A Nose in Need

Nov 5, 2023

I’ve suffered from allergies for most of my life. Ragweed is my main enemy from about August 1 through the first frost. I’m also allergic to cats and did my best to make myself immune to them by always playing with all the barn cats. This always resulted in sneezing and watering eyes.

My grandpa believed my allergies were all in my head until the day he sent me to the lot south of his house to cut down the ragweeds with a scythe. After he had to drive me home due to my eyes being swollen shut, he revised his way of thinking.

Unfortunately, as I’ve gotten older my allergies have just gotten worse. Our first son was born in April and shortly after my eyelids swelled up and turned red. It took my eye doctor less than 30 seconds to diagnose me with a wheat grass allergy. I was stunned. Of course, I would have a reaction after moving hay bales off a field but I had never had a problem with wheat grass. Apparently now I did.

Both of my boys have allergies and my husband jokingly claims being married to me has made his allergies worse too. I just try to make sure everyone has the medicine they need to be able to breathe through their noses.

This doesn’t always mean they do that though. As a preteen, my oldest decided the allergy medicine wasn’t working for him because he would still sneeze occasionally. I had learned through my allergy journey that the body will deplete its immune system fighting off allergens therefore leaving a person susceptible to all the other germs around. It didn’t take long for my son to fall victim to a nasty respiratory infection. He was down so long I even started putting a quilt in the yard and making him sit in the sunshine for a few minutes each day hoping to boost his vitamin D levels.

This was after I made sure he took his allergy medicine that morning. I wish I could say he learned his lesson but he recently admitted to missing his medicine a few days in a row. He’s busy working as a crop consultant for a summer internship during college. He mentioned he walked by a corn plant and after suffering a rather nasty reaction remembered he’d neglected to take his allergy medicine. Thank goodness for modern medicine when it comes to fighting the pollen in the air.

Remember it doesn’t count to just have the pills in the medicine cabinet you have to remember to take them too.