Category: allergies

Bleah

Tegan had a blogpost, the title and the sole content of which was “Bleah”. I can relate.

The daughter and I both are suffering our seasonal allergies. The ragweed count has been low, but the grass has been moderate, and three days ago, was high. More than anything, this affects the sleep. I might spend nine hours in bed, but the first hour I spend coughing. Then when I DO get up in the morning, I’m logy. Everything aches and the legs feel as though they weigh 1000 pounds apiece.

The wife was so concerned about the daughter that she took her to the doctor, who confirmed that it was allergies, not a cold, that she has been suffering from.

My work computer I’ve had to shut down at least once every single workday for the past week and a half. And Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn’t work; I have to hard boot it. Seems to have something to do with Adobe.

At home, every time I go back to the computer, there is an “unresponsive script”, even when I’m looking at something not very graphical, such as my Gmail. I seem to have downloaded an unauthorized version of Windows somehow; “You may be a victim of software counterfeiting,” I’m told by my computer. I got a replacement printer, but it isn’t recognized by the computer.

And I put air in the bike tire on Thursday, but by Sunday, it was flat; now I need to take it to the shop, because I don’t know what’s wrong.

The good thing about feeling lousy is that I get more work done in the office. I have to concentrate really hard on what I’m doing, lest I lose track, and the bottom line is that I’m more efficient because I’m necessarily more focused.

I’ll miss choir rehearsal tonight, so I can attend this, but that’s not all bad, since my throat’s so scratchy, I can’t sing a thing right now anyway.

So, bleah. Regular blogging will return tomorrow. Guaranteed, actually, since it’s already done. Then Saturday’s done in my head. Sunday, I answer questions.

This too shall pass.

ROG

ROG

The gender slot

My wife and I were told that perhaps we need to get another roof on our house by a contractor who had done work on our house in the past. Since he was so busy that he was unlikely angling for the job, we thought his word had some credence. So, we have been investigating roofers. My wife called – she is a teacher and therefore home much of the summer – and got three quotes. She was talking to one of them, and he suggested that we probably just needed repairs and that the roof was structurally sound for another 10 years, so we were considering that option. He added, “If you DO decide to get the roof replaced in the future, HAVE YOUR HUSBAND CALL ME.” Now I had one brief conversation with him before, but the substantive conversations were all with my wife. Fact is, because she owned a house before we did, she almost certainly knows more about roofing than I do.” Must be a generation thing.

My daughter Lydia is allergic to peanuts, as I have indicated before. When Carol is off to college, there will be a couple birthday parties to which Lydia is invited and I’ll be taking her. One mom was a friend of mine before she was friends with Carol, but she e-mailed me: “What would be a good time to call Carol to speak with her more about her peanut allergy?” Now, I replied about all of the idiosyncracies of the allergy (allergens well-labeled on most products, need to avoid products processed in plants that may have had peanuts on the conveyor belt, etc.) Yup, even Lydia’s DAD is up on the particulatrs of Lydia’s allergies; we all deal with it every time we shop for groceries, eat at a restaurant or purchase something from a bakery.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 53: Room of Many Colors


Lydia is susceptible to allergies, not just peanuts, but also including dust mites. So it is incumbent upon us to scrub her walls thoroughly periodically. Last year, during the process, Carol and her father painted Lydia’s room a peach color that Lydia didn’t like for reasons of design that were lost on me. So this year, when she was asked what colors she would like on her walls, Lydia told them, and Carol and her father complied. The room is now pink. And blue. And purple. And yellow. And green. With a floor that’s a color called Rose Balcony. And now Lydia is very happy with a room that she can call her own. They also painted a white chair pink to match her bedding. Joseph, the 11th son of Israel, would be pleased.
***
Other sources of allergies, which I share with her, are grasses and ragweed, which we monitor. Saturday, while I was cutting the grass, Lydia came outside to pick some wildflowers. That afternoon, she had shortness of breath, and that night she coughed for three hours; cough medicine is of no use, but the drugs in the nebulizer eventually did the trick.
***
I don’t often say things like, “Boy, is my girl smart!” OK, maybe I do. But it seemed like only a few weeks ago, she insisted that twenty-nine was followed by twenty-ten, my insistence to the contrary notwithstanding. But now she can count to one hundred and beyond. Shades of Toy Story.

Picture #1 courtesy, of Earthworld Comics, May 2008.
Picture #2 courtesy of Uthaclena, August 2008.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 51: Bigger


When we took Lydia to the doctor’s for her physical shortly after her fourth birthday, she weighed 42 pounds and was 44 inches tall. A couple of months later, when we took her to her allergist, she measured 49 pounds and 47 inches tall. The size 11 toddler shoes which had fit her for several months no longer came even close to getting on her feet. She’s wearing size 13s and is very close to size 1 for children. Inevitably, when I tell someone she’s just had her birthday recently, people say, “Oh, she must be 5, or is she 6?” And invariably, I have to correct them and tell them that she is merely 4. Even her daycare teachers who see her daily sometimes forget.

Meanwhile, she’s seemed to have developed allergies to the spring grasses. One night, she was out while Carol (subbing for me) was mowing the lawn, and the next morning she broke into a coughing jag, worrisome because she ended up crying while walking in an unfocused manner. I scooped her up with my right arm – which still hurt but less than doing it on the other side – Carol got her some water, and she seemed OK.

In fact, it was her follow-up trip to the allergist when she gave us more trouble than she has in years. Usually, we have to wake her at 6:30, but that morning, she woke up at 5:30. I’m convinced that the worry awakened her. She was demanding and whiny almost constantly, uncharacteristically. I went downstairs to put the upstairs garbage in with the kitchen trash when I saw an invasion of black ants there, maybe 50 or more. Oddly, I called to Lydia, because she seemed fairly obsessed with few ants we had seen previously. I took out the garbage bag only to find more in the can, which didn’t drown easily. Lydia pointed out every escaping insect. (Subsequently, we got traps, which are working.) After this excitement, Lydia was back to her cheerful and cooperative self.

ROG

ROG
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