Where the West Commences

Traveling Underneath the Starry Skies

I am feeling much better this evening.  I had a very productive day at work, and hope to repeat it tomorrow and the next day.  I enjoy my work greatly, especially when I feel well enough to be there and to think.  Brain cloud beware, I am getting better! Disperse!

I am still very very tired but things are in much better control than last week. I foolishly quit taking the daily plaquenil for my hives after getting home from the last pancreatitis bout. The medication can be harsh on your stomach and can cause nausea, so I was trying to eliminate anything that might be making my pain and nausea worse. Now I am head to toe hives: I felt like finding a tree and scratching my back on it today, but took another vistaryl instead. I am taking the plaquenil again but it takes awhile to build up a blood level.

Will be traveling to a client next week, in the deep Southwestern United States.  Hoping I am up for the plane rides and trouping through the airports.  I am definitely checking my suitcase, but will carryon my boat anchor of a laptop.  It has some legacy software installed on it that I may need when I get to the client's.  Better to drag it with me, than need it and not have it.  I am sure I will find some use for it, if only to use the email to report back to the office.

I will be travelling with my full drug cabinet of medication, but am paring down the quantities - same number of bottles, but less pills to spill.  I ate some real food yesterday and today, hoping to be able to eat next week but I can always just go on with eating every third day.  I am not communicating my travel plans to any healthcare professional, as I am ignoring two different physician's advice and don't want to hear any flak about it.  They don't have to pay my bills: I do.  If there are any adverse consequences I will take the butt chewing later otherwise the less they know the better.

Liquids are staying down, and not only am I getting hydrated, but the cankles are threatening to return.  Oh the woe of cankles - I just know they will manifest themselves during flight time and refuse to disappear.  I get rid of them, and just when I don't want them - reappearo.

I'm going to make the legs behave even if they cankle up on me.  I am going to be a good girl and bring my cane and sensible shoes.  I am working to get The Belly in shape, and pray that The Headache will behave itself.  I haven't been to high desert climates since The Headache began, so hoping it actually will make The Headache feel better rather than make it worse!  The Belly really doesn't like to fly as I tend to dehydrate myself in order to control bathroom breaks, and dehydration makes it really ouchy.  I'll try to keep a little more fluid in my system than I have been when flying lately, so my hydraulics stay in better shape.  Cactus land here I come!

I Am Allergic To... [Drumroll Please!]

Myself!!!!

Got back from Kansas City. A pretty good day as The Headache waited until I was almost home to move on up the pain scale. Much better than my last trip to the big city where it was to the point I couldn't make sense by 9:00 AM.

The occipital stimulator must be helping The Headache (surely) as my blood pressure was at a level I haven't seen in a couple of years - my normal 110/70. The stimulator seems to make me a very sleepy driver so I have been turning it off while I drive. Not sure if I am just imaging this or not, but I am dangerously sleepy with that thing on. Wish it would do that at night! Maybe this is just chance, because I have had some bad nights right around my last three solo driving adventures and I may have been abnormally tired??

The big news of the day, I don't need to worry about the dog, cat or horse allergies - they barely register when compared to my allergy to MYSELF. That's a hard allergen to avoid. They looked at my giraffe spots where past hives had left their mark, and of all things poked on my freckles on my back, which made a hive pop up on my wrist about 5 minutes later, and then started my lips swelling when I was almost home. They haven't ruled out mastocytosis, which my last immunologist thought (but then didn't think so but then did wonder if) I had that or a related disorder, but say I definitely most definitely have autoimmune hives.

I have been put back on Plaquenil which I felt gave me a small improvement last year to address the autoimmune aspect. I have been taken off the Xyzal (which I felt didn't do a thing) but will keep on taking the Singulair. They gave me a script for a lower dose of doxepin, and said the results from it won't be immediate - it make take months...sigh. But the doctors cheerfully told me I should be happier overall because it is an anti-depressant!!! I guess that they are assuming I am depressed. I don't think so but perhaps I am in denial - you know...that river in Egypt... I go back in November.

In addition to returning, they want my primary care doctor to run regular blood tests for them, and for me to get a biopsy done of a hive attack if I get a "really big bunch of them". Not sure if they mean "big" as in size, or "big" as in many or both. I guess I will just have to let myself break out and get it biopsied at the emergency room while I get treatment for them - NOT. I don't think that one is going to happen. I also have to have a "plaquenil" eye exam done sometime in the next couple of months whatever that may be...

Had a pleasant ride around Kansas City, and drove through some neighborhoods I haven't seen in about 25 years. One old downtown warehouse where they wholesaled prizes for circuses and carnivals is now a yuppified condo complex. Kinda miss the old scrubby warehouse, which is now occupied by classy urban folk sipping lattes in the coffee shop at street level. A doctor's plaza where my niece went to a pediatric opthamologist many moons ago (he was able to prescribe her with glasses before she was one year old!) is completely gone, and the small community type hospital near by is now a mega hospital that towers over the surrounding buildings. I guess I should go back more often, eh?

Off to buy coffee - we are out, and apparently everyone forgot it until it was time to make a pot!