Two Weeks Turned Into Over Two Months

Well, I definitely wasn't expecting to take so much time away, but life has a way of knocking you for a loop—both good and bad—when you least expect it.

Let me give you a little backstory about why my eye strain was, and still is to a degree, so bad.

Back in 2023, I started the year off the way I usually did back then: by hiking on New Year's Day. I was finishing one of the loops at Buffalo Track Canyon Nature Trail when I came across a huge sheet of ice. Now, if I'd been smart, I would have turned around and found another route. But being stubborn, I decided to try skirting around the edge.

Huge mistake.

The moment I stepped onto the ice, my feet shot out from under me. Because I was wearing a small hiking backpack, all of my weight landed squarely on my lower back. You can tell from the picture below that I hit hard enough to crack the ice, and it took everything I had to keep more than my foot from sliding into the water.

I made it home and, for about a week, I was sore but otherwise okay. Then, one morning while bending over to turn on the shower, I heard a loud pop and was immediately in excruciating pain.

Within a few weeks, simply walking became difficult. But I still had to work, so I dug deep and kept going, taking baby steps even when all I wanted to do was sit down and cry.

For nearly three months, my doctor insisted it was just a muscle strain and that I'd get over it. Meanwhile, my mobility kept getting worse and the pain kept increasing. Eventually he ordered an MRI, which showed that the disc between L5 and S1 was completely pinching the two nerves exiting on my left side.

He referred me to pain management, and ever since, 1,600 mg of gabapentin has been my lifesaver, along with the occasional SI joint or epidural injection. I won't get into the early side effects of gabapentin—that's a story for another day.

Then, just as we started talking about surgery that fall, life threw me another curveball.

At 47, I had a heart attack caused by a 95% blockage in my right coronary artery.

Thankfully, I made it through with no permanent damage, but that immediately put any plans for back surgery on hold.

I won't go into what the blood thinner did to me over the following year because that's not really the point of this story. My eye issues are. But everything that came before is relevant—I promise.

Over the next several months, I started itching constantly without any visible rash. Within a year, I was literally digging furrows into my forearms and thighs from scratching so much. It appears everything my body went through in 2023 sent my immune system into overdrive, and I developed atopic dermatitis, better known as eczema.

Last year I started seeing a dermatologist, who put me on Dupixent, a biologic injection every two weeks.

And wow, did it work.

Within the first month, I was almost completely itch-free. It honestly felt amazing.

For a few months, I was finally enjoying life again.

Then my eyes started becoming a little less happy.

They became sore, constantly bloodshot, and just never felt right. After reading that Dupixent could cause eye inflammation, I scheduled an appointment with my dermatologist.

The morning of that appointment, I woke up with my left eye completely red and a pupil that wouldn't dilate.

My dermatologist's office happened to be on the first floor of a building with an ophthalmologist on the second floor, so I went upstairs hoping I could make an appointment.

Fortunately, they squeezed me in.

The ophthalmologist started me on a strong steroid eye drop, and when I returned three days later, she confirmed I had developed iritis.

That was the end of my Dupixent journey.

Over the next six months, I bounced on and off steroid drops and medications to control my eye pressure, but my eyes have never really been the same. They're much drier now, tire out quickly, and eye strain can take weeks to settle down once it flares up.

I'm trying to rest them more, but that's easier said than done when I manage a dental office and spend most of my day staring at computer screens.

I'm learning to adjust and build healthier habits...I'm just not very good at sticking to routines.

Which brings us to today.

Stopping Dupixent wasn't a problem at first. It took several months for the itching to gradually return, and until about two months ago it was manageable.

Then the hives started.

I've never dealt with hives before, but over the last month they've made my life miserable. They'd cover large sections of my body or appear in multiple places at once. They usually disappeared within a few hours, only to pop up somewhere else moments later. My skin would become hot, itchy, and if I scratched what looked like perfectly normal skin, within minutes I'd have raised welts.

I'm currently on day two of oral prednisone, and thankfully it seems to have almost completely stopped the hives. I'm also taking three cetirizine tablets a day, and I'm hoping that by the time I finish this two-week course of steroids, the antihistamines will have built up enough in my system to keep the worst of it from coming back.

Now I just have to figure out what my next step will be for controlling the eczema.

So that's been my last couple of months.

All of that has been happening while I was also promoted and moved into a brand-new dental office that has had more than its fair share of growing pains. And that's not even mentioning my fuel pump failing, followed just a couple of weeks later by my brakes deciding they no longer wanted to be part of the team.

Needless to say...life's been busy.

I haven't been reading much besides romance novels—mostly paranormal, urban fantasy, and mystery romances—most of which I probably won't review. I've watched a lot of TV, binged a few shows I'll eventually write about, and caught up on more movies than I care to admit.

But I am back, even if I'm easing into things.

Missed y'all.

Age Sneaks Up On Us

On August 15th of this year, I'll be turning 45. Its not something I think about all that often. Hell, half the time I need to stop and think for a few seconds when someone asks me for my age. When I do think of it, its more in terms of where I thought my life would be by this time; normally I would married with kids, and a hell of a lot more financially stable than I am. The older I get, I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to feel. What is approaching 45 supposed to feel like? I don't think I feel any different than I did in my 30s, or even in my 20s, at least not mentally. I'm definitely more mature in some of my choices, though some like budgeting are still an issue. But, I can't say I normally notice that much of a difference. I can definitely tell my body is aging, and fattening, but it's hard to remember what my body felt like 5 years ago, let alone 10 or 20. 

Life has a funny way of reminding us just how old we are getting. Some are ongoing, like I've been trying to get used to the idea I probably need bifocals. I'm just not ready to pulls the trigger, and admit defeat. Others just slap you in the face. I'm in Kansas City for work, staying in a hotel, and like everyone else I pack all my essentials to take along with me. I am also one of those annoying people who unpack everything once I get to the hotel. This time around, as I'm unpacking, I notice all the damn pill bottles I'm pulling out. All I can do is sit there staring, wondering when I got this old. I used to pack 8 pairs of shoes, not 8 medicine bottles. I only brought one pair of boots with me, and that's it. I unpacked 8 freaking bottles, and not one is a supplement or a vitamin. The powers that be need to design disclaimers about what getting older really means. Maybe then I wouldn't be so dismayed that instead of packing multiple pairs of shoes, I'm now taking pharmacies along with me. 

Updated Blogger Profile Image

I made a change!  For those of you who have been with me over the years, you've noticed that I've been using the same Blogger image since the beginning.  I've never shown a picture of myself on here, at least not an adult me.  Let's just say, I've always been a bit camera shy, never thinking I look all that great in pictures, so when I could, I hid behind another image.  For Blogger, and pretty much every other social media account I have, I have used an image of Doctor Strange, my favorite superhero of all time.   It was only a few years ago that I started to actually use my own image on Facebook, and even then, not all the time.

I've decided to step out of my box a little bit more, and use an image of myself on here.  It's also going to be the image I use for Discuss and Twitter as well.  It's from almost two years ago now, and I don't think I look to bad in it.  I like that there is no close up of my face. 

So no more Doctor Strange.  It feels weird changing something so simple after so long, but change is good, right? 

Fog and Snow

It's been a rather wet winter so far, and it's not all snow.  Actually, I bet most of the moisture we have gotten over the last few months, has been in just about any other form.  We have had sleet, rain, freezing rain, and for some bizarre reason, a ton of fog.  I almost felt as if I was living in the middle of London for a while.  And it's not fog that shows up and burns away within a few hours.  I'm talking about fog that sticks around for days at a time. And I'm not saying we haven't had snow, because we have.  It's actually snowed at least four times already, which seems to be way more than last year. And for the record, I love all this moisture.  I woke up to rain the other morning and I loved it.

I thought I would share a few pictures of what the fog was like, and some of the snow we've had so far.

Why & How I Read

For some odd reason, as I woke up this morning, I was thinking about why I read so much.  Other people have hobbies that they don't seem to obsess over, or take up all their free time doing, so why does it seem that I'm reading so much right now.  Hell, you don't see every stamp collector starting a blog to glorify his hobby, so why was it so important for me to do it?  Reading is the one constant of my day to day life, other than the consumption of food. If I'm not at work, or doing some other activity that precludes the act of reading, I'm reading.

And it's nothing new.  When I was a kid, there were times, even in summer, when I would rather read than play outside.  One summer, I was convinced that I would rather read my great-grandmother's collection of Encyclopedia Britannica than be outside.  They had to force me to go play.  A lot of that had to do with my childhood.  We moved a lot, and when I mean a lot, I had lived in more places by the time I was in 5th grade, than most people live in their entire lifetimes.  And that's not even talking about all the places and schools I went to when we were traveling with a carnival for three years, or the time we spent living with a biker gang in Washington state.

Because of all that, it was hard for me to relate to people my own age.  We never stayed around long enough for me to make real friends, and when I did, it wasn't that long before I would have to say goodbye.  When we were with the carnival, that happened every two weeks for the majority of the year.  Books were constant though.  Whether or not they stayed the same over the years, I always had stories and characters I could escape into, that would be there for me when nobody else could.  In essence, books became a companion and my best friend.

As an adult, while they don't serve the same function anymore, books are still a vital part of my life.  I don't need them to be my friends now, I have enough of those, but I do use them as my greatest resource for stress relief.  When I was in my twenties, I still read a lot, but I used going out, and dancing became my main way to get rid of stress.  Lot's of sex helped in that area too, but that's what gay guys in their twenties do.  For that matter, that's what too many men still do, way into their thirties and forties.  I out grew all of that though, and I found myself gravitating back towards books.  It's the time spent in a new world, surrounded by new and familiar characters, that seems to keep the outside world from getting to big to handle.  The pages of a book are where I go to be myself again, the self I want to be, without all the stress and cares weighing me down.

It's the way I read a book that allows this whole process to happen.  It doesn't matter what genre the book falls into, or whether or not it's fiction or non-fiction, I read them all as if I'm reading a memoir or a history book.  It could be my favorite Agatha Christie mystery, The Last Herald Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, one of the best historical fiction books I've ever read, or even the best general fiction book I've ever read; I read them all as if I'm reading a fantastic biography of an even more fantastic person.

It's the way I'm able to get into the story, to take it all in, that allows reading to be the perfect stress relief.  I have to believe in what I'm reading, if it doesn't come across as true, I lose interest.  When I'm reading about Randy Dreyfus, he feels as real to me as Neil White.  It's the whole reason why I have so much fun with my Favorite Fictional Character feature, it's because they are real to me when I'm spending time with them.  Dagny Taggart is no different from George Washington or Kamila Sadiqi for me, at least not when I'm reading about them.  It's that willing suspension of disbelief that allows the pages of a book to pull me in, and lets me forget about everything else.  It's the way I need to read in order to truly enjoy it, and allow it to keep me sane.

Still Life At The Wichita Art Museum

As per the usual, when I have a Saturday off, I took a trip to the Wichita Art Museum.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm cheap, and since they have free admission on Saturdays, it's the only day I'll go.  I had another reason to go that day, but it didn't pan out, and I'd rather not talk about it, so I'm not going to.  Either way, they had a wonderful exhibition of still lifes from their permanent collection in one of the lower galleries.  Most of these are new to me, as I'm pretty sure they don't see the light of day very often.  I love when they supplement with pieces in their vaults.  Art should be seen, not tucked away.  I took a few pictures, of my favorite pieces, and I thought I would share them with you guys. I'll be the first to admit that I suck at taking pictures of art work hanging on a wall, it's harder than you think it would be.

Red Roses by Sigmund J. Menkes

Englishtown by Janet Fish

Still Life with Cattails by Herman Meril

Still Life with Mask by Marvin D. Cone

Still Life, Copper Tray by Edmund L. Davison

Still Life of Flowers by Morris Kantor

Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase by William J. Glackens

Mortality and Immortality by William M. Harnett 

Still Life with Lemons by John Noble

My No Good, Very Bad Day.... With Good Pictures

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you may have already heard my story of what happened to me on 08/14/2013, the day before my birthday.  If you haven't, please let me fill you in on the details.  It started of pretty great actually, I went to renew my license since it expired on my birthday, and that was the last thing I wanted to do on my actual birthday.  When I got there, I signed in with my cellphone and realized there was a two hour and forty-five minute wait.  Instead of waiting around, I decided to leave and come back when it was closer to my time.  They text you 15 minutes before your number is called, so I knew I would have the time.

I decided to go to a few of the parks in my neighborhood, of which there are around five.  I stopped at Riverside park first, but mainly walked along the river bank.  I then stopped at the gazebo of Villa Park, but not for very long.  I mainly wanted to see the small pond there  My last stop was Oak Park, one of the parks I rarely get to anymore.  I wish I did, especially since there is a nice walking trail that takes you through a wooded area.  I love it there, and will occasionally walk down the side trails as well.  I took a lot of pictures during the park time, pictures I'll share at the end of this story.  But as I was leaving, as I'm turning around to walk back to my car, I'm tackled by this huge dog and knocked to the ground.  The poor guy was wanting to play, and didn't mean any harm, but when he knocked me down, my camera fell on a rocky area, barely missing going into the water.  Now you would think that the dog's owner would have asked if I was okay, or at the least apologized for what happened.  Instead, she calls the dog away and disappears from view.  When I picked the camera up, all I saw was green static on the screen, and I could not turn the camera off.  The lens was stuck out, I thought the poor thing was finished.  Almost in tears, I took the battery off, which did shut the camera down.  When I put the battery back in, the screen went back to normal and I thought all was right with the world.  I was so wrong, the screen was actually cracked, and it was cracked right where the push screen button for my flash is at.  I had the flash off since I was taking pictures in the sunlight, and now it's stuck off.  I can no longer access that button.  So my camera works, but I can't use it inside after a certain time of day, or at night at all.

So I finally get back to the DMV, with 15 minutes to spare.  I get up to the counter and I'm told I don't have all the info I need, that I need to go home and come back.  You see, I had moved a few months earlier, but only to a different apartment within the same complex.  My street address had not changed, even though my apartment number had.  I had called them the week prior and was told since the street address did not change, I did not need to bring anything with me to prove the move.  Well now I'm being told I need that proof, and because of my already crappy day, I was less than happy about it.  So I storm off like a four year old, go home, and go back to the DMV.  Luckily, they didn't hold my temper tantrum against me, and allowed me back into line without having to wait too long.

So now I'm back home, wanting to rest a bit.  I'm lying in bed, watching TV and I notice that my patio doors are a little dirty.  I decide to wash them really quickly, and the inside takes just a few minutes.  Around this time, my roommate and son leave to go run some errands.  I leave my cellphone on the bed, and go outside to clean the windows.  As I'm cleaning them, the safety bar comes down and locks me out on my patio.  I'm on the second floor, with no real safe way down from my patio.  So I'm out there for about an hour to an hour and a half, when I decide I really, really need to go to the bathroom.  I'm hoping against hope that my front door was left unlocked, and I take my time trying to get down.  I eventually figure out the least dangerous way of getting down, and go for it.  When I land, I twist my ankle a bit, but thankfully with no other damage.  When I limped around the building, and up my stairs, I was praying that my front door was unlocked, and thank the lord it was.

After that, I took a shower, drank some wine, and posted about the day on Facebook.  I was really hoping all my bad luck came out on that day, so my birthday would go without a hitch.  For the most part, it did.  I had a quiet birthday, which was just what I wanted.

So now that I've bored you with my bad day, it's time to show you the pictures I took before everything took a turn for the worse.

The first eight pictures are from Riverside Park.

The following three pictures are from Villa Park

The rest of the pictures are from Oak Park.

I was standing on these rocks when I was knocked over.