I have been sidelined today by a nasty hayfever attack that started at the gym yesterday morning. I discovered last fall that I am really allergic to something in the cleaning products they use. So I visited the doctor who put me on a heavy duty dose of a much better anti-histamine and I gave up showering at the gym because my symptoms usually started there.

All was well, relatively, until yesterday when I began sneezing in the locker room right after my work-out and continued to sneeze and drip the rest of the day. Fortunately my eyes didn’t swell nearly shut as they did the last time though they hurt. Today I skipped the gym workout to give myself additional time to shut down the histamine reaction which is much improved but I can tell I am not quite 100% yet. Since I have yoga this afternoon, I will still get a bit of a workout (make that a lot – yoga is a bitch and I discover new and lazier muscles all the time). Tomorrow I will get back to the gym and running – I am covering four miles now of which I run half or more.

I hate having allergies. It really bites and doesn’t seem the least bit fair. What makes it so exasperating is the attitude most people take towards my difficulties. I am not the only one to have complained about the cleaning solution the gym uses. Other people have reported allergic reactions as well but the gym’s attitude, well sympathetic, has been one of “you’ll have to learn to cope”. Not very helpful but typical of society in general as I often am told that my asthma difficulties in smoky environments, or even just dodging the smokers who gather outside doors of public places, could be dealt with by me simply never leaving my house. 

Rob wondered what we were going to do about my allergies and I replied that he will just have to disinfect himself well when he comes for conjugal visits in my plastic bubble. Not very funny I guess, but what can a person do but keep their sense of humor?