I really didn’t plan to disappear from the blog this month. I hit the 14th – the day after my youngest’s birthday – and had another massive hive attack, even worse than in February. From there, my health just deteriorated. I’d already stopped reading in mid-February, beyond some rereads and skim-reads, and my desire to read or listen to books in any capacity fell away completely. It’s been since April 2011 that I last had a full-on slump like this, where it’s not just “I can’t find anything I want to read” and instead it’s “I don’t want to read, period.” This wouldn’t have been so much of a problem except that it dovetailed with an “I don’t want to write at all either” slump. (Partly the fault of a strange medicine-induced aphasia from one of the antihistamines I was taking – Xyzal. The two halves of my brain didn’t seem to communicate with each other, and random words would take the place of what I was thinking when they came out of my mouth or through my fingers.)

The last few weeks have been difficult, and all non-essentials (like reading or blogging) fell by the wayside. I’ve tentatively begun to draft blog posts again and have a few lined up for the week, but I can’t guarantee I won’t have another physical attack that waylays me. I might be touch and go until my doctors can figure out what’s wrong and get me treated. At least I finally found a wonderful allergist who has a lot of theories and is running a lot of tests, and is willing to provide immediate relief (aka an emergency steroid pack) if I have another mast cell attack. And in the meantime, I’ve made some good discoveries this month that will help me with the rest of my health once the immediate problems are dealt with.

Jason and I are off to Siclovia today, San Antonio’s twice-yearly festival that exhorts us to “go play in the streets.” Several miles of downtown San Antonio are turned into pedestrian streets and all non-motorized forms of transportation are encouraged. Walking, biking, skateboard, pogo stick, whatever you want – just not segways or electric scooters or cars. J and I used to go for every event since it opened in fall 2011, but we haven’t made it since fall 2015 and it’s definitely time to remedy that!  A lovely cold front came through so it’s a good day to play outside!