June was not an easy month for me. I have a tendency to write haiku of frustration on Twitter when something is annoying me. In June, once again, most of my haiku were about my bad health. I keep struggling, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to change that.
I’ve always been sick with severe allergies, but 2015 has been the worst year so far. I’m not ready to accept this very limited state of being as my “new normal”, and my haiku reflect it.
The photo at the top of this blog is of the “Dandelion Monster”. It was growing out of a planter that held a rose bush and that was located in the neighbor’s space. Homes sit rather close together in this mobile home park, and what started out as a little dandelion was able to grow into the monster you see in the photo.
I can’t really blame the neighbors for letting the Dandelion Monster edge closer, and closer, to my window. They are in the process of moving in. Shawn was able to slay the Dandelion Monster before it overtook our home, so everything turned out ok.
There are times when my allergies are bothering me, and I don’t mention it (or write about it). There are also times when my severe allergies / chronic illness becomes overwhelming. I’m struggling to cope with the worst allergy season I’ve experienced in years and it is draining the life out of me.
Spring arrived here in sunny California in the middle of February. The pollen count started hitting 7 around then. A pollen count of 7 is considered “medium-high”, but it is enough to make me very sick. Since then, I’ve been dealing with pollen counts of 8, 9, and 10.
Years ago, I started expressing my frustration in the form of haiku. It was a coping mechanism for when I worked in “retail hell”. Later, I discovered that Twitter is an excellent place to post haiku (especially after Twitter added line breaks). If you’re going to complain online, you may as well find a creative way to do it.
February turned out to be an unexpectedly difficult month from a physical health standpoint. Spring has started here in sunny California, and all the little flowers are spewing pollen into the air as hard as they can. The pollen count has been “medium-high” for days in a row, and that is high enough to make me sick.
There was a time when I posted random haiku about my day on my Twitter account. Each month, I gathered up those haiku and stuck them together in a post on my old blog. What you see here is a diary of what my health was like in January of 2015.
There was a time when I filled my Twitter account with haiku poetry. Some of those haiku made it onto my old blog, in monthly installments of random poetry about whatever was on my mind.
In 2014, I wrote a lot of haiku about being sick and struggling to recover from whatever was making me sick. It seemed more than appropriate to move those haiku over here. Consider this a “snapshot” of what that year was like for me.
At this moment, I am running a fever. My sinuses hurt, and I am completely exhausted.
These symptoms have been going on for about a week or so, with no signs of letting up. To some, this may sound like the start of a “flu bug”. For me, these health problems are part of my severe allergies and other chronic illnesses.
I am among the many people who suffer from allergies. I’ve been this way my whole life, and it has become automatic for me to avoid the things that I will have the most severe reactions to. What I’ve never quite gotten comfortable with is the reactions I get from people who learn that I have allergies.
“Oh, you have allergies? What are you allergic to?” someone will eventually ask me.
I’m never sure exactly how much to reveal. There is something unnerving about pointing out to a complete stranger all the little things that are perfectly safe for the general population to encounter, which stand a good chance of killing me.
Continue Reading “It’s Not Easy to be the Only Allergic Person at Work”
The bright yellow and orange screenshot that is on my monitor in this photo came from Pollen.com. As you can see, the pollen count today is 8.7, which is considered to be “medium-high”. Tomorrow, the pollen count will be 9.0. After that, the pollen count goes into the tens and elevens. This is going to hurt!
The 30 Day Chronic Illness Blog was created by @cfs_zombie. Each day, there is a brand new writing prompt that deals with chronic illness and/or living with a chronic illness. I learned about this Challenge when someone reblogged it onto my Tumblr dashboard. I have reached the end of the series!
Day 30: And finally… starting at your toes and working up to your head, name each part of your body and how your illness has affected it, followed by something you like about that part of your body.
That’s too many words for a blog title, so I’m calling this one “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” (like the kid’s song).
