I grew up with horrible asthma. My doctor (who diagnosed me at 18months and continued to be my doctor for most of my life until he retired in his 70’s) told me that I had one of the worst cases he had ever seen. Most of his patients grew out of it, but he was still seeing me as I trudged through adulthood. I almost died from it once when I was in my early teens. I had to be life-flighted from a hospital. I was having such a bad attack that the emergency room I was currently at could not help me. They had given me the standard treatment, which usually worked, but the attack resumed. Pretty soon I was able to take air in but not get it out. Oxygen was escaping into my body, giving my skin a consistency similar to bubble wrap. I was told all this later, because I had lost consciousness before that. They put me on a helicopter to another hospital. I was out from a Sunday to a Thursday, and though the prognosis did not look good, I woke up and carried on. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.
But … (you saw that coming, right?), I also have horrible allergies along with all of this. Horrible. I took that allergy skin test more than once in my life, and one time, I reacted to everything. They told me I was most allergic to trees and grass. Trees and grass!? Well, good thing there isn’t much of that outside …
And animals. Pretty much anything with feathers or hair (barring humans), I was allergic to. We had horses, and we were told to make sure I always used a saddle and wore long pants when riding. This led me to grow up without the usual love of pets and animals that you might see in most children. I was deathly afraid of some for a while, because my mother had basically instilled in me a fear to “not touch that animal!”. Still, I like dogs. Dogs are neat. I don’t mind cats, but I am not as much a fan of them. Now, I am going to get into anecdotal stuff here, but I have known some people who are only allergic to cats and no other animals. Well, as I aged, got healthier, changed, whatever, guess what? I am no longer allergic to cats, but I am still somewhat bothered by dogs. Go figure.
I hope you enjoy my posts, and as usual, please feel free to leave comments. I also hope you would like to read and review my book, Dance of the Butterfly, the first in an upcoming urban fantasy series.
Dance of the Butterfly 