The Mast Cell Block Tango

  Well, today was one of those days. I felt decent, got up, and swam in the pool. I know I need to work out more to build stamina and lung strenght, but I keep forgetting if I overdo it then I am down for days. You'd think I'd learn by now. Nope. Swam and walked about forty five minutes. Foot I tore a ligament in during the July 2026 debacle of the concrete stepping stone giving way to dump me two and a half feet down into the French drain, that foot, yeah that foot, singing the blues. This is no way to run a body! After making sure that the water pressure was strong before I swam I emerged to just a trickle, not enough to shower in. Why does this matter? Every time I am dunked in pool water with its icky chemicals I need to shower with soap and follow up with copious natural ingredient body lotion afterward. Failure to shower and slather results in immediate itching and hives. Failure to moisturize means more hives and bigger.  Oh well, back to the drawing board after the ach...

  Dang! How did they know? I don't smoke pot, I have medical marijuana gummies for bad asthma days. I actually do not like that stoned feeling any more than I like the jittering and jiving of the asthma drugs. I miss the days of teenage-hood when I liked those feelings. Over the course of the few weeks I've been home to Costa Rica I've been mia in parts of my life. Why? Mr. Mastocytosis. The specialist at the mast cell clinic I've started telehealth appointments with changed my drugs around. Added in H2 and another Proton Pump Inhibitor. Guess what? My effing body decided to react to the PPI by making me sleep anywhere from a dozen to eighteen hours a day. I had to stop it immediately. On the flip side the H2, something I used and dismissed in the past for being not helping at all, is helping. But only if I use it with a teeny bit of benadryl. Which is doable. You win some, you lose some. Ready to smack the Mr. around. He just asked me to go to the bar and meet his frie...

 ...on the tines of this idiotic thing that is my health.  I only wish I was as sanguine as this lady. However I am way rantier. Right now I'm just feeling crazy tired. I slept 16 hours last night. Didn't mean to but conked out at 3 pm, got up for a little while at midnight and went back to bed an hour later. I hope its like the usual when I do a crazy long sleep, a body reset from the asthma. One thing I am not looking forward to is speaking to our tenant. He does the occasional yard work, but the other night he started doing the Tico thing and burning the leaves. I try to tell all the gardeners that all leave burning needs to take place significantly downwind of the house just beyond the wall. He burned all over the yard and just like that I had asthma again. Le sigh. Trying to stabilize on my meds long enough to start to think aboH1ut a reset there. One of the doctors that treats this crap had some H1, H2, PPI suggestions. I have to get sort of stable before turning the rou...

  I am laid out, exhausted tired, worn out, beaten, and exhausterated! Two days ago I flew in from Washington, D.C. and boy are my arms tired.  The trip from D.C. went by perfectly fine. Lots of very kind people crossed my path, which was odd because mostly I see the unwashed hateful masses acting like the Ugly American stereotype. Occasionally I get great seat mates. I did this time. which was fine except that much conversation is exhausting when I have no energy left. I had to take a nap. Flying is terrible on my oxygen levels. They tank every time I fly. I was flying with zero spoons or energy left after the month I had first readying Mom's house for sale before driving up to see my kids. Nothing left by the end. Now I'm back home in Costa Rica having to zealously guard my health. Yesterday and today that means I could do a few things like unpack suitcases and start laundry before my energy levels / o2 stats / blood pressure tanked around 3 pm and it was toes up in the bed....

  Yesterday was a disaster! I went to the clinic in Maryland I visit when here. I'd had a bizarre accident a few days before and wanted to make sure I had not broken a rib. Had lumps beneath the fascia of my body without bruises on the skin level. Quite painful. I had also run low on my meds, the pharmacopeia gumbo I take for both routine things and the stuff involving mast cell. I was only out of one of the mastie drugs but very low on metformin, blood pressure meds and Lyrica. So I took myself off to this place. Huge. Fucking. Mistake! I didn't get the usual doctor, a decent guy that knows I live in Costa Rica and sometimes run low on essentials. Most of the time when I'm zipping in there it is for a sinus or a bladder infection. Instead I got the sourest Indian female doctor. My blood pressure was borderline high when checking in, and the nurse said they'd have to keep retaking it to figure out if it was a glitch. Sadly it only went higher with every moment! Never ha...

  Still here in Bumblefuck, Louisiana in the haunted doll manse. I'd thought I could relax and paint today but alas I have to clean the joint so that the realtor can take photos tomorrow and list the house on Monday. I'll probably be at a nine on the art pain scale by the time I finish. My paintings may be heckin' weirdorama. You may not do this, but I do - I follow a pile of doctors that treat MCAS. I don't have that permutation. They have renamed what I have to systemic mastocytosis. It's the weird intense cousin of MCAS. But there is frequently something of value that can be gleaned from MCAS doctors. Yesterday I finally had the freakin' light bulb go off over my head when one of the doctors talked about something apparently many MCAS and others do. Feel better at night and stay the heck up all night long.   If I'm not in the bed by about 9 pm or 9:30 pm, washed, brushed, drugged with book in hand, I'm up all night. This has turned into a significant ...

  I am in small town bumblefuck Louisiana and I am out of spoons. Angry stupid neighbors. Oodles of possessions I do not want. We've been gutting Mom's house of her possessions  and between the stirred up dust from going through the boxes in the dining room, and having to bag up her clothing for the thrift shop I am so freaking exhausted. Plus very asthmatic. Running out of drugs I'll need to go to urgent care I guess seeking refills. What I really need is a few days rest in bed, but it's not happening. As soon as the house is listed we're leaving for the kids house, driving Mom's car to my daughter, rolling up 95 stopping here and there. I hope I survive this trip and the house sale.