The new wrinkle: she’s now allergic to cats.
As noted, we got two cats last year. Continue reading “The Lydster, Part 126: Allergies”
The Lydster, Part 126: Allergies
Cats, and in particular, Midnight and Stormy, The Daughter LOVES.
Tag: allergies
Bring back the bad weather!
The Daughter has almost exactly the same symptoms.
Mother’s Day, May 10, was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies, decent temperatures, no rain, flowers in bloom. Had a nice dinner with an extended troupe of in-laws in Catskill, an hour south of Albany. Got home that evening, went to bed with a hacking cough, which led to a sore throat, in lieu of sleeping. This was not a cold or the flu; this was an allergy, to trees, and grass, and pollen. There are conflicting theories as to whether a long and harsh winter could lead to an equally irritating spring allergy season because it postpones the budding.
All I know is that I was miserable, despite getting injections every four weeks for several months. Now I’m on Fluticasone (nose spray), Advair (an inhaler), and am taking Zyrtec tablet (actually the OTC equivalent); the latter makes me tired, so I take it only at night. I’ve been sleeping sitting up for most of last week and a half. Oh, yeah, The Daughter has almost exactly the same symptoms.
Saturday night, The Wife and I went to the concert of the Albany Symphony Orchestra at The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in nearby Troy. EMPAC is a technological marvel, but more than that, it is really cool. Inside the glass enclosure, it reminds one of a ship, in a good way.
I was so looking forward to the concert. ASO highlights living composers. But shortly after the beginning of the first piece, by John Harbison, I felt a coughing jag coming on. Since I was smack dab in the middle, I had to quickly climb past several people, and leave the theater. Couldn’t stop coughing for about ten minutes. Finally, the hacking subsided, and I caught, outside the doors, most of the second piece, also by Harbison.
But I was happy to sit in the back while catching Scattered, a “Concerto for Scat Singing, Piano & Orchestra,” written and performed by Clarice Assad. Here’s the second movement, performed a couple of years back; that section is much slower than the first or third movements.
After intermission, composer Joan Tower, who is quite funny, introduced her piece that featured famed percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie in her return to the Albany Symphony; she played on the ASO’s Grammy-winning recording, awarded this year. Glennie, not incidentally, has been deaf since the age of twelve.
The concert was not a total bust, as I did to hear more than half of it. Still, I want this lousy feeling to GO AWAY.
Like father, like daughter: to the E.R. again
The lesson relearned – no food where peanuts or nuts are processed.
When we last saw our intrepid little family, the father of the household was getting a ride home from his overnight hospital stay Friday afternoon by his lovely wife. Saturday, he was still exhausted; he didn’t sleep well Thursday night, and Friday night’s rest was insufficient. He muddled through Saturday, doing a minimum of vacuuming and dishwashing, and not much else.
Even Sunday morning, there was a sense of fatigue within him. But since almost everyone knew about the hospital incident, he wanted to show up to prove he was still among the living. Fortunately, all the songs the choir sang he had performed before.
At the coffee hour, somehow the Daughter had gotten permission (not from her father) to eat some coffee cake, despite being unclear about its origins. Apparently, it’s one of those items that had that warning that it may be processed in a plant that used peanuts or nuts. She is allergic to peanuts, and peanuts and nuts are often processed in the same place.
Shortly after consuming it, she got very upset. Was it a belated sense of fear? Her father took her into a quiet room and tried to calm her down. She was OK for a bit, but by the time she got home, she had a stomachache, and eventually upchucked. This was actually a good thing; the first time she had an allergic reaction, when she was three, that was how her body responded. So the family thought it was in the clear.
A couple of hours later, the Wife noticed, above the knees and below the neck hives over about 30% of The Daughter’s body. It itched greatly. After a call to the pediatrician, another trek to the E.R.
It’s much less busy Thursday at 8:40 a.m. than Sunday at 5:30 p.m. She got some Benedryl, stronger than the OTC we had given her. Then the family stopped at the McDonalds; the Wife seems to believe going inside is faster, an unproven premise, but staying in the car would have meant avoiding the rudest, vulgar-language customer; “Where’s my f@#$ing food?” , more than once, among other things.
The Daughter was asleep by the time the family got home. she got through dinner then was practically carried to bed; the Wife stayed home with her on Monday.
The lesson relearned – no food where peanuts or nuts are processed. I hadn’t heard the rule had changed…
***
That evening, there was an ambulance in front of our house. It was actually called for our next-door neighbor’s house. The father of one of the college kids had been drinking a couple bottles of beer with the guy when he was having some difficulties – I didn’t get the details. Turns out e had food poisoning; glad it wasn’t worse.
A is for Allergies
I started on a weekly regimen of allergy injections called immunotherapy, which, ideally, will lessen or eliminate some of the ailments I had been experiencing.
I was feeling pretty lousy in the spring, worse in the summer, and not so great in the fall. Sneezing, scratchy throat, watery eyes, off and on for months. So I decided to visit my daughter’s allergist. After the doctor took my health history, a nurse treated my arms like pin cushions in trying to ascertain what, if anything, I was allergic to.
The good news is that I am NOT allergic to any animals or any foods; so no peanut allergy, like my daughter has. The bad news is that I am allergic to – and no, I don’t know what they all mean – ragweed, mugwort, pigweed, plantain, sheep sorrel, grass, ryegrass, timothy grass, June grass, red top, sweet vernal, ash, birch, elm, hickory, maple, oak, poplar, and willow. In other words, I am allergic to tree pollens, which begin to appear in the US Northeast in mid-March and are present into June; grass pollens, which appear in late May and are present through the summer; and ragweed pollen, airborne from mid-August through September.
One course of action would be to remain in air-conditioned buildings from late February to October; hardly practical, and boring to boot. The other option is to start on a weekly regimen of allergy injections called immunotherapy, which, ideally, will lessen or eliminate some of the ailments I had been experiencing. I started in December, because the idea is to build up the immunity over time, so when allergy season kicks in, I’ll be less affected.
I get shots in each arm once a week, with gradually increasing doses of treatment. I could do as often as thrice a week if I had the time; if it’s less often than once every couple weeks, its efficacy is lost, and I have to start the regimen all over again. The most difficult part, actually, is waiting around for 30 minutes AFTER the injections, to make sure I don’t have a severe reaction, which, as they like to let you know, could be anything from an itchy throat or runny nose, to chest tightening or hives, to, in rare instances, drop in blood pressure, shock and even death.
So far, so good.
Allergies by Paul Simon, a minor hit, #44 in late 1983
The Lydster, Part 85: Peanut free
What’s odd is that, as a kid, I LOVED peanut butter. But I must have ODed on it, because the smell now makes me nauseous.
As some of you know, the daughter has a peanut allergy, discovered when she was given a peanut butter cookie shortly before she was three. Interestingly, she didn’t have the typical symptoms of swelling. Instead, she vomited – several times. And she has been tested about a year ago, and she is still allergic.
I’ve noted here in the past that there are basically two kinds of people when it comes to food allergy safety; people who have a family member with an allergy, and the pretty much oblivious. Because there’s so much cross-pollination with them, the daughter avoids tree nuts as well as peanuts, even though she is not specifically allergic to them.
I remember a couple of years ago that we were invited to the house of a friend for lunch. We gave the hostess the information beforehand. What did she serve? Nutella sandwiches with nut bread we couldn’t let her eat either.
Likewise, at a party Lydia attended just a couple of weeks ago, the cake had no peanuts or nuts but was processed in a plant with nuts. Fortunately, we always pack alternatives for such an occasion.
Fortunately, she’s not allergic to airborne peanuts, as some people are. The first time Lydia ever flew on a plane, a couple of years ago, the flight attendant, passing out peanuts and another snack, practically passed out when I mentioned my daughter’s allergy. 
I was appalled by this story about a restaurant chef lying about the fact that the foods were “gluten-free” when, in fact, they were not; highly irresponsible.
I am comforted by the fact that, at least at this point, she won’t take peanut butter deliberately. She was writing her homework, and she had to just WRITE the words “peanut butter” and she complained how awful it tasted, even though she hadn’t ingested it in over four years.
What’s odd is that, as a kid, I LOVED peanut butter. But I must have ODed on it because the smell now makes me nauseous. Meanwhile, my wife really rakes in the Halloween candy, just on the peanut butter products alone.
Pictures c 2009 by Alexandria Green-House