I’ve had hay fever over the past week or so, in fact over the past few weeks, and just for the record, that is not a good thing.
In fact I’d go so far now as to say that it is a nasty enough kind of condition to have to endure in the middle of what we are supposed to be calling summer when we might get to spend a few hours outside.
But then again, “it’s only hay fever,” somebody said to me at the weekend, obviously a somebody who has never had to suffer from this terrible affliction, and then they added “sure it won’t kill you.”
How did he know that it wouldn’t kill me, he doesn’t even know how badly it affects me, so how does he know it won’t kill me.
By the way, it affects me pretty darn badly I’d have to say, especially my eyes.
The runny nose and the sneezing and stuff well, they are awkward and annoying, but since they come with the colds and flus of winter as well, I’m more used to them.
But the eyes, my God the eyes, the constant watering and the itchiness and the redness and did I say about the constant watering…the effects of hay fever on my eyes just drives me crazy.
So watery eyes might not in themselves kill me, but what if say they get really bad when I’m in the car and I crash or I’m crossing the street and I don’t see that big lorry coming until it’s too late and….
Okay so maybe that’s a wee bit of an exaggeration, but we all know Molly Malone died of a fever didn’t she.
And what’s more, with no specific fever ever being mentioned as far as I am aware, I’m not ready to rule out the possibility of her death being caused by hay fever. There was definitely something very fishy about it.
So after days, nay weeks of enduring this torture I decided it was time for me to see how could I cure it. And after days of useless anti histamines and eye drops I turned to the one place I knew there would be a sure fire cure – the internet.
There I discovered that a fever is not an illness itself, but it’s usually a sign that something out of the ordinary is going on in our body.
Well, Dah… “Who the heck wrote this stuff,” I thought to myself, until I read onto the next line which added “Fevers aren’t necessarily bad…” and it was then I was certain that this was written by the same guy who told me mine wouldn’t kill me.
Something out of the ordinary might be the fact that I was losing about three litres of fluid through my eyes every day and found myself wishing my legs could run as fast as my nose.
Yep, I had a damn fever alright, but where were all the cures? First one I looked suggested that the best time to start treating hay fever was in winter when the symptoms hadn’t even arisen yet.
“Oh goodie,” I thought to myself, “just a couple more months of walking around with big red puffy eyes and a runny nose then.” Or I could try some of the other cures like lying with cold teabags or slices of potatoes or cucumbers over my eyes.
I didn’t bother. Not that I wouldn’t try anything to get rid of them, it’s just well that I’ve tried the potato and the tea bag and the cucumber thingy before and well it didn’t work.
There was one suggested cure on the sites I looked at and one that was also suggested by that pal of mine, who said that if I really wanted to try to get shot of the hay fever I could always try acupuncture.
I looked at him in complete horror at the thought of all those needles and said – “well it’s only hay fever you know…it’ll hardly kill me.”
