I have gone on record multiple times as one of those who excoriate that abomination from China, the Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’), which is right up there with that other abomination from China, the “Tree of Heaven” (Ailanthus altissima). Both are aggressive invasive species that are even more obnoxious than kudzu. You may recognize the Greyola parked there with its door ajar, and guess what’s growing right next to my parking spot. Yep.
The way my sinuses have been carrying on about it, it’s a wonder I’m not exhaling blue air. Although I’m on cetirizine (Zyrtec) daily*, I’ve been having breakthrough symptoms because the stupid Bradford pear trees are all over town (see above) and their pollen is inescapable. I’ve been honking and sneezing at annoyingly frequent intervals for well over a week now, and as short on spoons as I am these days, I don’t have much energy to spare. We’ve also had a particularly brown spring with frequent bouts of high winds kicking up the surrounding agricultural-chemical-laced dirt into the air. Between the pears, the blowing dirt and the COP chemotherapy, I’ve started wheezing again, which I haven’t done since I moved out of the duplex with the leaky roof and black mold in the attic where I lived for 12 years. Wearing a face mask helps, but not much.
I had my cycle of chemo on Wednesday, the white cell booster on Thursday. I gained 7 lbs between Tuesday and Wednesday, and lost 9 between Wednesday and Sunday, all of it “water” weight. I got through this time without any digestive symptoms, although I didn’t have much of an appetite. When I finished ricocheting off the walls from the five tablets of prednisone I had Wednesday, I crashed and burned, sleeping 10 and 12 hours at a stretch. I spent Friday through Sunday mostly in bed with my feet up, emptying my legs out one trip at a time. That bed, with the uppy-downy head and foot, and the memory foam mattress, has been a Godsend. Wednesday evening, I couldn’t see the bones in my feet. Now I have ankles. Monday and today, I went for a liter of fluid. I go again Friday, and that’ll be it for this cycle. Three weeks from now I get to do it all again, but the specifics are not yet known.
Carillon is organizing a bus trip next Tuesday to Silver Falls, which is outside of Crosbyton, where a picnic lunch will be served, and then we go to the museum in Post to see their Fabergé Egg. It’s about an hour to Crosbyton and back, and over an hour to Post and back. I’d like to go, but I’m not sure I’ll have the stamina for it, so I probably won’t. Sigh.
We had a “tower” meeting Tuesday and afterward, I got to have a little chat with JH, one of mom’s PEO friends. Apparently, there’s a lady in their PEO chapter who makes jackets to sell at their auction. Mom already has one of her jackets. This lady took the scraps from making jackets and made a patchwork quilt and brought it to mom, which I thought was sweet.
*I have seasonal allergies. I’m allergic to all four of them.
The Owl Underground 
Love that quilt~and love that this chemo cycle seems to have gone relatively well. As for the pollen: last week was sneezy around here, with pollen levels at 4K. This week, the pollen count of 10,000 has looked like a veil of smoke hanging in the air.
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