May 26, 2002
It's been a busy week. The best part about it was my trip to the allergist, during which some 72 holes were poked in me (I'm not making that number up... it's an exact figure) and we determined exactly what it is I'm allergic to. As I lay on the table the nurse came in and examined my perforated back. She exclaimed "Oooh, I bet that itches." I was busy reading People magazine, trying really, really hard to care about the articles therein, and right up until the nurse showed up I was doing a good job of pretending that information about the glitteratsi in Hollywood was involving enough to keep me from itching.It took a lot of imagination, let me tell you.
It turns out that I'm allergic to about 75% of their samples of grass, weeds, and trees. For good measure, I'm also allergic to cats, and apparently I suffer from asthma. Some of the allergies are bad enough that I decided it's worth it to me to endure four years of weekly shots. This process will hopefully teach my immune system to chill out. Either that, or I'll die of anaphylactic shock. We'll see.
Funny thing... they're busy concocting my innoculations now, and there are three allergen cocktails being prepared. The first is grasses, and those are the worst. The second is trees, some of which were pretty bad. The third is weeds, and included in that grouping is essence of cat. I always suspected cats were, in fact, weeds, but until now I had little evidence.
At any rate, I'm very, very grateful for the nice health-care plan my employer provides. I'm also angry at every doctor I've ever seen about this "hay fever" thing, since NONE of them recommended I see an allergist (I only decided to after hearing about the magic they can do third-hand). If you've got insurance, and you have hay fever, go see an allergist. The pain and needles and stuff are exactly half as bad as ONE morning's worth of snot-headed, sneezy, itchy, coughy, migraine-ish misery (assuming your allergies are as bad as mine are.)
In unrelated news, I'm making good progress on the buffer. I'm still only drawn about two weeks out, but I'm now scripted through the end of June. The voices in my head were clamorous today, and they finally got around to showing me exactly where the BLAM is. This is gonna be fun...