Allergens and other musings...

OK, so after my lovely wife called me out last week, I figured that I probably should crack the whip and blog every now and again. What was funny about the whole last blog entry was our conversation shortly after she blogged and then told me about it:

TLA: So I blogged today.
MK: Yeah?
TLA: Yeah, since you never blog anymore...
MK: You're calling me out aren't you?
TLA: Yep. I even called you out in the blog.
MK: No you didn't.
TLA: Whatever...read it!

So needless to say, she is trying to light the proverbial fire underneath my butt about blogging. She's right, I am slipping on the blogging. I keep talking about what I want to do for the 100th post on our blog (which is only 8 more posts away), but without her blogging and waiting on me, well, we may be waiting until December for 8 more posts from Mike! So honey, keep on me and we'll get to 100!

I have always known that I've had allergies. Pretty much anything that grows outdoors, I'm allergic to. When I lived in West Virginia, I had to get allergy shots as a kid. When we moved to Florida, my allergies didn't seem to bother me at all, and I took no shots or anything. With my move to Missouri in 2002, they flared back up again. After living here for over 4 years, I finally went to the allergist (with a needed push from my loving wife). My appointment was last Friday. Shortly after they began the testing, I started to itch and I could feel my skin reacting to the needles. Unfortunately for me, I had to wait 15 minutes for the testing to be completed. The doctor comes in and starts rattling off all of my outdoor/seasonal allergens - all trees except for sycamore and cottonwood; all grasses; all weeds except for cocklebur. Then he mentions my year-round ones - house dust, phoma molds, and cats...that's right, cats. At first I don't think it really registered about what he said, but when it did I said to him, "you're saying I'm allergic to cats?" He said yes. Now, let's think about that for a minute - I've had a cat in my house since I was 8 or so, and we currently have 2 - Karl (the cat with 2 names) and Zebby. I've never been bothered by them at all. I found it pretty funny that I'm now allergic to cats. Needless to say, Karl and Zeb are probably the last 2 cats that we'll own. Hopefully my new allergy shots will eliminate my non-allergic reactions to the boys! I've taken now to calling both of them my little allergens! I do have to say a big thank you to Tricia for making me go to the doctor - hopefully with my shots I can breathe during the spring and fall seasons!

Our most faithful commenter, one MJA73, will be MIA for the next few weeks...who'll step up to the plate now in his absense? :)
(From Tricia: That's right, my brother will be in Europe until the end of October, so someone needs to fill his shoes!)

MK