oak

i'm pretty sure it was cedar. had me torn up from late dec through late feb. out of control sneezy. i would wake up to sneeze. box of tissue per week at work. can't work on the computer without constant drip drip sneeze drip drip. intermittent fever, always just under 100F. early on, the rhinitis was so bad i literally could not move air through my nose. if you had taped my mouth, i would have suffocated. ridiculous. it took a nasal corticosteroid to breathe again. granted, i only used it 3 times, but c'mon. i never take drugs. rather adamant about it.


and now oak? is it possible? i've lived in this town for 16 years. never had bad allergies. no more than a stray day here and there. i do not understand. i now know what allegra d is for.

this time it's more chest. wet cough. a cinder block on my chest. talk too long, cough. laugh, cough. i'm trying my best not to cough right now. can't sleep more than 3 hours at a time. wake up hot, feeling like something is just off. almost imperceptible, like high blood pressure or something. i can't tell if it's the allergy fever or the drugs or what.

the drugs almost work during the day. they cut the sneezy drip in half. i can function with brain mostly serviceable. it's tolerable. but nights are a mess.

soon they'll find out the stuff causes heart/liver/renal failure. or maybe that it sensitizes your histamine response so that you can never go back to your pre-allegra allergy free days. ever again.


or maybe that instead of just being allergic to cedar, you're now allergic to oak. and mold. ragweed. and so on. i'm already looking at my 1/2 empty orange bottle thinking, oh god, what have i done?