Fall Blues

I hate August. And September. October just better not piss on my boots, or I'll lump it in with August and September, and July - well fuck you July. Not just for the heat, and the end of summer (y'know, the normal reasons people hate August, September, October. And July) but because it's allergy season. I've always had horrible allergic reactions to various things, and August... well, August just isn't my month. Matter of fact, my mom told me once that for three years in a row when I was a child, she refilled my allergy medicine on August 24th. Great! Glad I could be so predictable, Mom.

I'm allergic to tons of stuff, too, which means I spray my bathroom down religiously, and also no cats where I sleep. (We don't have a cat anyway, but I could have one in theory as long as it slept somewhere else, washed my hands a lot, and took shit-tons of allergy medicine to make me not care that I had cats. Or allergies for that matter - My youngest son is also allergic, and no one knows exactly how bad his allergies are yet, so I don't want to risk it.) it's made me into the dog-person I am today!

When I was young, I was taken to an allergy specialist who did a shit-ton of tests. (Lots of earwax? A possible sign of allergies! I learned things I never knew before.) We found out that I was allergic to, among other things, myself. And cat dander. And mold. And dust mites. And did I mention myself? (I wonder if I could've added "sports" into my medical records - nah, someone would probably catch it, especially in the military. Anyway...) Yep. No matter what my mother did, I would always be allergic to myself. I was told to stay in air conditioning as much as possible, to mitigate my inhaled allergies. And I probably would have grown up in a bubble with a pocket protector, a scientific calculator, and a PhD in chemistry if not for one thing - I got weekly shots.

Now, when I tell people (mainly my friends and family doctor) that I had allergy shots, most of the time they tell me they have never even heard of shots for allergies. My current family doctor told me that de-sensitizing shots for allergies is a relatively new thing, and not yet generally accepted, so he was curious as to how I had taken them as a child (we'll just say it was about 30-ish years ago and not mention ages, shall we?) when they were recent additions to allergy treatment. And he asked me, "Were you part of a drug trial?" I told him I didn't think so, but it made me curious enough to actually make a mental note to ask my mom. The doctor asked if they worked, and I told him it did.

So the next time I saw my mom, I asked her. "Hey Mom, you remember when I was about 8 and had to go the emergency room?" I have vague memories of waking up, walking out to the living room where my mom and step-dad were, and telling them I didn't feel good. And then going to the hospital, jumping on the bed (after several Adrenalin shots, according to my mom) and no memories of coming home (after a Benadryl shot, also according to my mom) And then came the "cat less times." (Bye, Patches, I miss you! *sniff* *sniff* She went back to my Grandma's house.)

"You were seven, and yes, I remember rushing you to the hospital and thinking you would stop breathing before we got there." My mother practices "extreme panicking" in normal-to-somewhat-stressful situations, so I imagine her reaction to her 7-year-old (me) almost dying was bad. "Why?" she asked me while she shuddered. Mumble-mumble-odd years later and she still has a freaked reaction! It must have been a traumatic event. For her, of course. I barely remember it.

"Well, I remember getting shots for my allergies every week sometime after that. Do you remember if I had shots?"

"After the whites of your eyes swelled up and they had to be drained so that your eyeballs didn't burst, the doctor we were seeing at the time suggested it. Your allergies were so severe we had to carry an epi-pen with us everywhere we went, so you didn't die and all, so the doctor set it up."

"Was it a drug trial?"

She kind of gave me a strange and shocked look. "You know, now that you ask, it might have been. When we moved to different city, the doctor was somewhat upset and said we couldn't stop, so we had to go to a special clinic to have it done. I had to sign a lot of papers. I guess I never thought of it, but it makes sense now that you say it. It was free, the doctor said it might help you lead a normal life, so we did it. Why do you ask?"

"I participated in a drug trial? I never even knew!" And I was shocked. I guess it really made me think. As scary as having kids is, the thought that my kids would have to participate in a drug trial scares me more, and I empathized with my mom for just a second - 24 years old with a sick kid who could die from not showering 3 times a day if she didn't get these shots. I just really couldn't imagine having a child that was so sick that experimental drug testing or therapy sounds good. Nowadays, it just wouldn't happen because testing kids is really really frowned upon, if not outright banned. But at that particular point in time, Fire Starter hadn't come out yet. (By the way, fire starting would have been a useful talent. Shit, another opportunity missed!)

I'm just glad I've not yet been put in that position with my kids. I wonder what I'd do? If it's fall, it might take a bit for me to notice through all the allergy meds. Unless they got fire-starting abilities, I would probably notice that!