Hurray for Flovent!

My refill arrived today, and was received with great fanfare and due ceremony. Tonight I hope to enjoy a full 7-8 hours sleep, especially since I must work Sunday evening at the paper.

Without the asthma medicine, I choke whenever anything touches my throat in the night. That would include my pillow, hands or even the sheets. My passages are that swollen. I dream about suffocating, because I sleep on my back most of the time, trying to avoid lying on my arm.

Due to an unfortunate confluence of circumstances, stints at the paper have been awful: we're down a worker during the LPGA Corning Classic. So, at a time when there is probably a quarter again more duties than usual, we are missing a key player and must fill in for her. We are racking up overtime and will work an extra night Sunday on top of it all.

But the torture is nearly over, as the Classic will end, and we managed to survive a grueling ordeal. Tempers flared, asthma attacks were the rule, overloaded nervous systems spazzed and incontinence reigned supreme, but my world will settle down soon.

We hope.

( And I don't want to forget that I promised further developments on the camera pod front. Happy to report that 5/8" (1.5 cm) oak doweling fits the bill nicely.)

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Little Pond

So now I am out of asthma medicine.

All our longterm meds must be ordered through the mail. This would be a new Rx, even though it is an ongoing thing with me. The new script went out Saturday and should be in by Saturday.
A very long time to suffer with asthma unabated. I am very glad that the tree season is over, and I only have to contend with lilacs and grass. So far the Albuterol inhaler is picking up the slack. In fact, the worst attacks come with housekeeping and working at the paper.

And I still go out nearly every day to walk. After all, we have the HuggaMutt this week.

I'll survive, but it's been unpleasant, especially for those around me. I have returned to hacking all day and most of the night. Can't wait for my shipment of Flovent.

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Little Pond

Not in time, but

Relief is on the way. Between the Zirtec, Flonase and Flovent, I should be a little better soon. You can see that we are in the very middle of tree fever:
So I pay for the pretty scenery with asthma and allergies. It's gloriously beautiful, and I go out all the time.This garden was fairly nonexistent for a while, after we had a windstorm a few years ago. Really pretty now. I'd say they made a full recovery.

The Twin Tiers are so pretty this time of year. I thank the Lord I am still ambulatory.

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Little Pond

Finally feeling better.

Still a lot of fatigue, but the heavy tree-fever season is always tough on me. I have an order going in for a steroidal nasal spray that should help.

And no, it won't give me super-smelling powers. I already have those, thanks, and it's been no fun to smell bad stuff no one else can detect. Living and working with smokers leaves me climbing the walls all the time.

I am trying to schedule window cleaners, but you know contractors. It looks like we will have to scratch the first name on the list. Too bad, too. Morrison's Building Maintenance usually does a decent job. Unfortunately, they played telephone tag for over a week before they connected.

Then they made an appointment they didn't keep.

And never called.

Not allowed. We have some other names to explore. Maybe they will want the business. It's a quick job for some easy pay. One floor, ten windows, $100.00 or so, as I recall.

Don't really know any more, because MBM didn't keep their appointment.

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Little Pond

I've been walking Elmira all week. Update.

The rainy days found me rambling around the neighborhoods. The sunny, drier days afforded a few photo ops by the river. See River Hag.
So this vacation has been a good opportunity to exercise and eat right.

My daughters visited often and we ate out a couple of times, mostly vegetarian. After faithfully watching BBCAM's You Are What You EAT for the last several weeks, I now have a few decent recipes and a fair stock of the proper veggies, fruits, seed, etc. I doubt I am losing weight, but I am certainly sleeping very well. A very rare treat for me.

A side effect of the flu season, and that awful virus, happened to claim chocolate as a casualty. I ate a chocolate pudding one night and vomited it for three hours straight. No more chocolate for me. My stomach can no longer tolerate it. Well, maybe later when I straighten things out a bit.

So, net result of vacation: Dining room redone with Wallies covering the nasty spots scratched by the cats. A new Sauder corner desk for the computer stuff. Nothing fancy, just affordable. Winter stuff cleaned and stored, clothing, car scrapers, etc. A very few layering pieces to wear to work. And I hope for an easy inspection of the Geo on Friday morning. Some trepidation there, what with the rustiness and all.

Hah! Passed! 5/1/8. Keep in mind that the Miller Lite repairs the pipe connecting the resonator to the muffler, and is all properly sealed to prevent any exhaust escape. The Red Bull is merely the connection from muffler to tail pipe and has passed even without repair. Go here to see the beer can repairs.

That's enough for one week.

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Little Pond

Across the Pond

For some time now, I have been reading a blogger in the UK. It is very instructive to see the differences in health care on the two sides of the pond. The really big pond, that is.

I had always imagined that healthcare in England was much better than in the US because it is nationalized. Wrong. If you go here you get a huge sampling of some of her typical daily troubles, and it isn't pretty.

This lady is lovely and upbeat, and has many, many problems caused by caretakers that we would not tolerate here in the US. I find her blog to be inspiring, morale-wise.

Makes me feel like a "whiny, puling fool." (Romeo and Juliet)

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Little Pond

Last of the lovely days for a while.

Pretty, isn't it? I am still fine-tuning the Zyrtec/Chlor-trimetron balance, and trips to the river are often a disaster, continence-wise. Especially if I hike it. I need to remember that the tree-fever season is just the beginning of a very long allergy stint, ending with the hard frosts of fall. Apparently I still have MS even when I don't much feel like it. Or maybe it's all denial, as my coworkers and kids tell me.

I am watching every single thing that goes down the hatch these days. Calorie counts are kept to 1500 or less on weekdays, a little more liberal on weekends. I am finally beginning to see the small signs of success. One benefit of my new diet is better sleep. Chocolate must have been taking quite a hidden toll on me.

Pat's Pond now has a new blog (like this is something rare?) and it's attached to the paper. They decided they didn't need another columnist, so they suggested I run a blog on their community. So that's probably how I would have eventually been relegated, anyway. We can only hope that people will see some of us regular bloggers and decide they would like to join, also.

You can check it if you like, but be forewarned that it activates a ton of popups. It's called Walking the Dog, and will have very short entries, usually with a photo, and links to these Blogger sites. Actually, it will likely contain stuff from our regular Blogger sites, so don't be surprised if it looks a little familiar.

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Little Pond