This year we've been blessed with few wildfires plaguing us. And those that have been around haven't really blown into the valley all that much.

Until now.

Very early Sunday morning I woke up smelling smoke, which always provides a small amount of trauma because my mind instantly transports back to when I was in the middle of a fire and panic sets in. Once I realized that it wasn't my house on fire, but was instead smoke from one of the three fires in the mountains, I was flooded with relief. For about 5 minutes. Then I had to think about how this would affect my serious smoke allergies...

The nearby hills are completely missing here

Here is the treat that I get to endure when the smoke gets terrible...

• Cramping. This is not "ooh, my insides hurt a bit" bad, it's more like "ZOMFG! SO THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO GIVE BIRTH!" bad. I end up laying down doubled-over in agony. And it's not just smoke... any incense that's burning will have the same effect.
• Diarrhea. No idea why. Probably a side-effect of the cramping?
• Shortness of Breath. This one is kinda obvious, but it's not as bad as the cramping, so I can deal with this so long as I'm not exerting myself.
• Loss of Apetite. This is a bit of a big deal because I gain/lose weight so easily. Two or three days of not eating and my pants are falling off of me. I usually force myself to eat something when my stomach starts rumbling.
• Vomiting. If I eat in small amounts, it's not so bad. But anything more than a small handful and I might as well not eat at all.
• Dry Heaves. What's that? "Just don't eat and enjoy the weight loss," you say? Doesn't matter. Even worse than throwing up anything I eat is getting dry heaves for something I never ate.

So... not a great day to be me! Hopefully you're having a better day being you.

Yesterday I had a great salad. It was my first "real" food since Saturday. I managed to keep it down, which gave me the courage to have a slice of pizza toast for dinner before going to bed. After my digestive system got going again, all I wanted to do was eat. The pizza toast was a monumentally huge mistake. I was miserable all night, couldn't sleep at all, and finally gave up fighting it.

I wish I hadn't waited so long, because I felt so much better after I finally gave up on keeping it down.

Alas, that was at 2:30am.

What's funny is that through all my misery and tossing and turning and agonizing... Jake never once left my feet. At one point I was a complete mess while Jake was flopped across one leg while digging his claws into my other leg...

Astounding that one cat can take up so much space. I swear he started out curled up on one small corner of my bed. I honestly think that this was his attempt at making me stop moving. He's trying to hold me down or something.

Today I was back at square one. I went back to dry toast and ginger ale and worked my way up to a cheese sandwich for dinner. And that's the end of it. No late night dinner no matter how hungry I get.

   
I was surprised to learn that some states OTHER than Washington State book your second COVID vaccination appointment at the same time you get your first dose. Since the time between doses is set and known, it's weird that all states aren't doing it this way. My vaccination card had a reminder of when I was supposed to schedule my appointment, but every time I went to the website it told me that no appointments were available for my date. I was getting more and more anxious every day because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get an appointment for my date.

Then today this message arrived via text and email...

And I'm like why? WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL ME that I would be getting a reservation request so I could make my second appointment and not have to be worried about it? Why couldn't they have told me this and make a stressful situation be not stressful at all? The very least they could do was PUT THIS ON THE WEBSITE!

So now I have my appointment and can dial down the anxiety so I'm not freaking out over the idea of missing my second dose.

Yay.

Perhaps I'll even be able to get some sleep tonight?

Except... dang wouldn't pizza toast taste great right about now?

Okay... this is probably TMI (Too Much Information) but last week my ass exploded.

I had made fresh potato salad in the morning so I could have it for lunch at work and dinner that evening. Not so long after eating my lunch, I suddenly felt the cramping as my insides were turning to liquid. It's that feeling you get when you know it's only a matter of time before you have a serious problem on your hands. Well, not on your hand... hopefully... but in your toilet.

And so I looked through my bag for an Imodium, took it, then hightailed it home where I made it to my bathroom jussssssst in time. Thinking that perhaps I had caught a bug... or the coronavirus... I worked at home, staying close to my toilet for the occasional detonation of my intestines.

And of course I had a big bowl of potato salad for dinner. It tastes so good because my potato salad is wicked awesome.

Which, in retrospect, was an incredibly stupid thing to do... but, in my defense, I hadn't quite put 2 + 2 together yet.

To say that I had a bad night is a gross understatement. I think at one point I actually fell asleep on the toilet because I dare not leave it. And since it was always an emergency run I never got the door closed. Which means my cats were compelled to come in and say hello from time to time. Not necessarily because they cared that I was dying, but because they wanted to know if they could have a treat since I was up already.

I was able to go into work the next day, but I was feeling pretty poorly. I almost packed more potato salad to eat for lunch, but thought better of it because I remembered that it was after eating it that my problems started. Instead I put the salad back in the fridge and took saltine crackers instead.

Fast forward to this morning and I see this pop up in my newsfeed as an update:
Onions sold at Kroger, elsewhere recalled due to Salmonella outbreak.

Whee!

My "instenial distress" happened within 45 minutes each time. Apparently Salmonella poisoning doesn't develop until around 6 hours. So was the problem I had related to the onions in my salad? I dunno. But to be safe I threw out all the onions I had left because there was no sticker to tell me whether or not they were from "Thomson International."

And of course the lawyers are all over this:
Ron Simon & Associates files the First Lawsuit in the Red Onion Salmonella Outbreak.

I don't want to sue for a million dollars... well, I do, but not really... I just want replacement onions! Food is expensive, yo, and I can't afford to be throwing purple onions in the trash!

Even when they cause me to spend 24 hours within toilet-reach.

Oh well. Thanks to the pandemic I wasn't going anywhere anyway, but it still wasn't a fun way to pass the time.

Wait! I don't just want to sue for replacement onions... I want replacement Imodium as well! Wonder what lawyer will take that case?

Probably all of them.

I have been existing in a drug-induced limbo state.

I need to catch up on work, but I can't go into the office as sick as I am. So I take loads of medications which will allow me to function. But overdosing on the meds that allows me to function makes me sick to my stomach. So I work in a haze all day then end up nauseated all night. Then have to take a bunch of nighttime meds so I can even attempt to get some sleep.

It's a horrendous game of catch-22 where I get sick from the thing that makes it so I can deal with being sick.

And yet... until the weekend, I don't really have much choice.

Here's to surviving hump-day.

When I went to bed last night, I felt great.

But when I woke up this morning, I felt bloody awful

So now, instead of spending the day getting caught up at work, I'm trying to work from home while feeling nauseous. Needless to say, it's tough getting much done when you feel like you're going to throw up all day long... but can't.

And I don't even know what's wrong.

I don't think it's food poisoning.

It doesn't feel like the flu.

I hope it's not kidney stones.

Blargh.

Happy holidays!

As summer comes to a close I've been having a tough time of it. Just like every other change of seasons, my allergies go into overdrive and my days are spent with a runny nose, watery eyes, mucus drainage, and miserable fits of coughing. There are things I can do to alleviate the insanity, but there's nothing that can really stop it. But, oh well, I'll get over it eventually, right?

Yes.

Except...

Every year it's taking longer and longer for me to recover. Ten years ago, it took days for me to adjust to the seasons. Now it takes weeks.

This getting old thing really sucks.

Waaaaah! I'M SICK!

I felt sick when I got home from work, but had to go into Wenatchee because I was out of Eggo Thick & Fluffy Waffles and had a Jo-Ann coupon that was close to expiring. Eating dinner just made me sicker, so now I'm sitting here in front of the computer trying not to puke my guts out.

Though I'm guessing vomit hitting the keyboard would probably do a better job of making a blog entry than I am now...

As fun as that sounds, I think I'm going to down some Alka Seltzer and go to bed.

Oh wait... I don't have any Alka Seltzer. I wonder if Jägermeister would work?

ZOMFG! I have a cold y'all!

I'm fairly lucky in that I rarely get hit with colds or the flu. After going back through my blog, I see that the last time I had a cold was in February of 2009... or three years ago. Not surprisingly, everything I'm feeling now was pretty much summed up when I wrote about it then. LOL! LMFAO! ROTFL!

   
I say "not surprisingly" because my "cold routine" is always the same...

DAY ONE!
SYMPTOMS: Sinus tickle... beginnings of a sore throat.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You're coming down with a cold!
PRESCRIPTION: Overdose on Vitamin C, Spirulina, and Excederin PM for sleep.

DAY TWO!
SYMPTOMS: Runny nose, congestion, sore throat.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You totally have a cold now!
PRESCRIPTION: Overdose on Vitamin C and Spirulina. Take DayQuil to survive the work day. Take NyQuil to go comatose at night. Go on a Pine-Orange-Banana juice fast. Zinc lozenges throughout the day.

DAY THREE!
SYMPTOMS: Congestion so bad your head will explode, very runny nose, sore throat.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You are dying!
PRESCRIPTION: Same as day two... PLUS chocolate pudding.

DAY FOUR!
SYMPTOMS: Minor residual symptoms... little bit of a runny nose left.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You're gonna live!
PRESCRIPTION: Regular doses of Vitamin C and Spirulina. NO cold medications.

Now... if I'm lucky, Day Four is the end of it. I wake up on Day Five and am pretty much cured. But every once in a while, I get "The Cold Cure Fake-Out" which means your cold comes back stronger and harder than ever on Day Five. In which case I'm screwed. Colds like that can hang on for weeks.

Right now I am at the end of Day Three. I can already feel my cold breaking, and have stopped taking all cold medication (I find it's good to stop as soon as possible, because cold meds seem to prolong a cold if taken too long). Which means tomorrow I'll start recovering. That's awesome, because two days of misery is more than enough.

But then there's Day Five. Where I'm either cured or screwed.

Now there's a Saturday to look forward to.

When I woke up and looked out the window this morning it was snowing. This was disappointing, because I was hoping to participate in One Day Without Shoes (helping to remind people of kids living in poverty who can't afford footwear). HELPFUL HINT TO ORGANIZERS: Might have been a good idea to pick a date closer to summer so those living in North North America can participate.

And so my day was already off to a bad start with the weather, but that wasn't good enough. Irony had to rear its ugly head. My body decided to have an angioedema attack for the second day in a row, where the bottoms of my feet had swollen so badly that getting my feet into shoes was a painful prospect. So, to sum things up...

• Didn't want to wear shoes.
• Had to wear shoes.
• Couldn't wear shoes.
• But still really had to wear shoes...

And so I overdosed on antihistamines (again) which ended up giving me an upset stomach, which resulted in me puking my guts out, which meant I ended up having to take more antihistamines, which made me sleepy, which meant I had to drink Red Bull, which caused me to have an upset stomach. And so on.

My entire day ended up being a vicious circle of cause and effect.

And here at the end of my day, it's no different. The never-ending battle to stay healthy enough to work while staying awake enough not to drop into a coma has taken its toll, and I'm pretty much dead. Whether I'm dead enough to get a decent night's sleep remains to be seen. But I'm hopeful.

I spent all of Thursday being sick. Friday I woke up feeling terrible, but ended the day feeling okay.

Until I went to bed.

The minute I hit the pillow, things started going terribly wrong. All through the night I was wallowing in misery, trying to get some sleep despite a stabbing headache, leg cramps, and a runny nose. Then things got really interesting when my tongue decided to swell up (thanks to my idiopathic angioedema). So now I couldn't go to sleep, because I had to stand by with my epi-pen in case my tongue got worse and I couldn't breathe through my runny nose. When it rains, it pours.

Fortunately, an overdose of antihistamines arrested the problem with my tongue, a cold pill took care of my nose, and some pain killers and sleeping pills took care of the rest. It was a restless four hours sleep, but at least it was sleep.

After forcing myself to wake up in a daze so I could run an errand, I started whining about how much my life sucks.

Then I ran across THIS astounding bit of genius and realized things could always be worse...

Talk about finding opportunity in the face of adversity.

I'm hoping for a better night tonight.