I think I need to get an EpiPen.
Wasn’t really feeling it getting up and working today, but I had already committed to doing it, so I felt bad backing out.
Does inner and outer thigh exercises that I added to my leg day routine… I’m crazy crazy sore.
I think I strained the muscles a little bit. It’s more than just sore muscles. It hurts pretty darn good.
Not wanting to cop out on an important work day, I spent a fair bit of time trying to massage the super sore muscles and stretch them a little bit, hoping I could ease the pain enough to be functional.
Gratefully, after probably 20 or 30 minutes of work, I was able to get to the point where I could walk and move okay, so I decided to go ahead and get my butt out of the van and ready for work.
I drove the tractor down, and Jim brought his truck down, and we started going at it, chopping down trees, chopping off tree limbs, pulling out vines.
The tractor’s bucket was full of ice and snow, but Jim had the great idea of scooping up a bunch of gravel, which gave me some good traction when I needed to be in the bucket with him lifting me up to the higher branches.
We got most everything trimmed up on the creek side of the lower field between the front gate and the deck.
Then we headed up to the other side of the lower field between our old driveway and the draw next to the upper pond. That’s overgrown pretty crazy far. It’s probably been 15 years, or so, since the last time things were cut back far enough to mow near the fence.
But we went at it there as well until Jim’s back gave out. Then we chatted for probably 30 minutes or so, and then I stayed chopping stuff down for probably another hour, or so, until my chainsaw chain went completely dull from hitting rocks over and over again while trying to shave off trees close enough to the ground to be mowed over safely.
I also had some strange things happen. I got some tree debris in my left eye, which caused it to swell up a fair bit. That’s fairly normal, except for then the same thing happened to my right eye without my recalling getting anything in that eye at all.
And then the craziest part happened my left cheek right down at my jawline started swelling up a bunch.
😶
More and more of my cheek swelled and started going numb. It felt almost exactly like what it feels like when a dentist numbs up the nerves.
The swelling and numbness got worse and worse until that side of my tongue started going numb as well.
I could have sworn I just come back from the dentist having put a crap ton of Novocaine in the mandibular branch of my trigeminal nerve.
What the heck?!?!
So I left cutting up stuff, both because the chainsaw chain was useless at that point, and because it was time to stop anyway to go to lunch, and because I really wanted to wash my face at that point, wanting to get off whatever the heck it was that was causing the reaction.
I washed my face inside Jim and Steph’s house, looking in the mirror and seeing a face that reminded me of Harry Potter in the deathly hallows when he gets the curse that swells up his face.
Both my eyelids were super swollen, and my cheek was swollen like a chipmunk’s.
Headed into Pea Ridge to have lunch with Stevie and Risa and my mom at Victoria’s. I walked in, sat my keys down on the table, and headed right back to the bathroom to wash my face again. Just before walking to the restaurant, I had downed to Benadryl tablets…
In the bathroom, I washed my face, my neck, and even my hair in the hopes that I could stop the still progressing allergic reaction.
Fortunately, the Benadryl started kicking in about the time our food got to us, which seemed a heck of a lot longer than usual. So the swelling started going down, gratefully, and I ate a whole bunch, stuffing my face with a massive Mexican burrito and a whole bunch of chips and salsa.
The Benadryl knocked me out, so shortly after getting back from lunch, I parked in front of Jim and Steph’s house, crawled in the back, and crashed.
I think I slept for maybe 3 hours before getting up for a bit. My eyes started swelling again, and my cheek started swelling again.
What the heck!?!?
I drove into Pea Ridge and went to the neighborhood market, bought a bunch of food, including comfort foods 😕, and started eating some of them while sitting in my van watching the BYU Arizona basketball game.
For whatever reason, the allergic reaction, round two, started subsiding as soon as I started eating my popsicles (vanilla with chocolate crispy stuff around the outside). 🙃
It’s now 1:00 in the morning, and I can feel leftovers of the allergic reaction, but I’m better. The return of symptoms never got as bad as the first time around, but what the heck is going on with me?!?!
First the anaphylactic reaction in Washington… And now this today. Apparently, my body is deciding to react to things more profoundly than ever in my life.
Given what’s happened twice in the last 6 months, I think it’s prudent that I get myself an EpiPen or EpiPen equivalent.
It’s just crazy. What could be going on?
I tried to do some research that would explain how an allergic reaction could cause what happened with my cheek and jaw. I hadn’t been eating anything. So there wasn’t anything in my mouth. There were no useful web results, though Google’s AI seems to think that, yes, on rare occasions, an anaphylactic reaction can trigger the swelling and numbness in my trigeminal nerve, so that’s the best explanation I’ve got so far.
Two anaphylactic reactions in the last 6 months.
I finished watching the game, BYU winning a super close one, thriller at the end.
It’s just after 1:00 a.m. now. I didn’t want to write, but I’ve been doing so much better at writing everyday, so I didn’t want to lose the progress I’ve made in returning to my daily writing habit.
Gratitude List:
- I’m grateful that we were able to make really good progress on taking care of the property today, trimming up trees and whatnot. Good stuff.
- I’m grateful the allergic reaction wasn’t any worse than it was.
- I’m grateful Rover has been a reliable vehicle for me. It’s been quite a journey with this thing.
- I’m grateful that I have an actual real bed inside of Rover. It’s small, but since I can’t move around like I used to while I’m sleeping because I can only sleep on my right side and a little bit on my back these days, I don’t take up a lot of room like I used to before my nerve issues got so much worse.
- I’m grateful to have the means to by what I need when I need it and what I want, generally, when I want it.
Success List:
- I overcame my desire to quit and not do the outdoor work today. It was hard to overcome the desire, especially being super crazy sore. Being in pain, it being cold outside, I think some around 16 or 18 degrees, it was a pretty good success to overcome that and get my butt to work.
- It’s a success writing this journal entry right now. Again, I don’t want to because I’m tired and don’t want to take the time, but I overcame that, and here’s the entry for today.
Improvement List:
- Definitely didn’t need to be buying comfort food. I’ve downed a heck of a lot of calories today between that Mexican meal and all that comfort food. 😅
- Still not getting much of a handle on my potty mouth.
Still fighting.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 