What a strange month August has been so far. After July ended with the distinction of being the hottest month ever recorded in North Carolina history, in stark contrast, the first 17 days of August never reached the average high temperature of 90. But the dew point has remained very high, giving me a new appreciation for the term warm and muggy. We’ve had a lot of rain and every day feels damp, dark and dreary.
On August 6 we spent two and a half hours seeing a pulmonologist and received an alarming diagnosis for Tim, interstitial lung disease. This finally explains his increasing shortness of breath and the cough, in spite of having all his heart disease issues addressed. We’re still trying to come to terms with all this new information and future uncertainties. It didn’t help having the washing machine and the air conditioning break down in the middle of things.
I’m more and more impatient for some better weather in the autumn so we can get outside again. In the meantime, as far as blogging goes, I distract myself with searching for and then pairing quotes and paintings, and have scheduled quite a few of them to be published many months from now. I’m making good progress with my resistance training, treadmill walking, and tai chi, but it’s not the same as walking among the trees. Work on my family history boxes has stalled.
Returning home from the laundromat early one morning I discovered these ghostly white things sticking up out of the moss in our front yard. My first thought was ghost plants but these are much smaller and don’t have a flower on top. I learned they are a fungus called clavaria. There may be 1200 species in the genus and I don’t know which species these are. They do seem to love my very damp moss garden, though.
Love to have you back, have been missing your wonderful blog
I’ve been missing your presence here, too, Leelah. I hope you are okay. ♡
Sorry to hear about Tim’s diagnosis, disturbing news for sure. I hope they can make him more comfortable.
I think fall is right around the corner… this week has been cool, with one night in the upper 40s!
Cool fungi in your yard, I think those are fruit flies. Sometimes they are attracted to the sticky film that coats the top.
Thank you for your well wishes, Eliza. ♡
They’re promising us some “fall” weather, too, although it’s not as cool and refreshing and yours is. Still, I’ll take that night in the upper 50s!
Fruit flies, interesting, I’m glad they’re outside and not inside then.
Tim’s diagnosis sounds difficult – I wish you and him well. It feels a bit cliche to say this, especially considering your post’s title, but it does seem to be true that when it rains, it pours – the washing machine, the air conditioning etc. We received some much needed rain here yesterday, and some surprisingly cool temperatures – never got out of the 60’s here. Still cool today but no rain. Supposed to be warmer Friday and Saturday, so maybe one more beach day before school starts next week.
Thank you for your well wishes, Karma. ♡
That was our landlady’s comment, too, when it rains it pours, and we uttered the saying more than a few times ourselves. Our temperatures have been “cooler” than normal for here, too. Makes me wonder what we’ve got in store for us come autumn. I do hope it warms up enough for you to get one last beach day before summer vacation is over. I’d be going to the beach to see the huge waves Hurricane Erin stirred up if I lived close enough.
I’m sorry about Tim’s diagnosis and pray for healing. Yes, when it rains, it pours. So many trials all at once. Hang in there. For sure, fall is coming! Finally, this week, we’ve had a break from the miserable heat and humidity, and we’re happy to share. Glad Erin is heading out to the Atlantic, though!
Thank you for your well wishes, Debbie. ♡
I’m glad Erin avoided us, too, we don’t need any more floods like the one Chantal dumped on us! Thank you for sending us your cold fronts, we’re supposed to have cooler nights and a hint of fall-like weather for about a week. Yay!
I feel so much sorrow that you and Tim are navigating through another changing life condition in a climate that is so unfamiliar for both of you. 😢
It looks to me that those creatures are miniature fruit flies eating fungus amongst.
Hope you both find relief, soon.
Thank you for your well wishes, Teri. ♡ We’re taking it one day at a time, but as you say, it’s another life-altering thing to cope with.
So that’s what fruit flies look like up close. I would never have guessed they had red eyes.
Adorable fawn and interesting fungi pop-ups. I’m experiencing the same of both! 🙂
So sorry to hear your July troubles and Tim’s diagnosis, will be saying prayers for your both. We are starting to have cooler temps, I hope you do quickly too, so you can get out and be with nature. Keep enjoying those deer!
Thank you for your well wishes, Donna. ♡
Seems like a lot of us in different parts of the country are getting some cooler temperatures and we are planning to make the most of them while they last. I think the deer ate the mushrooms, but not the clavaria. There is so much to learn about their eating habits. 🙂
The fawn is adorable Barbara – what a nice early morning surprise. This has not been a good year for your family and I am sorry to hear of Tim’s troubles, but at least you know the reason, which is good, but there is little comfort in learning of a new ailment. Given the pictures in this post about fungi and your mentions of the hot humid air, do you think this is the root of Tim’s troubles? I hope September will bring cooler weather and an escape to the woods to forget about these miseries for a short while. I always keep your family in my daily prayers. Take care.
Thank you for your prayers and well wishes, Linda. ♡
No, the cause of his ILD is most likely asbestosis, which comes from inhaling asbestos fibers in the shipyard where he worked as a shipfitter at Electric Boat in Groton, back in the 1970s. According to the Mayo Clinic, most people with asbestosis acquired it on the job before the federal government began regulating the use of asbestos and asbestos products in the 1970s. Symptoms usually don’t appear until many years after initial exposure and can be mild to severe. We’ll see how it goes.
It’s amazing that it took this long to show up isn’t it? I hope Tim’s symptoms are mild and treatment is available, by meds, or perhaps breathing treatments. I know my neighbor had COPD from many years of smoking two or three packs of cigarettes a day, as did her husband. She went for breathing treatments in the early stages of her COPD and it would help clear her lungs.
COPD is different from ILD, COPD narrows the airways of the lungs, making it hard to breathe out, while ILD scars and inflames the lung tissue, making it hard to expand the lungs and breathe in. COPD causes wheezing but ILD causes a dry cough. I’m learning so much!
I didn’t realize that and was thinking there were similar symptoms. It is amazing to me how long it took to manifest itself. Tim might have had the dry cough and thought it was allergies or a new strain of COVID, so good thing he got it checked out.
Asbestosis has a latency period of anywhere between 10 and 50 years. Tim stopped working in the shipyard in 1981, 44 years ago. Looking back, though, he’s had the shortness of breath on exertion for a few years now, but we always thought it was from being out of shape or somehow connected to his heart disease. He also had a dry cough off and on for a few years, but they thought it was a side effect of ramipril and took him off of it. But the damage to his lungs is now apparent on the PET scan. He’s probably had this comorbidity of heart disease and lung disease for several years, we just didn’t know it.
That’s really too bad it didn’t show up earlier and treatment earlier might have been more beneficial. I had no idea it would take that long! I hope once you get some cooler and less humid air, walking will still be possible for the two of you without too much discomfort to Tim.