Keep walking, I'm breathing

[sovay]

I did not get sheep-dipped in Benadryl, but I am full of antihistamines and eating a pumpernickel bagel with chopped liver and a coconut-milk milkshake.

I have not become allergic to my cats. My long-time allergies to dust mites have worsened to the point where the mitigation strategies in which I already engage are not cutting it, so I have some further suggestions, an alteration to my medications, and we go from here. I also seem to have become allergic to pigweed, which I had never even heard of until I looked it up, at which point it turned out to be amaranth which I have both eaten and admired as an ornamental plant. I am decorated with surgical marker and punctures. I had been scratch-tested before, but never intradermally injected.

The fog at dawn was an astonishing suffusion of gold, glinting like rainbows around the Prudential. Afterward I took a couple of pictures from MGH and the Longfellow Bridge. I believe my plans for the afternoon involve a nap.

Comments

[kore]

Dust MITES, I get it, ahaha.

I don't remember if they tested me for dust mites -- I got like the most basic 1-A testing which was super disappointing, but then the immunologist focused on my Specific antibody deficiency (SAD) (that means my immune system has an inability to make specific antibodies in response to polysaccharide antigens, in the presence of recurrent or chronic sinopulmonary infections, which explains why I have had terrible sinus/nasal/bronchial/ear infections all my life), which my GP at the low-cost clinic doesn't think really exists. Hi ho.

[sovay]

Dust MITES, I get it, ahaha.

I understand your medical spoons right now are a sad little drawer out of which a cartoon moth flutters when you open it, but it would be worth pursuing at a future date. Dust being compounded of so many different kinds of schmutz, the mites are the most popular trigger for most people's allergies, although mold or pollen allergies won't help any.

Specific antibody deficiency (SAD) (that means my immune system has an inability to make specific antibodies in response to polysaccharide antigens, in the presence of recurrent or chronic sinopulmonary infections, which explains why I have had terrible sinus/nasal/bronchial/ear infections all my life)

That sounds really interesting, but also maddening not to be believed about, not that being disbelieved by a doctor is routinely a terrific experience.

[kore]

your medical spoons right now are a sad little drawer out of which a cartoon moth flutters when you open it

LOL yes, and a lot of dust. Quite a lot of dust. (For some reason we get a lot of BLACK dust which feels weirdly gritty in this house -- T thinks it's pulverized rubber from the highway a couple of blocks down from the main arterial streets we live between. IDK.)

One treatment for the SAD is long-term low-dose antibiotics, which, SURPRISE! the low-cost clinic doesn't believe in either. Not for acne rosacea, not for SAD, not for recurring sinusitis, not for chronic UTIs, not for nothin'. It's easier for me to get benzos from that place (which I am NOT SPPOSED TO HAVE) than antibiotics. All the docs must get indoctrinated (hah) before being hired on how terrible it is to give antibiotics to people without private insurance.

[sovay]

the highway a couple of blocks down from the main arterial streets we live between.

Okay, so what I'm hearing is, your local air quality sucks.

how terrible it is to give antibiotics to people without private insurance.

It's the collapse of civilization right there.

[kore]

Well, there's also the fumes from the parking lot below the living room, and the dense smoke from the Korean BBQ restaurant which replaced the awesome Brocklinds costume shop (you would have LOVED IT) which vents illegally on their roof right into our windows, which our building manager "solved" by putting up giant plain wooden boards that completely block off our view! Hiiiiiii fucken ho, yeah. And the neighbours who smoke on the back fire stairs that open about 3 feet away from our apartment door, and the neighbours who smoke on the balcony in front which is blown down the hall, and the neighbours below us who smoke in the bathroom at three in the morning and blow the smoke up the airshaft window, which opens directly into our bathroom. And this house is poorly insulated, so everything leaks. When the neighbours below blaze up at like six ayem I felt like I was getting contact fumes, lol. (This is advertised as a smoke-free building, and by Seattle law people aren't supposed to smoke within a certain number of feet from buildings and IIRC next to a residence not at all, and they're not supposed to smoke dope OUTSIDE on the FRONT BALCONIES, either. Yeah.)

tl;dr It is indeed very poor air quality. It used to be a lot better without the Korean BBQ joint, tho.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/after-106-years-brocklindrsquos-costume-shop-selling-its-final-tux/

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2013/01/hats-off-to-brocklinds-for-106-years-of-dressing-up-seattle/

I snagged an old brilliant steamer trunk from them during their final sale -- fifty bucks (it's pretty damaged), and it had tags inside from the 1920s. They had all kinds of stuff, it was an absolute treasure cave.

[ethelmay]

Oh, I think that must be the place I went with one of my high school teachers getting costumes for some event where teachers played famous people. We needed stuff for Ben Franklin, Niccolo Machiavelli, George Eliot, and I think there was a fourth I can't remember.

[sovay]

We needed stuff for Ben Franklin, Niccolo Machiavelli, George Eliot, and I think there was a fourth I can't remember.

That's wonderful. I gather you were able to find all of it.