, not color. But for the first time in history, with an electron microscope you could see certain internal structures in very small microbes. Particles of minuscule life that had only been theorized until then were actually being viewed. And as a small child I got to see some of those first-ever sights.
Our parents used to take us up to Mt. Baldy when we were kids. We'd get pond samples and bring them home to look at all the pond life through the microscope. Oh, it was beautiful! Diatoms and paramecia and amoebas and protozoa and I don't know what all, swimming around doing their bit. You could watch them move, propelling themselves about with their little flagella or whatever their usual means, eating, engulfing fellow denizens in great maws. They blithely went about their business of life in the tiny universe they dwelled in - a partial drop of water on a slide.
Dad's done a lot of tissue culture, meaning he grows tissue cells, human, mice, rat, whatever the need. The containers the tissue cells live in are kept in an incubator at just the right temperature, and fed just the right medium to grow and reproduce as fast and healthy as they can.
They need some TLC from time to time. For example, the containers may need periodic rotating to bathe all the cells in the medium. These days that's automated, using roller bottles. You can see how well they're doing by simply counting a sample, to see how their numbers increase over time. Perhaps adjustments in temperature or food are called for. So the ritual of counting cells by putting a sample, or the whole bottle, under the microscope is a familiar one. A nurturing activity, checking the little ones to see how they do.
So is mixing medium. Like most foods, it's a lot cheaper and better if you make it yourself. Dad gets the ingredients and mixes up big batches, often in a 5-gallon water jug. Different foods have different mixing procedures. Generally, though, they take several steps that include putting a big bottle of stuff on an electromagnet plate. Inside the bottle is a piece of steel. Turn on the electromagnet, and the steel inside the bottle rotates fast, mixing the medium.
Add some more stuff and mix again. That step may involve a more gentle mixing procedure: rolling the big bottle across the floor. I've had the pleasure of helping in that one. Dad stands across the room, puts the big bottle on the ground, shoves it over to me with his foot, and I send it rolling back to him. Ah, fun! We roll it back and forth until he deems it Mixed Enough.
The incubator temperature can be tricky. No matter how much care is taken with the incubator room, with its thermostat, its HVAC system, it can still be just a tiny bit off. That tiny bit can mean days of delay in cell reproduction, and thus in production of whatever he's after. Sometimes the solution is a wonderfully simple one: add a light bulb. The tiny increase in heat by turning on, say, a 40-watt bulb can keep the temperature exactly right.
Dad has accomplished great things in his life. If I gave you his name to google, you'd find some of them. Part of why he was able to do these things is because he's always been a person to think *outside the box,* as they say. He took great care, raising us kids, to teach us to follow this approach as well. To think for ourselves, no matter what others say. To be truly independent, and true to ourselves. It's why he mixes his own medium. Why he rolls the bottle across the floor. Why he added a light bulb in the incubator. Why he had a pet black widow spider.
This is creativity, invention, independence, individualism. I feel all this when I walk into his home turf - his lab.
I want you readers to have some idea of what that home turf looks like. To see, perhaps, some of why I love the place, and love to see my father in it, doing his work. So I'm publishing some pix from the very many I took when I visited the lab last year.
I really don't know what would have happened to me without my father's teachings. Did we butt heads? Oh, you bet. At times, very badly. But the older I get, the more I realize how much both my parents gave us kids, gave me. And how difficult I must have been to raise. There are no parents in the world who can raise children without ever making a single mistake, without ever doing their kids some wrong, large or small. If we had it to do over again, I'd do certain things very differently, and I've no doubt my parents would too.
It takes a special father to raise a *gifted* child. Dad...In those long ago days, lashing out in anger, I told you plenty about the negative parts. I think, I'm pretty sure, I left out thanking you for the good things you gave me, for the strength to deal with the unusual brain and heart I was born with. And for the wonderful times not just out in the world but also in your lab, that place of peace. I want to thank you for all of that now, and to tell you how sorry I am for how very long it took me to say so.
Today is Father's Day. My father was, and is, an unusual dad. Lucky for me, an unusual dad is exactly the kind I need. I would not exist without him, of course. But you know I mean that in more ways than just me being born - with Doctor Dad helping.
His own birthday is very close to Father's Day. This tends to confuse me. Dad, once again this errant daughter, despite carefully watching the calendar, neglected to call you on the Actual Day. Probably, in fact, slept right through it. So I hope you'll accept this as a Double Happy Day, and forgive me my transgression there.
I love you, Dad. Happy Father's Day to you. And happy birthday, too.
Dad has accomplished great things in his life. If I gave you his name to google, you'd find some of them. Part of why he was able to do these things is because he's always been a person to think *outside the box,* as they say. He took great care, raising us kids, to teach us to follow this approach as well. To think for ourselves, no matter what others say. To be truly independent, and true to ourselves. It's why he mixes his own medium. Why he rolls the bottle across the floor. Why he added a light bulb in the incubator. Why he had a pet black widow spider.
This is creativity, invention, independence, individualism. I feel all this when I walk into his home turf - his lab.
I want you readers to have some idea of what that home turf looks like. To see, perhaps, some of why I love the place, and love to see my father in it, doing his work. So I'm publishing some pix from the very many I took when I visited the lab last year.
I really don't know what would have happened to me without my father's teachings. Did we butt heads? Oh, you bet. At times, very badly. But the older I get, the more I realize how much both my parents gave us kids, gave me. And how difficult I must have been to raise. There are no parents in the world who can raise children without ever making a single mistake, without ever doing their kids some wrong, large or small. If we had it to do over again, I'd do certain things very differently, and I've no doubt my parents would too.
It takes a special father to raise a *gifted* child. Dad...In those long ago days, lashing out in anger, I told you plenty about the negative parts. I think, I'm pretty sure, I left out thanking you for the good things you gave me, for the strength to deal with the unusual brain and heart I was born with. And for the wonderful times not just out in the world but also in your lab, that place of peace. I want to thank you for all of that now, and to tell you how sorry I am for how very long it took me to say so.
Today is Father's Day. My father was, and is, an unusual dad. Lucky for me, an unusual dad is exactly the kind I need. I would not exist without him, of course. But you know I mean that in more ways than just me being born - with Doctor Dad helping.
His own birthday is very close to Father's Day. This tends to confuse me. Dad, once again this errant daughter, despite carefully watching the calendar, neglected to call you on the Actual Day. Probably, in fact, slept right through it. So I hope you'll accept this as a Double Happy Day, and forgive me my transgression there.
I love you, Dad. Happy Father's Day to you. And happy birthday, too.
.
Welcome! Come Into the Laboratory.
NOTE: I'm publishing these *backwards,* with the first in the series at the top of the scroll, not the bottom. There are 6 separate picture posts in this series, with four pix in each post. (This is because I'm too lazy to figure out how to do more than four pix in Blogger once again.)
We're going to take a walk through the lab, and see some of the special things it holds. The vast majority are things I can't begin to identify, sry! But some I can. Enough, I hope, to take you on a reasonable tour.
Click away, embiggen to your heart's content. Some of these pix are more blurry than I like, and the subjects are visually complex. Embiggening is good for you!
And just in case you wondered: Dad knows exactly what, and where, everything in here is.
This is the view that greeted me as I walked into Dad's lab last year. I hadn't been in this one before. They never look the same to me, but I always like them all.
There's always some Wonderful Mysterious Glassware.
All KINDS of glassware. Some look exactly like you'd expect them to.
And there's usually a fridge holding bottles of mystery substances.
We're going to take a walk through the lab, and see some of the special things it holds. The vast majority are things I can't begin to identify, sry! But some I can. Enough, I hope, to take you on a reasonable tour.
Click away, embiggen to your heart's content. Some of these pix are more blurry than I like, and the subjects are visually complex. Embiggening is good for you!
And just in case you wondered: Dad knows exactly what, and where, everything in here is.
This is the view that greeted me as I walked into Dad's lab last year. I hadn't been in this one before. They never look the same to me, but I always like them all.
There's always some Wonderful Mysterious Glassware.
All KINDS of glassware. Some look exactly like you'd expect them to.
And there's usually a fridge holding bottles of mystery substances.
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