#13: My Allergic Affliction
Dear Reader of mine,
A few days ago, I was on a call with a friend, sniffling and sneezing as much as one could. She marvelled at the fact that I somehow always get a cold on the days where something important is supposed to happen. Does the universe openly despise me, or is my cold triggered by stress, amongst other things? Guess we’ll never know.
Anyways, we’re an unfortunate bunch, allergies run in my family, hand in hand with noses (haha). When I seem to inhale dust ( doesn’t everyone?), my immune system goes bonkers and overreacts, much like me in certain situations, resulting in a dripping nose and bouts of alarming sneezes. Rarely, I wheeze and am out of breath. The days I’m affected, I’m left incapacitated. I’m hardly able to keep my eyes open, them being red and angry, spouting tears. My poor nose is poked and prodded till all the snot has been gotten rid of. Trust me, it’s not a pretty sight, with tissues strewn all over the place, abrupt earth-shattering sneezes followed by complaints and curses. Daily activities are thrown out the window, that’s the last thing I think about, mostly because I cannot get myself to even think.
I apparently have a whole another personality when I’m sick, according to my friends. It’s like I’m floating around in suspended animation, barely able to function, not processing anything that’s going on around me. I used to show up at college every other day with a cold, I don’t know how I survived. I distinctly remember that in 1st year, I was soundly sleeping during a class of Neuroanatomy, sitting right in the front, what was I thinking?( I wasn’t!). It was inevitable that I caught the professor’s eye, being the only one dozing off in the front amongst a sea of attentive peers. She made me stand up, I was dazed, and asked me a question which was only too foreign to me! I’ll forever be indebted to those friends who aggressively whispered the answer to me, and in some such way, I reproduced it just about enough to the professor’s satisfaction. Another incident - I had traveled to Coimbatore via train for an inter collegiate event and was exposed to the harsh, cold air all night. Unprepared Adithi forgot to take her meds on the trip, it totally slipped her mind. I couldn’t sleep that night, wheezing and suffering. Thankfully, we were staying in a campus attached to a hospital and a friend went off into the night on a quest to buy me something to put me out of my misery.
Currently, it’s under control to some degree, because I’m taking prophylactic anti allergy medicines. Having Covid around doesn’t help things at all. I’ve had more than enough of my share of - “is it Covid or, is it just my allergies acting up?”. My anxiety levels are at an all time high whenever I’m out in public and I feel the sniffles coming on. It feels like a crime to sneeze right now. This has gone on for too long and is something I’ve broken my head over multiple times. One more measure I take to avoid this whole situation, is to clean my room and keep the dust bunnies at bay. But here’s the catch, if I have to keep my room neat, I’ll have to expose myself to dust, which will for sure lead to a flare up of my allergies. But, also, if I don’t clean my room, I can see the same grim ending happening to me. It’s a vicious cycle.
As I’ve mentioned before, my allergies always seem to come at the wrong time - like the time it arrived just before I entered the water to scuba dive. It ended up getting aggravated post scuba dive, but it was totally worth it. The air in Chennai contributes to my flare ups as well. I realized this because I was totally fine on a trip to the US, but as soon as I got into a taxi from the airport in Chennai, ready to go home, spells of sneezes ensued. Even this, does not diminish my love for Chennai one bit :’)
Links you’ll love:
Cafés for good causes and the ‘behind-bars’ coffee company transforming lives!
With Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics coming up, find out what tennis pros look at when they pick a ball.
How to buy gifts that people actually want (I desperately need this, I’m one who overthinks this whole ordeal).
A New Error - Moderat (thank you Anki).
It’s Pride month! - Learn what each letter in LGBTQIA+ means and what gender identity is.
@steppingthroughfilm goes to the places where films were actually shot and gives fun facts regarding what happens behind the scenes.
Wishing you a cold-free week!
— adithi.