Sniffles

"Just sit like that for awhile," the allergist tells me, motioning to keep my arms flat and not let the little driblets of possibly allergic liquid slip off.

This is easy for about two minutes. Then the allergic reaction sets in. And then the burning/itching feeling. And then, because allergies are what brought me into the office in the first place, my nose starts running. But I can't use a tissue, because my arms are outstretched in front of me, and I can't move them. So I sniffle, and sniffle again, and eventually everyone in the waiting room wants to shoot me in the face. This goes on for half an hour. Meanwhile, red splotches are developing up and down my arms, and I concentrate on bouncing my right foot to avoid the overwhelming desire to scratch my left arm.

The doctor calls in the young girl next to me, who has also been sitting with outstretched arms filled with allergic goop. She shuffles her into the room, looks over her arms, and says, "I'm just going to have a look at her arms quickly... " motioning towards me.

"Oh my God," she says a little breathily, staring down at my reddening arms. "This is bad."

I start searching for the word for "welt" in French. I don't know how normal it is to have three of them on my arms.

So the conclusion? I'm VERY allergic to dustmites, several types of pollen, and ragweed. I am slightly allergic to both cats and dogs. We're running more tests tomorrow, as I was freakishly allergic to half of the tests she ran. And the doctor needs to make sure I don't have respiratory problems as a result of my allergies, as apparently that's the next step in symptoms.

"Do you get out of breath when you run?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered, "Doesn't everybody?"

Still, she wants to be sure. She says when allergies as severe as mine go untreated for years and years, bronchial problems can arise. And, if that all checks out, she's putting me on some sort of immuno-therapy so that I can hopefully be allergy-free (or close to it) in 2-3 years.

Leaving her office, she said, "First things first: you're desperately allergic to dust. Clean your house. Get rid of carpets. Get a special mattress. Etc."

"Right," I said, "Do you think my health insurance would cover a new house? Because I can't exactly envision myself finding a new apartment just yet. But I bet you landlords would be more willing to rent to me if they knew that social security was paying for a part of my rent."

She didn't think it was covered. Damn health care!

The cool thing about discovering that I actually have a bunch of genuine allergies is that I was finally able to make some connections. Two weeks ago, I lost a few nights of sleep because I had so much trouble breathing. My allergies were so strong that I could not really concentrate or do anything of worth. Just sitting up and breathing was enough work for me. Coicidentally, one of the pollen tests (one of the three that resulted in welts) corresponded to a pollen that pops up in certain parts of France - Paris included - mid April. So suddenly, it all made sense.

"I'm just happy to know I'm not crazy," I said. "I've never just had my nose become one giant blockade for days on end. I could hardly even talk, and I took seventy hot showers per day just to clear out the nose a little. I really thought I might be going insane."

"No. You're not. It was a good thing you came, even if just to check up on that fact alone," she laughed, and then told me I'll see her tomorrow. We're checking out my lungs on Thursday! Woo-ee! Hope it's not asmtha! ALRIGHT!