allergies

I’m Allergic to Global Warming…Literally

/ Shane / 3 Comments

I knew that my allergies were really really bad this year, worse than I ever remembered. I would start to question whether my allergy medicine was working or not, but then I would read somewhere else about how bad allergies were in general this year. It does make me feel a little better to think that it’s not just me, it’s everyone.

It turns out that there is a reason for all of this. I’m allergic to global warming. No joke. Basically, rising global temperatures and changing climates are resulting in warmer springs, which leads to higher pollen counts.

This article reads like the script of a horror story. We have some choice quotes like, “Pollen from ragweed, which triggers most cases of spring hay fever, is projected to increase up to 100% between now and 2085”, “ragweed pollen could become up to 70% more allergenic”, and “climate change, it turns out, is likely to favor trees that give off pollen as opposed to those that don’t”.

AAAAAH!

Now, all of a sudden, it’s personal. That’s certainly something I didn’t think about when looking at those lush scenes with dinosaurs….dinosaur sized ragweed spewing dinosaur sized pollen year round.

No thank you, my friend. Me and my scratchy red eyes are voting for an ice age.

The Garden, Season II

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Spring is in the air, quite literally since I woke up this morning with itchy eyes and a vague tingling in my allergy sense.

And with all this nice weather comes another attempt at gardening! Our garden received a stay of execution for another year. We still don’t know if they are planning to build a building on top of it, but I think with the economy as it is, it is safe to assume it will be some time before the University gets around to breaking ground on a multi-million dollar new building.

We were out on Sunday cleaning out the leftovers from last year and even a few new things that had already taken root.  Last year we didn’t get our garden until pretty late since we were on the waiting list and everything, so hopefully getting started earlier on it this year will mean less weeding, etc. We even plan to plant some lettuce and other things that come up early to maximize the gardening potential. Did you know there is something called Grand Rapids Lettuce? Well, there is.

We haven’t got the layout planned yet, but we did buy all the seeds over the weekend. I am also going to attempt to grow cucumbers on the back porch to start my own pickle supply. I have my grandma’s recipie which I am on record as saying is the food of the gods. Hopefully they will grow better than the porch tomatoes did last year. Does anybody know if cucumbers need a lot of sun? I don’t need big ones. They are supposedly a kind that is conducive to growing in small spaces. Ah, who am I kidding I only bought them because they were called “Spacemaster Cucumbers” and I’m hoping they float or grow in the dark or something.

City Babies and Brain Reprogramming

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Wow, hello allergies!  Rough couple of days.

Evie is crawling like a maniac now.  She can move a lot faster than you think and she has been giving us a preview of how difficult this next period is going to be.  She isn’t happy sitting still and she gets into stuff that you didn’t even know was there.  She can also go from lying down to sitting up no problem now.  The only problem she has is that she crawls over to something but then when she sits up she is really far away from whatever she was interested in.  She’s still working on that one.

I realized that in her 8 months of life she has never actually touched grass (sure is different growing up in the city!) so last weekend we took her over to the Midway.  She was NOT thrilled!  I thought she would be very interested since it would be a new experience, but she did not like touching the grass.  She tried to hold herself up on her hands and toes and then just froze so she would be touching the grass as little as possible.  She wouldn’t move or in any way let her legs come in contact with the ground.  When Sara tried to help her stand she just picked up her feet so they wouldn’t touch!  I think she would have liked it, but she was just shocked at how different it was.  At the end she was kind of running her fingers through the grass a little bit.  I gave her a flower and she wouldn’t let go of it for anything, but on the way home she broke the head off and then she was done with it.  Maybe next time it won’t be so alien and she can crawl around some.

Okay, here‘s an old link I’ve been saving since Jan. ’07.  Maybe you’ve already seen it.  Maybe you saw it so long ago its retro.  I had to try it out before posting it and then once I did I never got around to actually linking to it.  Supposedly you are can listen to this special sound which is supposed to adjust your brainwaves to wake you up.  I tried it with an open mind, but I don’t think it really works.  I felt maybe a little more awake at the end of it, but it was most likely due to a placebo effect and/or the fact that I might have felt more awake after 20 minutes even if I had done nothing.  But let me know if you think it works, maybe I’ll have to give it another try.

Weekend

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Went to MI this weekend for Sara’s sister’s birthday.  Pretty low key, we didn’t really do much.  Actually I feel like I slept the whole weekend!  Must be the allergy medicine or something.  We went to  bunch of baby stores.  I’m kind of baby-stored out, I have to tell you.  They’re all pretty much the same with the same brands and items for about the same prices.  We did eat some good food though, including a trip to Olive Garden.  I don’t think I’ve been there for about 6 years!  Too bad too because I love that place.  I ate 7 bread sticks.  We played 1 game of Acquire and I came in 3rd out of 5.  So not very good, but I beat Sara so that’s all that counts! 😛

In unrelated news, I have had nothing but headaches with my new laptop ever since I bought it.  Vista is so terrible.  I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.  To be fair, I don’t think it is really Vista’s fault, I think it is the fact that there are no good drivers available for most of my hardware.  I’ve tried everything under the sun to keep the thing from locking up constantly until Thursday I actually re-flashed my BIOS.  But the good news is that so far it hasn’t locked up since then!  So keep your fingers crossed and maybe everything is okay now!

I probably have other things to say, but I just couldn’t be bothered.

To hell with HMOs

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‘Discontent’ was the closest mood to ‘Disgruntled’

An update on the allergy medicine saga…

I called my doc today for the pre-approval of my allergy medicine and he said no problem. I get a call back about an hour later from the nurse and she explains the situation in her best “wait until you get a load of this” voice. Aparently, the HMO rejected my request for preapproval because, despite the fact that I’ve been taking the same allergy medicine for 5 years or so, I have not sufficiently proven that I must have Zyrtec. As far as they’re concerned, I should be able to get along just fine with the over the counter Claritin (which of course I just have to pay out of pocket, with no reimbursement from them). Damn Claritin for going over the counter. So listen to this, this is what I have to do according to the doctor. I have to go buy Claritin, save the receipt and take it for 2 weeks. At the end of that 2 weeks I have to fax the doctor a copy of the reciept and tell him that the Claritin doesn’t work. After that they can forward the reciept on to the insurance company and say, “See! He needs Zyrtec!” What a rediculous waste of my time.

And for the record, my allergy medicine is the ONLY benifit I get from the money I pay every week for health insurance.

Bastards.