In other news, my allergies might be flaring up.
We went two months with the cats and I had not a single allergy symptom. I was taking Claritin or Sudafed every day and felt absolutely fine, even with them sleeping on my bed, even spending lots of time (as much as possible, really!) petting them, and even allowing myself to deal with the litterboxes (because despite all their promises, the kids don't just "remember" on their own to do it, surprise surprise). (Supposedly there is a lot of histamine in feline urine, and isn't that a pretty sentence?)
Anyway, I was fine. Hooray for cats! I do love cats.
The night that we had snow, our power went out for about 5 hours. Being Christmastime, I had several candles around the house already, and I lit about 6 of them, downstairs. We all kind-of camped on the couch during those hours, with the candles. Sure smelled nice! The kitties did come around, and they curled up on the couch with us for an hour or two. Around 11:00 pm, still in the dark, I noticed I was wheezing a bit. I felt sure, since I'd had no trouble with the cats so far, that all the candles were probably affecting my breathing. (At this point I was a week into taking a generic Zyrtec -- I don't know why I bought it instead of Claritin, but I did.) So I blew most of them out, and the power came back on after a little while longer.
(That day I had also vacuumed downstairs pretty thoroughly, which probably kicked up a lot of dander in the living room and on the couch.)
But my lungs still haven't really recovered. It's been more than 2 weeks and I've been carefully NOT lighting candles, but I've had this tiny little wheeze ever since; if I get to coughing, it gets worse. One night I was miserable, and miraculously found an old Albuterol inhaler, which I used. (I think it was Alex's, actually, from one time he'd been sick as a toddler.) I'm trying NOT to use it, but I've used it more than twice. It helps a little. The wheezing is worse at night.
I'm back on Claritin now and really hope it kicks in. I want to just tough this out and am hopeful it will go away on its own. But if it doesn't in another week, I guess I'm going to have to see a doctor. (Side note: In my 20s, a primary care doc had diagnosed me with a touch of allergy-related asthma, and given me a prescription for albuterol to keep around, just in case. I had a few attacks of wheezing when I visited friends with cats. But 3 or 4 years ago, a different PCP, whom I didn't particularly like, told me I did NOT have asthma, and she didn't know why that previous doctor thought I did. Hmph. I'd like to go breathe on her now and see what she says.)
Am not happy about all this.
2 comments:
Well, shoot. I'm sorry! I hope you go to someone who says you don't have a major allergy to cats. It seems to me that most people have a mild allergy to all that dander. Don't know if that's true or not. Kitties are worth it if the allergy is mild, is what I've always thought. Hey, I just finished some fun chick lit called The Life List. Hesitate to recommend it, because it's so much fluff, but it was fun! Also just finished The Glass Castle -- weren't you the one who recommended that? Stayed up half the night to read it.
You know, Aunt Lorry has always had cats and/or dogs. She definitely has allergies, but she is able to deal with it, with the proper meds. You will figure it out, too. We love cats!!
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