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Maybe Charles Atlas could make me a man, but I can't read his ad through this faceful of sand
The Christmas season comedy of errors continues: I found out tonight I'm allergic to blue spruce.
My cousins brought one home for the holidays, about four feet tall, alive, and in a pot full of well-watered soil; it took all three of us to carry it into the apartment and settle it on the chest by the window, framed by strings of lights in the curtains. I had never interacted with a blue spruce before. They're stabby little trees! Short, sharp needles and lots of them to a branch; the scientific name is Picea pungens, which is pretty straightforward Latin for shank you as soon as look at you.1 I was wearing a T-shirt, because this weather is demoralizingly temperate and rainy. As the person who was backing through doorways while supporting my share of the tree, I got an armful of painful little stickles. I thought little of it. I've helped my father carry Fraser firs home for years and the worst that ever happened was needing to clean the pine tar off my hands with nail polish remover afterward. I don't think it took more than ten minutes for my wrists and forearms to come out in a ferocious rash of stinging red hives. Obviously some kind of contact reaction, just as if I had taken a skin test for allergies; I washed my hands and arms with disinfectant and wondered if I should put something on it, like baking soda after a bee sting. We're talking commercial food coloring red, spattered all over my arms. It was the angriest skin reaction I could remember since the last time I had poison ivy or even chicken pox. Then I found out the rash had spread under my shirt. Then I found it starting under other articles of clothing, where there was not a chance a spruce needle had stabbed. Then I realized it had gone systemic, exactly as poison ivy does with me, and I called urgent care.
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rushthatspeaks had me take a Benadryl immediately; urgent care had me take another. The wallop of antihistamines seems to have arrested the spread of the reaction, but I have been instructed to take another dose six hours after the first and call 911 at the first sign of difficulty breathing, which I am happy to report I have not experienced. The hives are already subsiding, although the reddened punctures and the stinging sensation remain. According to the internet, spruce resin is not all that rare an allergy; it's usually discovered by people when they handle rosin. I'd have figured it out years ago if I had any talent for the violin. I suppose I should also not go around sticking my hands into turpentine. The spruce, who is named Saguara, has not yet been decorated—a good thing, too, since we found out that incandescent lights would volatilize the oils in the sap—and will be rehomed directly following Christmas as opposed to residing in the living room until spring, because this may be a contact allergy, but the cats will get the resin in their fur and vector it all over the apartment and then I'll be living on Benadryl like a person who actually wants to sleep.
I had no idea. I knew I was allergic to dust and mold and everything that pollinates, but blue spruce resin is a new one. I wonder if this means I shouldn't drink retsina. Rush points out that there may not be a war on Christmas, but Christmas sure looks like it's declared war on us.2 In the immortal words of Questionable Content: "What the hell ass balls?!"
1. Third conjugation verb with some pleasant reduplication in the third principal part: pungo, pungere, pupugi, punctus. If you're thinking that the fourth principal part looks like the derivation of English puncture, full marks. See also pungent.
2. In other news from today, the toilet overflowed again. Not as dramatically as the last time, but how dramatic does an overflowing toilet need to be? It's excitement enough if it happens at all!
My cousins brought one home for the holidays, about four feet tall, alive, and in a pot full of well-watered soil; it took all three of us to carry it into the apartment and settle it on the chest by the window, framed by strings of lights in the curtains. I had never interacted with a blue spruce before. They're stabby little trees! Short, sharp needles and lots of them to a branch; the scientific name is Picea pungens, which is pretty straightforward Latin for shank you as soon as look at you.1 I was wearing a T-shirt, because this weather is demoralizingly temperate and rainy. As the person who was backing through doorways while supporting my share of the tree, I got an armful of painful little stickles. I thought little of it. I've helped my father carry Fraser firs home for years and the worst that ever happened was needing to clean the pine tar off my hands with nail polish remover afterward. I don't think it took more than ten minutes for my wrists and forearms to come out in a ferocious rash of stinging red hives. Obviously some kind of contact reaction, just as if I had taken a skin test for allergies; I washed my hands and arms with disinfectant and wondered if I should put something on it, like baking soda after a bee sting. We're talking commercial food coloring red, spattered all over my arms. It was the angriest skin reaction I could remember since the last time I had poison ivy or even chicken pox. Then I found out the rash had spread under my shirt. Then I found it starting under other articles of clothing, where there was not a chance a spruce needle had stabbed. Then I realized it had gone systemic, exactly as poison ivy does with me, and I called urgent care.
rushthatspeaks had me take a Benadryl immediately; urgent care had me take another. The wallop of antihistamines seems to have arrested the spread of the reaction, but I have been instructed to take another dose six hours after the first and call 911 at the first sign of difficulty breathing, which I am happy to report I have not experienced. The hives are already subsiding, although the reddened punctures and the stinging sensation remain. According to the internet, spruce resin is not all that rare an allergy; it's usually discovered by people when they handle rosin. I'd have figured it out years ago if I had any talent for the violin. I suppose I should also not go around sticking my hands into turpentine. The spruce, who is named Saguara, has not yet been decorated—a good thing, too, since we found out that incandescent lights would volatilize the oils in the sap—and will be rehomed directly following Christmas as opposed to residing in the living room until spring, because this may be a contact allergy, but the cats will get the resin in their fur and vector it all over the apartment and then I'll be living on Benadryl like a person who actually wants to sleep.I had no idea. I knew I was allergic to dust and mold and everything that pollinates, but blue spruce resin is a new one. I wonder if this means I shouldn't drink retsina. Rush points out that there may not be a war on Christmas, but Christmas sure looks like it's declared war on us.2 In the immortal words of Questionable Content: "What the hell ass balls?!"
1. Third conjugation verb with some pleasant reduplication in the third principal part: pungo, pungere, pupugi, punctus. If you're thinking that the fourth principal part looks like the derivation of English puncture, full marks. See also pungent.
2. In other news from today, the toilet overflowed again. Not as dramatically as the last time, but how dramatic does an overflowing toilet need to be? It's excitement enough if it happens at all!
no subject
I am sorry about the spruce allergy. I react to it too, but not so strongly, and I'm allergic to the pollen also.