November 26, 2002
The last couple nights I've been visiting Rob and Allison down in Washington, PA. They've got cats. I'm allergic to cats. This wasn't a big deal before; After a few hours I'd get a mild case of the sniffles and that would be that.
But since I moved out of the place on Beechwood it's gotten worse. Friday night I was blowing my nose every couple minutes and had to take a Sudafed to get any sleep. Saturday night I bypassed the runny-nose bit, and experienced the wonderous feeling that is my bronchial tubes tightening up. For those of you whose systems work normally, I'll give a brief description: You know how your chest feels when you've been holding your breath a lot? It feels like that, even though you're breathing (mostly) normally. I had to force myself to exhale as much air as I could, so my diaphragm muscle could get a little bit of rest. Not fun.
Then of course there was the wheezing and "rattling" as I tried to get to sleep. Needless to say the 10 hour snooze I got wasn't quite restful. Things are back to normal today, at least. But I think next time I'll ask them to come up here.
