Nine point eight today
This is gonna fucking hurt
Tortured by pollen
The Plants are Attacking is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
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Here is a haiku that I wrote on a day when the pollen count was too high. It was originally posted on Mastodon.
Continue Reading “Not Gonna Happen”
I have a multitude of food allergies. This requires me to spend time doing research before consuming anything. Things get more complicated when something that used to be safe changes some ingredients, or I randomly start having an allergic reaction to things that didn’t cause me problems before.
This leads to unwanted research adventures as I try to figure out what went wrong. I posted my most recent experience with this problem on social media and added in some more details here.
On February 1, 2018, I discovered that our water had been shut off. It happened in the wee hours of the morning, when most people were sleeping. This made me very anxious, in part because we were in the midst of a horrible flu season.
I posted a series of tweets about this annoying experience on Twitter, and later decided to post it here (with additional information added.)
There is no way to be absolutely certain that a pollen season has ended. I typically declare a pollen season to be over when I’ve had seven days in a row where the pollen was lower than 7. The pollen counts you see above are from September 24-29, 2017. I would prefer that the pollen drops to below 6 for a while so I can start recovering.
The pollen count for September 30, 2017, was 5.9. That’s great! I’m hoping it stays that way. Given the data from the past week, I declare the 2017 Fall pollen season to be over.
Obviously, your pollen count results may be different from mine because you probably live somewhere else. I recommend using Pollen.com as a resource. Give it your zip code, and it will tell you the pollen count where you live every single day.
While it is never fun to suffer through a pollen season, I feel like I did better than expected this time around. As I’m typing this blog, it feels like I have a cold – but not a sinus infection. That could change, so I’m trying to avoid pushing myself.
End of Fall Pollen Season 2017 is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Ko-fi. Thank you!
Today was Day 38 of the 2017 Fall pollen season. I’m still having difficulty eating because of the temporary cap that is in my mouth and all of the dental work that required.
I peeled the four potatoes that Shawn and I bought at the grocery store yesterday. He made them into mashed potatoes for me. For the first time in what feels like a very long time, I was able to eat and feel full.
Today is Day 37 of the Fall pollen season. My mouth is still sore from the dental work I had a few days ago. I’m not really able to chew food yet, and that makes getting enough calories incredibly difficult.
This is the third day in a row where I’ve tried to eat and ended up with less than 1,000 calories anyway. As in, not even close to 1,000. The result is I am super spacey and having difficulty focusing on anything.
Today is Day 36 of the 2017 Fall pollen season. I’m having trouble eating due to the dental work I had done yesterday. One of the people who worked in my teeth yesterday suggested that I drink smoothies. The temporary cap they put on might have to be there for 10 days, and smoothies sounded like a reasonable solution for someone who can’t chew right now.
Except, of course, it turns out there aren’t any places in town that can make a smoothie that doesn’t contain things that I’m allergic to. The photo above is of a wonderful pumpkin smoothie from Jamba Juice that I had last year. Of course, Jamba Juice changed the ingredients – and this year’s version is unsafe for me to consume.
Today was Day 35 of the 2017 Fall pollen season. I have been sick from pollen allergies for five week straight.
There’s really nothing else to say about that. If you’re a healthy person, you’ve probably never lived through five weeks of being sick like this. If you’re sick like me, it’s something that you have learned to cope with.
Today was Day 34 of the 2017 Fall pollen season. I am no longer certain if the severe sinus pain I am feeling is a sinus infection or simply the result of 34 days in a row with pollen counts that are higher than my body can tolerate.
I spent some time on the phone today, on hold, in an attempt to get the vision insurance company to send me a vision insurance card. The photo above, of a hand that is holding an iPhone, felt like a good visual metaphor for being on hold. “Hold the phone.”
