breathing is highly overrated

I've had allergies since I was about 18, discovered them the first spring I was in college. I punctuated an instructors lecture with sneezes, it would have been more funny if I hadn't felt so icky. I'm on good antihistamines now and allergy shots, too, I'm generally feeling pretty good allergy-wise. I am allergic to dogs, cats, anything that can/does bloom, produce pollen, or mold, so really pretty much everything. It doesn't stop me from having cats or dogs, their positive benefit far outweighs the negative. Just before I got Gus I told my allergist I was getting a dog. She asked if I could keep it out of the bedroom, I said 'I could lie to you and say yes.' She made a note in my chart and never again mentioned it, she was really cool.

This morning I went in for my regular monthly maintenance allergy shot, as I have done for, what feels like, countless years. I am allergic to so many things I get a shot in each arm. I went and sat down and quite promptly began coughing, started out like a little tickle in my throat and quickly ramped up to holy cow I can't take any sort of breath without feeling compelled to try and cough up a lung. I went for a drink of water, didn't help. I went over to the nurse, "ya, I'm coughing kind of a lot and since you are here and I'm here I thought I'd mention it". They really move fast when you say stuff like that! I was whisked back into and exam room, they wheeled in the emergency cart of stuff, brought in the doctor on duty, and started asking questions. They took my blood pressure, pulse (both on the higher side of my normal), and took a measure of my pulmonary volume (you take a deep breath and then blow it all out, and then some, through a tube connected to a little computer which measures the volume you blew out). Even I could tell that was the worst result I'd ever blown and I've done it a lot. They gave me some meds through a nebulizer, I felt a little better after that. Did the pulmonary test again, better this time. Squirted some meds up my nose, took some oral steroids, did another nebulizer treatment, felt a little better still. Did a third pulmonary test, again better. Finally got the 'you're good to go home now' from the doc. I mentioned I had a race scheduled tomorrow, he didn't seem to think it would be a problem, gave me an albuterol inhaler to use just before the race if I need it. Hmm, isn't that what they object to athletes doing just before competing because it gives them an unfair advantage? I'm definitely bringing it along. :-)

Well, now I've experienced my first reaction to my allergy shots. I guess there is a good reason to stick around 30 minutes after the injections. Another nurse commented that people can go many years without a reaction and then one day it hits, kind of like today for me. I'm ok, just feeling a nap is very high on the agenda right now.