Home again, home again ...

I'm home in Delaware, and the last four days were exhausting but I'm glad I went. Mom went home tonight, and Grandma is there with her. The diagnosis was a recurrence of disseminated histoplasmosis -- and I swear I'm not making that up. You can check it out for yourself, but the short-and-sweet version is that it's a fungal infection caused by exposure to spores in bird or bat droppings. Ew, right? It's super-common in the Ohio River valley (which Bloomington is in), and so common in buildings over a certain age that they don't even test anymore.

So -- the building that she used to work in was sick, and it made her sick(er). Problem is, if she hadn't been immuno-compromised in the first place, it never would've bothered her. Not everyone who lives in that area gets sick -- the people usually affected by histo are farmers, mineworkers and poultry-keepers -- and Mom does not exactly have frequent contact with bats or flocks of chickens. Yes, this is just another reason that lupus really, really sucks.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she got some bad news about work last night, which is pretty frustrating, considering the blood, sweat and tears that she's put into that place, and everything she's given up for that organization.

In happier news, though, I am now (though probably not for too much longer) in possession of Snell cookies. They absolutely rock -- and this particular batch is one of the best ever. If you have the misfortune of never having had a Snell cookie, I am very sorry for you. They're kind of like chocolate chip, but they're so much better. So much better. I'm usually pretty good at recreating recipes, but I can't get these. They're a little more cakey than regular Toll House cookies, and I do know that Snell uses special vanilla (because I also have some -- because again, she rocks), but there's something else ... 

Don't know. And thank goodness for that, 'cause my walking shoes would not be feeling so hot if I could make Snell cookies whenever I wanted ...