Here’s a picture of the house that I grew up in. There’d be no point in trying to show you its surroundings. Everything I knew has been torn down, paved over, and made as if it had never been. And all the people are gone.
The computer’s being balky and sullen this morning, and I’m having a devil of a time trying to find the picture that goes with this post. Well, we’re in The Age of Nothing Works, aren’t we?
If I could just sit for one day on our old back porch–!
I’m a bit balky and sullen this morning, as well. 🙂 It’s raining, or more accurately, making a half-hearted attempt at raining, and it’s been doing this for two days. It usually doesn’t rain here, this time of year. My allergies have been off scale for a couple of weeks, so this is becoming seriously un-fun. Well, we, and the entire West, can use the moisture.
I’ve recently tried Astepro for my allergies, now that you can get it over the counter without a prescription, and it works pretty well. You might want to give it a whirl.
I actually have an allergist that I work with. In my case, it’s way beyond OTC medications. I had years of injections, etc. I’ve had several years of relative peace, but apparently I’ve developed a new allergy, so I’ll be getting a new course of injections. Some people have allergies, but I have ALLERGIES. 🙂
Oh.
Basically, they test to see what you are allergic to, and then devise a cocktail of allergens, that they inject, in very small doses. Over time, sometimes a matter of years, they increase the dose, until your immune system learns not to overreact to that allergen. Then, eventually, your allergy symptoms go away.
About the time I first commented here, my allergies had just gotten under control. Circa 15 years ago, I would miss a week of work every year, at the beginning of allergy season, but that stopped once my allergy therapy started to become effective. If I recall correctly, I was in treatment for 9 years. About 3 or 4 years ago, I was discharged, because there was nothing to treat. Life was good.
In the last year or so, I’ve had a couple of oddities, which I believe are related to my Mesquite allergy, which is my worst allergy. (Of course, being highly allergic to Mesquite; I happen to have two Mesquite groves within 75’ of my house, and I spend considerable labor every year, on Mesquite control.)
So, a few months ago, I tangled with a Mesquite branch, while mowing my yard, was scratched by a thorn, and woke up in the middle of the night with huge welts on my arm. It took over a month and some Benadryl, in order to recover. I was exposed to some Mesquite smoke, the day before Thanksgiving, and the evening of the day after Thanksgiving, I suddenly developed an exceptionally sore throat, and ended up very, very sick. The only thing that helped was rinsing my sinuses, which is every bit as pleasant as it sounds; but it’s also very effective.
I missed work, all of last week, and have been miserable for over a week, so this is serious stuff.
So here’s how it (sorta) works. When your system is under attack, you produce a special white blood cell known as an Eosinophil. Eosinophils fight off attackers, and then return to their baseline levels in the blood. Eosinophils are pugnacious by nature and basically live for trouble. It’s the equivalent of hiring bullies and punks to protect your yard. They will protect it, but they might pick fights with visitors that mean no harm, and when that happens, they just might do more harm than good.
Elevated levels of Eosinophils only last 8-12 hours in the blood, but they can hide out in some organs for 8-12 days. It’s as if you pay the punks to protect your property for 8-12 hours, but some of them don’t leave and take up residence in your shrubs, terrorizing innocent passers-by, without your consent. Trouble begets trouble, the immune system thinks it’s under attack, even though it’s just a relative handful of Eosinophils hanging around, looking for trouble that doesn’t exist.
So that’s where I am. I was exposed to some Mesquite smoke, my immune system brought in some punk Eosinophils to fight of the Mesquite and the Eosinophils called in their hillbilly cousins, thinking that this was a major attack, so now my body has a bunch of rogue, uneducated and uncultured Eosinophils loitering, looking for trouble and attacking anything that moves. 🙂
Y’know, this post is probably better than any lecture I could’v e found on YouTube.
Small comfort, that.
Indeed, and it incorporates True Crime Drama, and some Comic Relief (in the form of hillbilly eosinophils). 🙂
That house looks just like the one my wife and I lived in when first married except ours was white. After my 50th high school reunion in California, I drove by the house I grew up on and everything on the residential street was still the same.
I haven’t moved, I’ve lived my whole life here… but it’s like they rolled up everything I knew and took it away.