Allergies R Us!

OMG, for the first 68 years of my life I suffered zero allergies. None, nada, zip.  But this year, WTF?  Starting in May my eyes began to water and itch. Then they were puffy in the morning. Beginning in early June my eyes were not just puffy, they were swollen and red and they wouldn't stop running. Then my nose decided to join the party!  I would sneeze ten times in a row, my nose would either be so stuffed I couldn't breathe through it, or it would compete with my eyes to see which could produce the most streaming liquid.  I would wake up in the morning with my eyes crusted shut and my nose feeling like it was packed with shards of granite.

Allergies. What a joy. What a surprise!

I work in an office that has basically one and a half solid walls.  The other two and a half walls are open, only closed off at night by movable canvas panels. The front desk is between two open walls and a breeze is created that blows past the front desk. On the grounds we have everything:  redwoods, oaks, ghastly privet, flowering trees and bushes, tons of native (or non-native, who knows) grasses, ashes from the fire pits, dirt and dust.  All that crap produces molecules that get in your nose and eyes and either exacerbate your allergies or simply cause them.  There is no way to avoid the trees and grasses and dust and dirt because that's sort of the point of Autocamp, it's a campground of sorts so people can pretend to be in the great outdoors (to the tune of $400 a night) and the building in which I work is the Clubhouse, complete with an indoor fire pit.

Part of our job is walking the property often, going in and out of the Airstreams and tents, breathing in that great outdoor air with all its molecules of crud. Thus, allergies.

Finally I made an appointment with a GP doc to see what can be done. The advice she gave me was to use simple OTC products for the next two weeks and see if there is improvement.  If not, we will move on to prescription cures.  This has, to say the least, given me a much more empathetic feeling towards those who have had allergies their entire lives. Just two months of this situation has made me even more cranky than I usually am, plus tired and weary and quite appalling to look at.  Thankfully my eyeglasses are the progressive kind so the tint of sunglasses pretty much keeps my pathetic eyes away from public view.

I know and I acknowledge that this is nothing compared to what else is happening in the world and with other people, and I am trying to be philosophical about it all and I complain only when no one is listening.  Irritating as they are, my allergies are not life-threatening and they will subside, hopefully.

Here is a photo of the inside of the Clubhouse, where you can see the indoor fire pit and the open walls. 




And the grounds.





Nothing but plants and trees and all that stuff.

Thanks for letting me whine a bit.


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