Allergies, how I abhor thee. I have come to fear Spring. I have come to dread going outside. I want to take a walk, I want to sleep with my windows open. I feel like the boy in the bubble. I spent maybe five minutes outside yesterday (a gorgeous day, BTW), and how I paid for it.
And I take both Zyrtec and Nasonex every day, 365 days a year.
It’s worse when I get to work. We have these horrible single-pane West-facing floor-to-ceiling windows all along the wall of my office. In the winter the winds come howling through and we have to crank up the space heaters. In the Spring, I swear all the dust and pollen comes a-wooshing in. My allergy symptoms worsen once I get to work. The burning eyes. The rise in temperature.
But by far the worst is the fatigue. I feel like I have a heavy weight in my chest and my blood pressure has dropped. I feel like I’m walking around in twenty-five pounds of heavy wet wool. I guess I should go get tested for allergic asthma, because my allergist says this is not hay-fever induced.
But the fatigue. Sometimes, drinking a lot of water helps. Today not at all since it’s very windy outside and all of nature’s love dust is swirling all around me. It’s a horrible, horrible feeling to have to fight fatigue every day for months. Watching the clock creep by, not being able to concentrate or have the motivation to do your work. And then you go home and nothing gets done there, either, because you crash into bed by 7:30.
The weekend comes and I sleep practically all day on Saturday. By Sunday I’ve spent an entire 24 hours safely in my sealed-up, HEPA-filtered apartment and I normal again.
Then I come in to work on Monday and the eyes burn and slowly… slowly… slowly… I wilt and the whole thing starts all over for the week.
I feel like an over-tired toddler. Because I want, more than anything, to be asleep, I’m mad and wanna cry and throw things and have a bottle and a binky and then fall into a deep-deep sleep. Not so hot at work. Everyday is a marathon, toothpicks in the eyelids, trying to keep it together until maybe June.
How I hate this time of year.