Things for July

[jennlk]

After managing to avoid it last year, I had to go to the doc for a steroid taper to deal with an allergic reaction to the Queen Anne's Lace in the side garden. If it had just been the QAL, I think I would have been OK, but there was also a broken milkweed leaf and some bruised goldenrod and some grass seed. And a whole lot of ants, which didn't bite but sure were running around my ankles. I went off to Urgent Care, because the local clinic couldn't get me in until Monday, and sent me to UC rather than waiting. They popped a blood O2 sensor on my finger -- that seems to be a thing they're doing now (temp, BP, pulse rate, BloodO2) -- and it read 100. "We don't often see that in Urgent Care", said the nurse.

There will be no outreach concert for the FCB this summer - the places we usually do them at are so understaffed that they can't move the residents around, and with all the "I was at rehearsal on Monday and started feeling ick Tues evening/Wed and tested positive for COVID on Wed/Thurs" notes we've been getting BM was a little uncomfortable blowing air at people. She was asking how the LCCB organises their summer concerts (in community parks), so I put her in touch with the LCCB prez who does that, because I sure don't know. I show up and play. :)

Comments

[mrs_sweetpeach]

What is a steroid taper? I know what steroids are, and steroid creams and shots, but tapers?

I hadn't given any thought to outreach concerts this year (probably because I stay home for them) and hadn't realized there weren't any. What you say makes sense and I can see why none are taking place right now. The rehab place my mom was stuck in was seriously short on staff too. I think the new place is much better in terms of staffing (and everything else too).

[jennlk]

Taper is the dosing schedule. The steroid takes the inflammation down, but a single oral dose isn't usually enough to take a systemic inflammation down and keep it down, and high-dose oral steroids are not good meds to stay on long term, so the dosing is something like 60mg for 2 days, 40mg for 3 days, 20 mg for 2 days, at which point the surface swelling is gone and the systemic reaction has calmed down and I won't get more welts.... They also gave me a cream to put on the worst of the welts. I'm on day 2, and it's already *much* better -- less prickly, no new welts, and the welts I had are going away.

We don't have access to the music wing next week (they're deep cleaning and polishing the floors), so the Board was looking into doing an outreach gig at one of our usual places, and none of them were available; so we have next week off, with the final summer concert at Riley Park the week after.